I mean really. Like corperations that spend millions a year paying off politicians are going to willingly open themselves up for lawsuits. Since laws won't be made that will enforce that kind of situation, who else will enforce that kind of rule? Certainly the software producers won't. After all they should be doing that now. The end user? Sure, as soon as they figure out how to get around the EULA. For that matter when they start reading them and not installing software with a EULA they don't like.
Online speed tests are usually the WORST thing to use for a test. You have multiple hops to go through to get there, and who's to say if any of THOSE are bottlenecked. For that matter, since it's a speed test, who's to say that the speed test isn't overloaded and can't push what you're capable of pulling
While I'm not defending ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T (Formerly SBC) because they are NOTORIOUS for overbooking and/or throttling connections, you simply can't expect to get an accurate speed test by downloading from some site that is serving a speed test. If you want to see what kind of speed you're getting, download something fairly large from your ISP's website. We have multiple files that we have our customers download when they ask why they think they aren't getting the speed they should. We then point them to some outside source for a download or 2. As far as OUR experience since we monitor our traffic very closely, 99 times out of a hundred the speed problem is caused by the site that the customer is going to. Some times that site even blames the ISP knowing full well it's their problem that's proven by a simple trace route. 10ms until the hop just before the site you're going to and then it jumps up to 1200ms is usually a good indication.
Now, here's my usual schpeel about people complaining about their "big" ISP. If you're unhappy, switch. Independant ISPs are responsible to the customer and not investors and as such care more about customer satisfaction. Independant ISPs also usually care very little for the complaints that end users have about how unhappy they are with their simply because it's WELL known what kind of operations they run. Call centers in India, poor service, and even 'net experience controlling software. I can't tell you how many times I'll go work on a network and someone will sit there and complain to me about their current ISP but when I recommend switching, they practically laugh in my face (and on occasion have done just that). Sure they're cheap, but look at what you're giving up for cheap. Is $5 more a month really that much more expensive?
Oh, and cable is NOT 4 times faster than DSL. In my area, Cable is only 4 meg (and that's if you're lucky) and DSL can get up to 6 meg. I'm surprised that Comcast hasn't been sued for that statement yet.
Speakeasy isn't the only ISP that allows you to "bond" lines. That's part of the reason why ATM has become the norm. It's called an IMA line which stands for "Inverse Multiplexing For ATM". There's an up and downside to IMA/ATM circuits. Downside to ATM is you lose a little bit of your traffic in overhead. So while you're paying for 1.5meg you're only going to see 1.2 to 1.3 depending on conditions which isn't the case with traditional Frame Relay.
However ATM allows for IMA lines which are bonding the T1s together. You'll need a specific card to handle it like a 4 or an 8 port IMA card. Of course the more you add, the larger the gap will be with the bandwidth loss. 3 meg you'll be down around 2.4-2.6 actual and so forth. While it's not the best solution, it's better than some of the other options.
Of course, you may find that with the price that you'll be paying that it will be better to just say to heck with it and get 2 Frame Relay (not to be confused with Frame Relay over ATM which is essentially ATM with the bandwidth costs just marketed as a frame relay) lines and use BGP shape the traffic.
I don't care how much pressure the Government puts on me. It's not going to happen. I think what's going on with AT&T and the NSA it's obvious why the Bush regime wants ISPs to do this. I can give them who was on what IP for however long with a subpeona, but that's all they're going to get out of me.
Not only is it a privacy violation, the amount of money that would be required to store that information for 2 years is staggering. I'm not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or more and violating the trust of all of my customers just in the off chance that one of them might be doing something wrong that the government wants to get them for in 2 years.
Microsoft makes large "enterprise" software packages. Google makes small tools that will probably never come out of beta. They are 2 different business models. Microsoft is a company lead by someone who really doesn't have a grip on reality. He's egotistic and doesn't like the success that Google is getting however right or wrong that success is and that's another discussion. MSN's search is such a small amount of Microsoft's income that it just doesn't makes sense that he would want to crush a search engine.
Google doesn't make an Operating System. Google doesn't make an office productivity suite. Google doesn't make a game console.
Under Ballmer's lead Microsoft is starting to fall apart. It's losing direction because of obsessions with beating Google for whatever reason. So what if Google has taken some of Microsoft's talent. That's the way it is in business. Particularly when employees smell the rot that is starting to consume Microsoft.
Either rate, Google isn't the needle to Microsoft's balloon, Ballmer's obsession with Google is.
We are a small ISP/hosting/consulting firm and just because we're small doesn't mean we can't/don't offer quite a few of "extras" like generator power multi-homed and plentiful backup space. Just because a company is small doesn't mean they can't provide. But at the same time you can't take their word for it either. Find out where their facilities are and ask for a tour. Sometimes a tour might not be possible due to security restrictions on facilities, but that doesn't make it any less likely that they can't provide. For example we are in a building that's shared by about 30 other companies. While I could allow you access to our areas, I couldn't get you into the rest.
Doing your homework is always best. The internet is a wonderful tool and when used properly the answers to all your questions are out there. I say this often, and it holds true in just about everything. Cost is always a concern noone wants to spend more than they have to, but if someone is selling you an entire cabinet for $400/mth power included, I would question where they are making their money. That's not to say that you should willingly pay $2000 for a single cabinet, but cost and quality are usually related to each other.
Referrals are probably one of the best ways to go. Because we are small and are forced to compete with the big guys we have to cut corners. While I refuse to cut corners where it matters, I have to shave on the "extras" that aren't necessary for operations. For example, instead of spending $100k on advertising a year, we buy equipment. Instead of buying $2k desks and $8k conference tables, we buy....equipment. I think you get the idea. Since we spend very little money on advertising our growth comes specifically from word of mouth. There are plenty of good providers out there just like us that operate the same way.
When I bought this company it was a strictly Windows shop. I would have to do some form of repair to a server atleast once a week. After switching to Linux I do my security updates and that's pretty much it. 3 years of trouble free operations vs. less than 1 week. I think my track record is going against that.
I won't even get into logging issues that leave ALOT to be desired in the MS camp. Not that MS software doesn't have it's uses, I just find it funny that they can say something like this when all the data points otherwise.
I seem to recall them saying the same thing about NT. Something to the effect of "1 Windows NT server can replace up to 10 Novell servers". That's when many Novell administrators walked out of the conference. But then the people that "know" what's going on aren't the ones making the purchasing decisions in too many cases which is why we have the problems we do today.
As long as every browser shows it properly. There are quite a few times that being W3C compliant doesn't display properly in every browser (Hello Microsoft, you reading this? Please pay attention as there will be a quiz on this later).
Overall, I don't think W3C is the end all of web design, however. Even firefox was having a hard time rendering the W3C test page properly. However it does help make sure everything works, and then you can hack the code to fix bugs for broken (ie) browsers. The closer you can be to W3C the better you are over all for long term.
Exactly. That's a good way to put it, that's for sure. What I don't get is why people put up with it. I can't tell you how many times I hear people complaining about...whatever it may be.
"I had to talk to someone who could barely speak english" "It took me 2 hours on hold before I even talked to someone" "I've had to send my computer back 4 times and it's still not fixed" "They've over billed me 10 times. When I refused to pay the turned me off" "My internet quits working every 4 weeks and I have to work on it for hours to get it working again"
You get the idea. But because they are $2/mth cheaper for the initial period..."you are just too expensive". Or "but this is a Dell. What do you have that's better than them?" For starters, 2 year warranty vs. 90 day should tell you something...
I'll just never understand the mentality, I guess. I was always taught that you get what you pay for and if you go cheap you have very little right to complain about lack of quality. Kind of like buying a Suzuki Samuri and complaining that it won't go faster than 65. It's got a modified motorcycle engine in it for pete's sake.
I had a treo 300 and wanted to replace it with the the latest handheld from palm WITH PalmOS. That was the 650, but the 700w was available. I waited for 5 months for the 700p and I was going to buy as soon as it was available. However, my 300 finally died so I had no choice. Since I couldn't get a 700p I was forced to look at other avenues for replacement/upgrade device. I wasn't about to spend top dollar for a previous model just because I didn't want Windows. Long story short, I bought a used one for much less.
As far as I'm concerned, that's a lost sale to PalmOne. After all, I was going to buy a brand new 700p but now I don't need to. I've upgraded to "current" and I won't need to do so again for quite some time. I've been saying all along that a Windows model of their handheld isn't a BAD idea but letting their own OS suffer because of it wasn't a good idea. They should have simply been released together, or atleast released close enough together that it wouldn't have been almost half a year that people had to wait. After all, I've been a loyal palm owner since Palm II and to be perfectly honest, I feel almost like they've taken a giant dump on my loyalty.
It's only the large, money hungry ISPs doing this. MOST of the ISPs I work with (I'm a board member of CISPA or California ISP Association which ever you prefer) don't like, nor will they practice this kind of crap.
Personally, the way _I_ see it, I hope they do start doing this. Customers will get angry and find other providers that don't do this. Which means people will go to the better providers anyway.
When you base a company's "value" on their stock price and not on the product(s) they produce and the service/support they give said products you're making a HUGE mistake and you will probably end up getting fleeced sooner or later.
Nothing more to really say, I'm sure everyone reading this has had trouble with Dell support by this time.
When your users get tired of it. They'll start looking for sources that won't do that. That means I'll get to take customers away from you. Knock yourself out. Don't stick with net neutrality, I will. Let's see which method wins in the long run.
Since I handle Internet services, repairs, builds, support and all that kind of stuff. One of the most common sayings I have is "I make more money off of other people's friends". Professional or not, I run into so many cases where a friend or a friend of a friend fixed problems for someone and made it worse (happens with professional services too tho I won't mention the company driving around in black and white beetles). I've seen cases where "my neighbor works for XXX and is MCSE certified. He's the one that always worked on my computers". They know that person, and usually don't like to hear "well, he did it wrong."
So, if you don't want to deal with it....don't. I don't know you from Adam so I don't know what you do and don't know, but you'd probably be doing them a favor if for no other reason than making them learn to stop breaking things when they have to pay to get it fixed.
So does that mean Dell is catching up with the Whitebox (blackbox) makers? Considering most of us making custom systems don't do that for obvious reasons. I know that personally, if you buy a system you should be able to do what you want with it without hinderance of any kind. You don't buy a computer from me so I can advertise to you.
But then how else do you think Dell (or every other OEM) makes computers cheaper? I could build you a $300 computer too if I got paid $200 to put advertising all over it. But then I don't put a 100% markup on almost all "upgrades" either.
In the posts I see here (I didn't read them all so I may have missed it) noone seems to have mention this HAS been thought of before and it never took off for the same reason that many have mentioned. I know I wouldn't consider using something of this nature for many of the already mentioned reasons.
Being perfectly honest, as an ISP I wouldn't mind spam NEAR as much as I do if the @#$%@#%@# would atleast clean out invalid email addresses from time to time and wouldn't resort to harvest attacks. I'm still getting email going to accounts that haven't existed for almost 10 years. But then, if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their butts when they jumped.
Hear that, spammers? If you didn't abuse so many people's networks....we probably wouldn't loathe you so much.
I apologize if my comments were taken angrily. I didn't mean it as such. That's a downside of a typed conversation. You do have a valid points. I'm just hoping that instead of RFID they see that broadcasting data = baaaaaad. That was more what my point was meant to be with a sarcastic delivery:)
Security and convience don't exist in the same sentence or device. You can't have one without the other.
I don't see the difference with long lasting...a chip is a chip. For that matter, why can't a magnetic strip be used since it's supposedly just holding a unique number that is used to contact a database anyway?
So you're going to tell me that a radio signal is more reliable than a direct connect? I want some of what you're smoking.
Why do they have to be broadcasting RFID tags? Why can't they have a physical interface? You know, like the magentic strip on the back of everything? I don't see why we can use a physical contact patch on it instead of a broadcasted signal. After all, we've been using physical contact for interfacing devices for decades in the computer world and for centuries in other walks of life.
I wouldn't have a bit of a problem if a contact patch were used instead of a broadcasted signal. Not like it would be hard to make a small unit you slide the card into that puts it into position to be read, then kicks it out when it's finished.
Many of the comments I've read on this article are actually proving the point. I can understand people getting annoyed by what would seem like a stupid question. But "stupid questions" are in the eye of the beholder so to speak.
I mean, it amazes me. There's an old "rule" that says, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything". It's NOT that hard of a rule to follow, particularly online. I'm a long time linux user (since 1995 starting with slackware) and I even have times with the docs sometimes. I usually manage to muddle through, but that's me with over 11 years of Linux experience. Not some guy/gal just picking it up for the first time or who has only used it for a little while.
Granted the IRC channels are usually the WORST place to go to try and get help as you can usually find your answers online with a relevant search, but that doesn't change the fact that the user doesn't need to be treated like crap just because they are stuck. I also understand why help in an IRC channel is usually denied. Those channels are usually used for development, not support. If support gets started there, pretty soon the next thing you know the devs can't dev.
HOWEVER! It goes the other way too. There are quite a few times the person asking for the help doesn't exactly go about it politely or it's plainly obvious they didn't bother to read the documentation because their problem is addressed on the first page of the docs. But do we have to say, "RTFM jerk-off!!!" We COULD say sometime along the lines of, "That problem is addressed in the INSTALL.TXT file, have a look there". OOOOOR maybe even taking it a bit further and say something along the lines of, "I don't mean to sound rude, but you'll get a much better response for assistance if you atleast try to read the documentation first". That kind of a line will give them a subtle point that you should always read the docs before bothering something when an answer is readily available if they just look.
It's all about courtesy. It's something that we (I mean MOST people not just people dealing with computer issues) seem to be lacking these days. It doesn't kill someone to take a few extra seconds to be nice to someone else. Thank you, please, appreciate it, would you mind, you're welcome. I typed all those in about 30 seconds. How many times have you seen people too involved in their own world to move out of the fast lane, or cut someone off so they can get out in traffice 4 seconds faster? How many times have you seen some little ol' lady or man struggling with a door or to get up stairs carrying something and noone even bothered to offer help?
Either rate, I'm going to get off my rant now, I think I made my point.
I don't disagree with you on the advertising it as unlimited, but falling back on the corperate america B.S. you have to remember it's marketing speak. Look at Netflix. Unlimited rentals...yadda yadda. But when you look at their AUP it says (now after they got caught anyway) that they may "throttle heavier users". It's everywhere. Unlimited doesn't necessarily mean unlimited in marketing world to think otherwise is not taking into consideration corperate (and sometimes human) nature to mislead others for personal gain. I agree with you whole heartedly that they shouldn't be able to SAY unlimited if there's even 1 limit on the service (including blocking ports), but that's just not the country we live in. That's an issue to take up with you elected representitives.
As far as dialup, I think you've completely missed the point. First, instead of adding new lines (which would have cost more) they outsourced. That's still a form of overbooking. In other words, they are selling services they can't support so they turn elsewhere to make sure that service can still be provided. Dialup is also not a dedicated service yet back in the day MANY people tried to use it as such.
Point still remains that DSL and Cable (for the most part) is not a dedicated service and is intended for considerably lighter use than a dedicated product such as T1s, T3s, DS and OC circuits.
Let's also not forget one painfully simple fact. We live in a free market society and there are plenty of other alternatives. Unhappy? Go somewhere else. Don't reward a company for behavior you don't like with your continued business. If doing something doesn't hurt them financially, they'll continue to do it. It's that simple. Complaining about something rarely works in the best of circumstances and that's not talking about companies that have already proven that they don't give a rat's bum about anything other than their own profits and has a monopoly.
We don't throttle our bandwidth, however I can understand why some are doing it. Broadband is NOT a dedicated product. Using rough figures as an example...When someone buys 6meg DSL for $99/mth it will cost the ISP $450/mth to supply the 6meg to that DSL when needed. So for prices to be lowered overbooking is done. You know, like with dialup? Are we all forgetting that? To bring prices down for the residential customer a certain amount of overbooking HAS to be done. When you have someone that's using that 6meg 24/7/365 they are costing the ISP $360/mth in a manner of speaking. They have to make it up somewhere. And that's not including the cost of the circuit to the customer...only the bandwidth. You can't exactly expect a company who's responsible to stock holders to allow customers to literally cost the company money to run completely uncontrolled.
And of course, the cheaper you get, the more overbooking there is. This is what I don't understand. Why are people complaining about their level of service they get from their "cheap" ISP when they know full well the kinds of things those ISPs will do? It's the same ol' same old. You get what you pay for. You can't expect to get Ferrari speed and performance out of a Geo Metro.
It goes for the level of support too. Look at what the telcos have all done. You need support, you're going to talk to someone in India. I constantly hear people talking about "My DSL is always going down and I have to talk to people in India I can barely understand" but then they turn around and "oh, you're DSL is $16.95/mth that's just too expensive". $4 more a month and your DSL will always work and you get support from someone who actually speaks english as a first language....wow. I don't understand people. There's a difference between value and savings.
At this point. I personally would like to see it, but I'm not expecting anything extravegant from it. I wouldn't even rely on it for solid online play. The fact that they have taken 10 years to make the game doesn't say much about their speed. Thus, patches to fix hacks, flaws, and various other things could take as long as...you guessed it, 10 years. I remember Valve really screwing up game play with their patches and updates...I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened here.
Either rate, I know that if/when it ever comes to market, it won't be something I'll rush to buy. I've waited this long, what's another 6 months...year....10 years. Hell, I might just wait until it's in the bargin bin. There's this little saying that fits well here. "Don't let your mouth overload your A&&" and we can't forget "When you set your expectations too high, you're setting yourself up for disappointment"
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I mean really. Like corperations that spend millions a year paying off politicians are going to willingly open themselves up for lawsuits. Since laws won't be made that will enforce that kind of situation, who else will enforce that kind of rule? Certainly the software producers won't. After all they should be doing that now. The end user? Sure, as soon as they figure out how to get around the EULA. For that matter when they start reading them and not installing software with a EULA they don't like.
Nope, liable for software bugs will never happen.
Online speed tests are usually the WORST thing to use for a test. You have multiple hops to go through to get there, and who's to say if any of THOSE are bottlenecked. For that matter, since it's a speed test, who's to say that the speed test isn't overloaded and can't push what you're capable of pulling
While I'm not defending ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T (Formerly SBC) because they are NOTORIOUS for overbooking and/or throttling connections, you simply can't expect to get an accurate speed test by downloading from some site that is serving a speed test. If you want to see what kind of speed you're getting, download something fairly large from your ISP's website. We have multiple files that we have our customers download when they ask why they think they aren't getting the speed they should. We then point them to some outside source for a download or 2. As far as OUR experience since we monitor our traffic very closely, 99 times out of a hundred the speed problem is caused by the site that the customer is going to. Some times that site even blames the ISP knowing full well it's their problem that's proven by a simple trace route. 10ms until the hop just before the site you're going to and then it jumps up to 1200ms is usually a good indication.
Now, here's my usual schpeel about people complaining about their "big" ISP. If you're unhappy, switch. Independant ISPs are responsible to the customer and not investors and as such care more about customer satisfaction. Independant ISPs also usually care very little for the complaints that end users have about how unhappy they are with their simply because it's WELL known what kind of operations they run. Call centers in India, poor service, and even 'net experience controlling software. I can't tell you how many times I'll go work on a network and someone will sit there and complain to me about their current ISP but when I recommend switching, they practically laugh in my face (and on occasion have done just that). Sure they're cheap, but look at what you're giving up for cheap. Is $5 more a month really that much more expensive?
Oh, and cable is NOT 4 times faster than DSL. In my area, Cable is only 4 meg (and that's if you're lucky) and DSL can get up to 6 meg. I'm surprised that Comcast hasn't been sued for that statement yet.
Speakeasy isn't the only ISP that allows you to "bond" lines. That's part of the reason why ATM has become the norm. It's called an IMA line which stands for "Inverse Multiplexing For ATM". There's an up and downside to IMA/ATM circuits. Downside to ATM is you lose a little bit of your traffic in overhead. So while you're paying for 1.5meg you're only going to see 1.2 to 1.3 depending on conditions which isn't the case with traditional Frame Relay.
However ATM allows for IMA lines which are bonding the T1s together. You'll need a specific card to handle it like a 4 or an 8 port IMA card. Of course the more you add, the larger the gap will be with the bandwidth loss. 3 meg you'll be down around 2.4-2.6 actual and so forth. While it's not the best solution, it's better than some of the other options.
Of course, you may find that with the price that you'll be paying that it will be better to just say to heck with it and get 2 Frame Relay (not to be confused with Frame Relay over ATM which is essentially ATM with the bandwidth costs just marketed as a frame relay) lines and use BGP shape the traffic.
Why? Because MS as screwed over every single one of it's business partners in one way or another so noone trusts them in any way shape or form.
I don't care how much pressure the Government puts on me. It's not going to happen. I think what's going on with AT&T and the NSA it's obvious why the Bush regime wants ISPs to do this. I can give them who was on what IP for however long with a subpeona, but that's all they're going to get out of me.
Not only is it a privacy violation, the amount of money that would be required to store that information for 2 years is staggering. I'm not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or more and violating the trust of all of my customers just in the off chance that one of them might be doing something wrong that the government wants to get them for in 2 years.
Microsoft makes large "enterprise" software packages. Google makes small tools that will probably never come out of beta. They are 2 different business models. Microsoft is a company lead by someone who really doesn't have a grip on reality. He's egotistic and doesn't like the success that Google is getting however right or wrong that success is and that's another discussion. MSN's search is such a small amount of Microsoft's income that it just doesn't makes sense that he would want to crush a search engine.
Google doesn't make an Operating System. Google doesn't make an office productivity suite. Google doesn't make a game console.
Under Ballmer's lead Microsoft is starting to fall apart. It's losing direction because of obsessions with beating Google for whatever reason. So what if Google has taken some of Microsoft's talent. That's the way it is in business. Particularly when employees smell the rot that is starting to consume Microsoft.
Either rate, Google isn't the needle to Microsoft's balloon, Ballmer's obsession with Google is.
We are a small ISP/hosting/consulting firm and just because we're small doesn't mean we can't/don't offer quite a few of "extras" like generator power multi-homed and plentiful backup space. Just because a company is small doesn't mean they can't provide. But at the same time you can't take their word for it either. Find out where their facilities are and ask for a tour. Sometimes a tour might not be possible due to security restrictions on facilities, but that doesn't make it any less likely that they can't provide. For example we are in a building that's shared by about 30 other companies. While I could allow you access to our areas, I couldn't get you into the rest.
Doing your homework is always best. The internet is a wonderful tool and when used properly the answers to all your questions are out there. I say this often, and it holds true in just about everything. Cost is always a concern noone wants to spend more than they have to, but if someone is selling you an entire cabinet for $400/mth power included, I would question where they are making their money. That's not to say that you should willingly pay $2000 for a single cabinet, but cost and quality are usually related to each other.
Referrals are probably one of the best ways to go. Because we are small and are forced to compete with the big guys we have to cut corners. While I refuse to cut corners where it matters, I have to shave on the "extras" that aren't necessary for operations. For example, instead of spending $100k on advertising a year, we buy equipment. Instead of buying $2k desks and $8k conference tables, we buy....equipment. I think you get the idea. Since we spend very little money on advertising our growth comes specifically from word of mouth. There are plenty of good providers out there just like us that operate the same way.
When I bought this company it was a strictly Windows shop. I would have to do some form of repair to a server atleast once a week. After switching to Linux I do my security updates and that's pretty much it. 3 years of trouble free operations vs. less than 1 week. I think my track record is going against that.
I won't even get into logging issues that leave ALOT to be desired in the MS camp. Not that MS software doesn't have it's uses, I just find it funny that they can say something like this when all the data points otherwise.
I seem to recall them saying the same thing about NT. Something to the effect of "1 Windows NT server can replace up to 10 Novell servers". That's when many Novell administrators walked out of the conference. But then the people that "know" what's going on aren't the ones making the purchasing decisions in too many cases which is why we have the problems we do today.
As long as every browser shows it properly. There are quite a few times that being W3C compliant doesn't display properly in every browser (Hello Microsoft, you reading this? Please pay attention as there will be a quiz on this later).
Overall, I don't think W3C is the end all of web design, however. Even firefox was having a hard time rendering the W3C test page properly. However it does help make sure everything works, and then you can hack the code to fix bugs for broken (ie) browsers. The closer you can be to W3C the better you are over all for long term.
Exactly. That's a good way to put it, that's for sure. What I don't get is why people put up with it. I can't tell you how many times I hear people complaining about...whatever it may be.
"I had to talk to someone who could barely speak english"
"It took me 2 hours on hold before I even talked to someone"
"I've had to send my computer back 4 times and it's still not fixed"
"They've over billed me 10 times. When I refused to pay the turned me off"
"My internet quits working every 4 weeks and I have to work on it for hours to get it working again"
You get the idea. But because they are $2/mth cheaper for the initial period..."you are just too expensive". Or "but this is a Dell. What do you have that's better than them?" For starters, 2 year warranty vs. 90 day should tell you something...
I'll just never understand the mentality, I guess. I was always taught that you get what you pay for and if you go cheap you have very little right to complain about lack of quality. Kind of like buying a Suzuki Samuri and complaining that it won't go faster than 65. It's got a modified motorcycle engine in it for pete's sake.
I had a treo 300 and wanted to replace it with the the latest handheld from palm WITH PalmOS. That was the 650, but the 700w was available. I waited for 5 months for the 700p and I was going to buy as soon as it was available. However, my 300 finally died so I had no choice. Since I couldn't get a 700p I was forced to look at other avenues for replacement/upgrade device. I wasn't about to spend top dollar for a previous model just because I didn't want Windows. Long story short, I bought a used one for much less.
As far as I'm concerned, that's a lost sale to PalmOne. After all, I was going to buy a brand new 700p but now I don't need to. I've upgraded to "current" and I won't need to do so again for quite some time. I've been saying all along that a Windows model of their handheld isn't a BAD idea but letting their own OS suffer because of it wasn't a good idea. They should have simply been released together, or atleast released close enough together that it wouldn't have been almost half a year that people had to wait. After all, I've been a loyal palm owner since Palm II and to be perfectly honest, I feel almost like they've taken a giant dump on my loyalty.
It's only the large, money hungry ISPs doing this. MOST of the ISPs I work with (I'm a board member of CISPA or California ISP Association which ever you prefer) don't like, nor will they practice this kind of crap.
Personally, the way _I_ see it, I hope they do start doing this. Customers will get angry and find other providers that don't do this. Which means people will go to the better providers anyway.
When you base a company's "value" on their stock price and not on the product(s) they produce and the service/support they give said products you're making a HUGE mistake and you will probably end up getting fleeced sooner or later.
Nothing more to really say, I'm sure everyone reading this has had trouble with Dell support by this time.
When your users get tired of it. They'll start looking for sources that won't do that. That means I'll get to take customers away from you. Knock yourself out. Don't stick with net neutrality, I will. Let's see which method wins in the long run.
Since I handle Internet services, repairs, builds, support and all that kind of stuff. One of the most common sayings I have is "I make more money off of other people's friends". Professional or not, I run into so many cases where a friend or a friend of a friend fixed problems for someone and made it worse (happens with professional services too tho I won't mention the company driving around in black and white beetles). I've seen cases where "my neighbor works for XXX and is MCSE certified. He's the one that always worked on my computers". They know that person, and usually don't like to hear "well, he did it wrong."
So, if you don't want to deal with it....don't. I don't know you from Adam so I don't know what you do and don't know, but you'd probably be doing them a favor if for no other reason than making them learn to stop breaking things when they have to pay to get it fixed.
So does that mean Dell is catching up with the Whitebox (blackbox) makers? Considering most of us making custom systems don't do that for obvious reasons. I know that personally, if you buy a system you should be able to do what you want with it without hinderance of any kind. You don't buy a computer from me so I can advertise to you.
But then how else do you think Dell (or every other OEM) makes computers cheaper? I could build you a $300 computer too if I got paid $200 to put advertising all over it. But then I don't put a 100% markup on almost all "upgrades" either.
The art is how to teach movie theaters that 180 decibells is NOT necessary.
In the posts I see here (I didn't read them all so I may have missed it) noone seems to have mention this HAS been thought of before and it never took off for the same reason that many have mentioned. I know I wouldn't consider using something of this nature for many of the already mentioned reasons.
Being perfectly honest, as an ISP I wouldn't mind spam NEAR as much as I do if the @#$%@#%@# would atleast clean out invalid email addresses from time to time and wouldn't resort to harvest attacks. I'm still getting email going to accounts that haven't existed for almost 10 years. But then, if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their butts when they jumped.
Hear that, spammers? If you didn't abuse so many people's networks....we probably wouldn't loathe you so much.
I apologize if my comments were taken angrily. I didn't mean it as such. That's a downside of a typed conversation. You do have a valid points. I'm just hoping that instead of RFID they see that broadcasting data = baaaaaad. That was more what my point was meant to be with a sarcastic delivery :)
Security and convience don't exist in the same sentence or device. You can't have one without the other.
I don't see the difference with long lasting...a chip is a chip. For that matter, why can't a magnetic strip be used since it's supposedly just holding a unique number that is used to contact a database anyway?
So you're going to tell me that a radio signal is more reliable than a direct connect? I want some of what you're smoking.
Why do they have to be broadcasting RFID tags? Why can't they have a physical interface? You know, like the magentic strip on the back of everything? I don't see why we can use a physical contact patch on it instead of a broadcasted signal. After all, we've been using physical contact for interfacing devices for decades in the computer world and for centuries in other walks of life.
I wouldn't have a bit of a problem if a contact patch were used instead of a broadcasted signal. Not like it would be hard to make a small unit you slide the card into that puts it into position to be read, then kicks it out when it's finished.
Many of the comments I've read on this article are actually proving the point. I can understand people getting annoyed by what would seem like a stupid question. But "stupid questions" are in the eye of the beholder so to speak.
I mean, it amazes me. There's an old "rule" that says, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything". It's NOT that hard of a rule to follow, particularly online. I'm a long time linux user (since 1995 starting with slackware) and I even have times with the docs sometimes. I usually manage to muddle through, but that's me with over 11 years of Linux experience. Not some guy/gal just picking it up for the first time or who has only used it for a little while.
Granted the IRC channels are usually the WORST place to go to try and get help as you can usually find your answers online with a relevant search, but that doesn't change the fact that the user doesn't need to be treated like crap just because they are stuck. I also understand why help in an IRC channel is usually denied. Those channels are usually used for development, not support. If support gets started there, pretty soon the next thing you know the devs can't dev.
HOWEVER! It goes the other way too. There are quite a few times the person asking for the help doesn't exactly go about it politely or it's plainly obvious they didn't bother to read the documentation because their problem is addressed on the first page of the docs. But do we have to say, "RTFM jerk-off!!!" We COULD say sometime along the lines of, "That problem is addressed in the INSTALL.TXT file, have a look there". OOOOOR maybe even taking it a bit further and say something along the lines of, "I don't mean to sound rude, but you'll get a much better response for assistance if you atleast try to read the documentation first". That kind of a line will give them a subtle point that you should always read the docs before bothering something when an answer is readily available if they just look.
It's all about courtesy. It's something that we (I mean MOST people not just people dealing with computer issues) seem to be lacking these days. It doesn't kill someone to take a few extra seconds to be nice to someone else. Thank you, please, appreciate it, would you mind, you're welcome. I typed all those in about 30 seconds. How many times have you seen people too involved in their own world to move out of the fast lane, or cut someone off so they can get out in traffice 4 seconds faster? How many times have you seen some little ol' lady or man struggling with a door or to get up stairs carrying something and noone even bothered to offer help?
Either rate, I'm going to get off my rant now, I think I made my point.
I don't disagree with you on the advertising it as unlimited, but falling back on the corperate america B.S. you have to remember it's marketing speak. Look at Netflix. Unlimited rentals...yadda yadda. But when you look at their AUP it says (now after they got caught anyway) that they may "throttle heavier users". It's everywhere. Unlimited doesn't necessarily mean unlimited in marketing world to think otherwise is not taking into consideration corperate (and sometimes human) nature to mislead others for personal gain. I agree with you whole heartedly that they shouldn't be able to SAY unlimited if there's even 1 limit on the service (including blocking ports), but that's just not the country we live in. That's an issue to take up with you elected representitives.
As far as dialup, I think you've completely missed the point. First, instead of adding new lines (which would have cost more) they outsourced. That's still a form of overbooking. In other words, they are selling services they can't support so they turn elsewhere to make sure that service can still be provided. Dialup is also not a dedicated service yet back in the day MANY people tried to use it as such.
Point still remains that DSL and Cable (for the most part) is not a dedicated service and is intended for considerably lighter use than a dedicated product such as T1s, T3s, DS and OC circuits.
Let's also not forget one painfully simple fact. We live in a free market society and there are plenty of other alternatives. Unhappy? Go somewhere else. Don't reward a company for behavior you don't like with your continued business. If doing something doesn't hurt them financially, they'll continue to do it. It's that simple. Complaining about something rarely works in the best of circumstances and that's not talking about companies that have already proven that they don't give a rat's bum about anything other than their own profits and has a monopoly.
We don't throttle our bandwidth, however I can understand why some are doing it. Broadband is NOT a dedicated product. Using rough figures as an example...When someone buys 6meg DSL for $99/mth it will cost the ISP $450/mth to supply the 6meg to that DSL when needed. So for prices to be lowered overbooking is done. You know, like with dialup? Are we all forgetting that? To bring prices down for the residential customer a certain amount of overbooking HAS to be done. When you have someone that's using that 6meg 24/7/365 they are costing the ISP $360/mth in a manner of speaking. They have to make it up somewhere. And that's not including the cost of the circuit to the customer...only the bandwidth. You can't exactly expect a company who's responsible to stock holders to allow customers to literally cost the company money to run completely uncontrolled.
And of course, the cheaper you get, the more overbooking there is. This is what I don't understand. Why are people complaining about their level of service they get from their "cheap" ISP when they know full well the kinds of things those ISPs will do? It's the same ol' same old. You get what you pay for. You can't expect to get Ferrari speed and performance out of a Geo Metro.
It goes for the level of support too. Look at what the telcos have all done. You need support, you're going to talk to someone in India. I constantly hear people talking about "My DSL is always going down and I have to talk to people in India I can barely understand" but then they turn around and "oh, you're DSL is $16.95/mth that's just too expensive". $4 more a month and your DSL will always work and you get support from someone who actually speaks english as a first language....wow. I don't understand people. There's a difference between value and savings.
At this point. I personally would like to see it, but I'm not expecting anything extravegant from it. I wouldn't even rely on it for solid online play. The fact that they have taken 10 years to make the game doesn't say much about their speed. Thus, patches to fix hacks, flaws, and various other things could take as long as...you guessed it, 10 years. I remember Valve really screwing up game play with their patches and updates...I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened here.
Either rate, I know that if/when it ever comes to market, it won't be something I'll rush to buy. I've waited this long, what's another 6 months...year....10 years. Hell, I might just wait until it's in the bargin bin. There's this little saying that fits well here. "Don't let your mouth overload your A&&" and we can't forget "When you set your expectations too high, you're setting yourself up for disappointment"