DSL is a distance-sensitive technology: as the connection's length increases, the signal quality decreases and the connection speed goes down. So for most Americans, especially in rural areas, you have to live within a mile of your TelCo's central office to even get 'premium' 256 kbps service. Then you have to deal with the jerkoff's at the once-private monopoly (a couple of years ago it took two months to provision a T-1 from QWorst,... so no difference from BT then).
QWorst's customer service still sucks, just that now they don't rape you with a US$900/month bill, it's a little bit cheaper.
The premise in #1 above ("everyone in the US can receive a broadband connection") is totally false. The population density in the UK is much higher, making ADSL more viable for BT.
Of course, calling 256 or 512 kbps 'broadband' is laughable anyway, especially from the perspective of South Koreans, who regularly surf the 'net with a 20 Mbps pipe.
I used to work for a cable Internet provider which, a year ago, capped their service at 1.5 Mbps (for US$46/month). Then they doubled the speed (at no extra cost to the customer) to 3.0 Mbps. Technically, of course, they could have not capped it at all, and customers would have seen speeds of 20 Mbps or more.
The big difference is that the second domain can be confused for a official company website
What level of intelligence are we aiming at here? If the average user were not so easily confused, there wouldn't be nearly so much SPAM, phishing attacks and pop-up advertising. The fact is that/. readers are much brighter than the general public. If the true test is that the general public should not be confused, then we'd better shut down the Internet right now.
Unlike their English counterparts, who have the benefit of a very good Advertising Standards Authority, and their local authority's Trading Standards office, American consumers are left high-and-dry because 'the market' has to be allowed to operate without government interference. The fact that millions of customers get screwed is totally lost on them.
If KFC advertises a mini chicken sandwich, for example, and it looks much bigger on the poster than it is in real life, the ASA will ban the misleading ad in England. As the whole mail-in rebate scam shows, American consumers get NO protections whatsoever. Welcome to the land of free enterprise.
Slashdot Mirror
DSL is a distance-sensitive technology: as the connection's length increases, the signal quality decreases and the connection speed goes down. So for most Americans, especially in rural areas, you have to live within a mile of your TelCo's central office to even get 'premium' 256 kbps service. Then you have to deal with the jerkoff's at the once-private monopoly (a couple of years ago it took two months to provision a T-1 from QWorst,... so no difference from BT then).
QWorst's customer service still sucks, just that now they don't rape you with a US$900/month bill, it's a little bit cheaper.
The premise in #1 above ("everyone in the US can receive a broadband connection") is totally false. The population density in the UK is much higher, making ADSL more viable for BT.
Of course, calling 256 or 512 kbps 'broadband' is laughable anyway, especially from the perspective of South Koreans, who regularly surf the 'net with a 20 Mbps pipe.
I used to work for a cable Internet provider which, a year ago, capped their service at 1.5 Mbps (for US$46/month). Then they doubled the speed (at no extra cost to the customer) to 3.0 Mbps. Technically, of course, they could have not capped it at all, and customers would have seen speeds of 20 Mbps or more.
The big difference is that the second domain can be confused for a official company website
What level of intelligence are we aiming at here? If the average user were not so easily confused, there wouldn't be nearly so much SPAM, phishing attacks and pop-up advertising. The fact is that /. readers are much brighter than the general public. If the true test is that the general public should not be confused, then we'd better shut down the Internet right now.
Unlike their English counterparts, who have the benefit of a very good Advertising Standards Authority, and their local authority's Trading Standards office, American consumers are left high-and-dry because 'the market' has to be allowed to operate without government interference. The fact that millions of customers get screwed is totally lost on them.
If KFC advertises a mini chicken sandwich, for example, and it looks much bigger on the poster than it is in real life, the ASA will ban the misleading ad in England. As the whole mail-in rebate scam shows, American consumers get NO protections whatsoever. Welcome to the land of free enterprise.