The difference here is that these utilities are designed to provide for average, even moderately above average, usage.
ISPs, on the other hand, are complaining about this average usage, moderately above average usage be damned.
Nobody's asking for 100% of the internet bandwidth (as per your using all the electricity example), just 100% of the bandwidth they were sold (whether what they were billed for it is enough to pay for it is a matter to be dealt with by the ISP's accountants). If I have 100 amp service to my home, I damned well better be able to draw 100 amps from it. If I plug in and turn on enough appliances to draw 101 amps (forget branch circuits for a moment, this is hypothetical) and something doesn't work, it had damned well better be because the main breaker has tripped and not because the electric company can't provide the 100 amp service they are selling me.
We'll also ignore the fact that, with most utilities, you are billed for what you use because it is simple and straightforward to meter and control your usage.
Service level agreement. If my T1 goes down for an hour, I don't pay that month. That's in my contract.
If I can make it go down for an hour 4 our of every 5 months, I'm paying $60/mo for that T1. Why would I do that, though, when I can have a steady, stable line 24x7?
Bandwidth is, in reality, very cheap. I consult for a hosting company, the owner of which I have known for many years before the company existed. My company and his are very tightly integrated and I know what bandwidth costs.
Service quality and reliability are what costs. One of the datacenters housing their servers offers, amongst other connectivity options, 100mbit unmetered bandwidth for $50/mo with no SLA, 100mbit unmetered bandwidth for $150/mo with a 99.9% uptime SLA, and 100mbit unmetered bandwidth for $300/mo with a zero-downtime SLA.
Know where that DC makes the most money? Honestly, the $150 option, although most of their customer base, according to them directly, are using the $50 and $300 options.
For $300/mo, if their server can't see the net just once during a month, they pay only $150. If there's another incident any other day that month, they don't pay for bandwidth AT ALL. Anyone care to guess how many "incidents" are reported by those customers each month? Right. more than two.
Only the too-broke-for-cheap-coke customers choose the $50 option. Why? Because it's all they can afford. When they pay.
So, now, you have the majority of users finding ways to not pay, or to pay substantially less.
Then, they have the $150 option. In a 28-day billing cycle, 99.9% uptime means 67m12s of downtime is allowed. That allows for a LOT of service interruption, at minimal expense to both the DC and the client. It's very hard, short of complete failure to pay the bill, to weasel out of paying that unless the DC majorly fucks up. Thus, though only roughly 1/4 of their customers (considering only the 100mbit unmetered bandwidth customers) use that option, roughly 1/2 the income generated by their 100mbit unmetered options comes from an option with a less than average cost.
Who would have thought, people are willing to pay for reasonable service, less willing to pay for lower quality service, and more apt to find ways around paying for absurd levels of service?
The cost of that T1 is all service. Maybe $1 of that is bandwidth. Period.
That puts a 10Mbit symmetrical connection with no SLA at, let's see... $1 / 1.54Mbps = $0.649350649/Mbps. $3.25 * 10Mbps = $6.49. That's the true bandwidth cost of a 10Mbit symmetrical line.
Let's figure for a 10/1 line real quick. Oh, halve that figure (downstream only is 10Mbps) and add 65 cents (upstream is 1Mbps). so $3.90 for a typical residential 10mbit line. That leaves plenty for infrastructure improvements, on top of payroll, maintenance and other business costs, allowing for a bit of profit, as well, after my $59.95 monthly payment.
That holds true for the datacenter, as well. $64.94 is the base cost of a symmetrical 100Mbps line for them. That's a $14.94 loss on the $50/mo customers, until you realize that these customers, having no SLA, are using pooled bandwidth, enough to support 75% of what is sold. Now, the DC's cost is closer to $48.70 for each line. That leaves only $1.30 over bandwidth cost, leaving less than nothing after other expenses.
The $300/mo plan costs the DC $64.94 per customer. If 75% of those customers weasel out of paying (that's close to accurate last time I spoke with them), they're averaging $75/mo per customer. That's only $10.06 over cost, leaving very little after other expenses.
The $150/mo plan costs the DC the same $64.94 per customer that the $300/mo plan costs. Very few customers (less than 1%) see enough downtime to have their bandwidth costs waived. We'll be fair and call it 1%. They're still averaging $83.56 per customer after cost.
See where this is going? Fewer people are willing to pay for an SLA, though a well-balanced SLA is benificial to both the customer and the provider
Some guy is worried because he can't find his nuts? Am I supposed to care?
Seriously, though, it's no big deal; just that a lot of people all noticed, at the same time, that we don't have a ton of acorns every year.
These trees don't produce every year; sometimes their cycles align so that they all produce in the same year and you have an insane amount of acorns, sometimes they align so that few or none of them produce and you have, you guessed it, no acorns.
Take two sine waves of slightly differing frequencies, overlay them, and watch how they interact. Now, add them together and look at the result.
I've noticed a steady decline in acorn output in my area over the last few years. Because I also noticed a steady increase in acorn output in the preceding years, I'm able to hypothesize that this is part of a natural cycle and I'm not worried about it. If it continues next year, I'll worry a little. Two years from now, I'll worry a lot if this is still an issue.
Until then, it's part of a cycle.
Do people really worry 120 times per second (100 in some parts of the world) that their electricity has gone out? If not, I suspect we don't have to worry that our oak trees have gone out, either. Let's drop it before the price of nuts goes through the fucking roof; some of us have vegetarians to feed and nuts are a cheap source of good protein.
Except, in this case, these aren't all resellers. Many of the companies complaining lease last-mile (backhaul) bandwidth, and have their own pipe to the 'net.
These companies are not reselling Bell services, they are supposed to be getting 5Mbit/sec per customer of BACKHAUL (from the phone jack to their routers) bandwidth. Again, they supply their own pipe to the 'net.
Know what's funny about taking 2 weeks to figure out overtime in order to earn interest on that money?
It earns them more interest for exactly the first 2 weeks.
Then, they've paid out what they were saving and will keep paying out what they've been saving, every pay period. They break even after the first two weeks.
Instead of breeding hatred among their employees, they should earn a little less interest for two weeks and start paying overtime when it's owed.
Troll? Really? I've been here backing up my stance and, really... fuck it, there's no -1 Disagree, so I guess someone with modpoints (hey i have 5 of those, maybe i should have just modded the guy down instead of contributing to the discussion) can decide to just mod people down instead of stating their point of view when they disagree.
meh... if anyone here on visa could vote, imagine the flood of immigrants 2 months before election day every 4 years, followed by mass emigration a week after.
you do have a very good list there, and all of it is really common sense.
most of these aren't really rights, so much as privileges granted to citizens, with the exception of the right to work and the right to start a business.
here's the funny thing, i know a lot of cambodians who own small shops in the area. one became a citizen last year. the rest don't pay a penny in taxes until they do. the one who became a citizen last year is closing his store the day his brother's visa application is accepted and, guess what, his brother is taking over the store, tax-free for another 10 years.
that's fine, really and he's a decent guy. I go in there sometimes just to BS with him. what I take issue with here is how people can take issue with our system when it is one of the most lenient in the world. I would have been a canadian citizen long ago if it weren't such a PITA to become one; never mind the fact that, in the interim, I'd have none of the rights as a non-citizen attempting to become a citizen the i currently lack as just a plain-ol' non-citizen.
Come on, it just makes sense. Someone who's in med school should get that.
For those of you who didn't want to read through all of that, I'll sum it up... a few different ways.
You're getting more than you're giving, be grateful.
Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth.
We'll like you better when you appreciate the gift we're giving you.
Oh, shit, that's common sense, isn't it?
--- And now another rant. Don't know why but this guy really pissed me off. ---
I mean, hell, he's from the UK. In a global sense, that's about as close to American as you can get without being Canadian. I fail to see how he's not welcome here, if not for his attitude toward HAVING TO PAY TAXES WHILE HIS EDUCATION IS BEING PAID FOR. Does he know how much he's NOT paying while he's complaining about how much he IS paying?
If he were indian, arab, asian, mexican, or even black or jewish, I could see a case for a "my rights are being oppressed and I'm being discriminated against" type argument. From the UK? Hell no.
If you can't find it in yourself to stick around and help the people who are helping you, whether they appreciate it or not, how the fuck are you going to find it in yourself to help people who had nothing to do with you becoming a doctor, when they don't want you to?
That's what doctors do a lot of the time; they deal with people who know they need treatment but don't want it. Those people will downright treat you like the scum of the earth. Be prepared to be called a motherfucker, an asshole, a cocksucker, even a nigger (regardless of race) and a racist. Be prepared to be called those names and much worse. If you've ever spent any time in an ER, you'll know what I mean.
Wait until you get a patient who's high as a kite, who needs to detox. I've witnessed a druggie who was STRAPPED TO A BED still manage to throw a bedpan across the room while calling his WHITE doctor a nigger... SCREAMING it, actually. The result was five large BLACK Cleveland police officers rushing in to restrain him (mind you, as I stated, he was already restrained by leather straps, though I wasn't in the room, he may have torn them by then) so the doctor could inject him with a sedative. He spent the next 5 minutes screaming suggesting several different strings of obscenities as new names for his doctor before finally passing out.
How, if you can't find it in yourself to put up with this from the people who are paying for your education, the ones who are helping you, how, please tell me, will you find it in yourself to put up with it from anyone else?
I've seen people attack their doctors. I've seen people threaten their doctors. I've seen people straight up ignore their doctors and then sue when something bad happens.
Did you know that most uninsured patients never pay their medical bills because they simply can't?
So, you're telling me that you're willing to put up with this, being threatened, being attacked, being ignored, being called every name in the book (and a few that aren't written yet) and possibly not getting paid... from people who don't care enough to put you through school to do so? But you won't take it from people who do care enough to put you through school?
I'm sorry to say it, but, you're not going to make it as a doctor. I'm sure the money spent on your education could have been put to better use, but since it wasn't at least I can rest assured that I'll never have to be treated by you.
He feels unwelcome because he's not considered a citizen yet. He's here on a visa. What rights does he not have that I do? Honestly, not many.
He can't collect Social Security, though he's paying into it. Neither can I right now. Eventually, I'll be able to; so will he.
Medicare is not available to him, nor is it available to me. Eventually, I'll be old enough to make use of it; so will he.
I can rely on the police, firemen and ambulances when I need them. So can he.
I can speak my mind freely, so can he.
I can bear arms. I'm not sure where the law stands as far as him and, honestly, I'd hope we're not allowing people who are here on visa to carry weapons. Again, something he'll be able to do once he becomes a citizen.
Possibly no right to bear arms for a few years seems a small price to pay for a free MD PhD. Hell, I'd give up my right to own a firearm for 10 years if the US Government was going to put my through premed, med school and postmed courses for that period of time. I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Other than that, he really has every right I do.
If you don't like the terms, you shouldn't have signed up. Quit taking more than you're paying in, bitching about it the whole while, pack up and go home.
You're more than welcome here if you're willing to abide by the terms you agreed to when you came here. If you have a problem with that, why are you here in the first place?
Do a 180 and appreciate that you actually have more of an advantage in this country right now than many, if not most, who were BORN here. Then, I'll welcome you to my country. Hell, do that and I'll do whatever I can to make your new life here the best it can be.
Slashdot Mirror
And when YouTube and Netflix and Hula are impacted by these caps, they will lobby to make them illegal.
We'll have our internet back, someday.
The difference here is that these utilities are designed to provide for average, even moderately above average, usage.
ISPs, on the other hand, are complaining about this average usage, moderately above average usage be damned.
Nobody's asking for 100% of the internet bandwidth (as per your using all the electricity example), just 100% of the bandwidth they were sold (whether what they were billed for it is enough to pay for it is a matter to be dealt with by the ISP's accountants). If I have 100 amp service to my home, I damned well better be able to draw 100 amps from it. If I plug in and turn on enough appliances to draw 101 amps (forget branch circuits for a moment, this is hypothetical) and something doesn't work, it had damned well better be because the main breaker has tripped and not because the electric company can't provide the 100 amp service they are selling me.
We'll also ignore the fact that, with most utilities, you are billed for what you use because it is simple and straightforward to meter and control your usage.
This doesn't apply to bandwidth. Period.
Service level agreement. If my T1 goes down for an hour, I don't pay that month. That's in my contract.
If I can make it go down for an hour 4 our of every 5 months, I'm paying $60/mo for that T1. Why would I do that, though, when I can have a steady, stable line 24x7?
Bandwidth is, in reality, very cheap. I consult for a hosting company, the owner of which I have known for many years before the company existed. My company and his are very tightly integrated and I know what bandwidth costs.
Service quality and reliability are what costs. One of the datacenters housing their servers offers, amongst other connectivity options, 100mbit unmetered bandwidth for $50/mo with no SLA, 100mbit unmetered bandwidth for $150/mo with a 99.9% uptime SLA, and 100mbit unmetered bandwidth for $300/mo with a zero-downtime SLA.
Know where that DC makes the most money? Honestly, the $150 option, although most of their customer base, according to them directly, are using the $50 and $300 options.
For $300/mo, if their server can't see the net just once during a month, they pay only $150. If there's another incident any other day that month, they don't pay for bandwidth AT ALL. Anyone care to guess how many "incidents" are reported by those customers each month? Right. more than two.
Only the too-broke-for-cheap-coke customers choose the $50 option. Why? Because it's all they can afford. When they pay.
So, now, you have the majority of users finding ways to not pay, or to pay substantially less.
Then, they have the $150 option. In a 28-day billing cycle, 99.9% uptime means 67m12s of downtime is allowed. That allows for a LOT of service interruption, at minimal expense to both the DC and the client. It's very hard, short of complete failure to pay the bill, to weasel out of paying that unless the DC majorly fucks up. Thus, though only roughly 1/4 of their customers (considering only the 100mbit unmetered bandwidth customers) use that option, roughly 1/2 the income generated by their 100mbit unmetered options comes from an option with a less than average cost.
Who would have thought, people are willing to pay for reasonable service, less willing to pay for lower quality service, and more apt to find ways around paying for absurd levels of service?
The cost of that T1 is all service. Maybe $1 of that is bandwidth. Period.
That puts a 10Mbit symmetrical connection with no SLA at, let's see... $1 / 1.54Mbps = $0.649350649/Mbps. $3.25 * 10Mbps = $6.49. That's the true bandwidth cost of a 10Mbit symmetrical line.
Let's figure for a 10/1 line real quick. Oh, halve that figure (downstream only is 10Mbps) and add 65 cents (upstream is 1Mbps). so $3.90 for a typical residential 10mbit line. That leaves plenty for infrastructure improvements, on top of payroll, maintenance and other business costs, allowing for a bit of profit, as well, after my $59.95 monthly payment.
That holds true for the datacenter, as well. $64.94 is the base cost of a symmetrical 100Mbps line for them. That's a $14.94 loss on the $50/mo customers, until you realize that these customers, having no SLA, are using pooled bandwidth, enough to support 75% of what is sold. Now, the DC's cost is closer to $48.70 for each line. That leaves only $1.30 over bandwidth cost, leaving less than nothing after other expenses.
The $300/mo plan costs the DC $64.94 per customer. If 75% of those customers weasel out of paying (that's close to accurate last time I spoke with them), they're averaging $75/mo per customer. That's only $10.06 over cost, leaving very little after other expenses.
The $150/mo plan costs the DC the same $64.94 per customer that the $300/mo plan costs. Very few customers (less than 1%) see enough downtime to have their bandwidth costs waived. We'll be fair and call it 1%. They're still averaging $83.56 per customer after cost.
See where this is going? Fewer people are willing to pay for an SLA, though a well-balanced SLA is benificial to both the customer and the provider
I wish Biden had worked to get his license; think about it...
McCain mentions Joe the plumber in a debate, Biden stands up, Obama says "I'd like to introduce joe the licensed plumber."
Some guy is worried because he can't find his nuts? Am I supposed to care?
Seriously, though, it's no big deal; just that a lot of people all noticed, at the same time, that we don't have a ton of acorns every year.
These trees don't produce every year; sometimes their cycles align so that they all produce in the same year and you have an insane amount of acorns, sometimes they align so that few or none of them produce and you have, you guessed it, no acorns.
Take two sine waves of slightly differing frequencies, overlay them, and watch how they interact. Now, add them together and look at the result.
I've noticed a steady decline in acorn output in my area over the last few years. Because I also noticed a steady increase in acorn output in the preceding years, I'm able to hypothesize that this is part of a natural cycle and I'm not worried about it. If it continues next year, I'll worry a little. Two years from now, I'll worry a lot if this is still an issue.
Until then, it's part of a cycle.
Do people really worry 120 times per second (100 in some parts of the world) that their electricity has gone out? If not, I suspect we don't have to worry that our oak trees have gone out, either. Let's drop it before the price of nuts goes through the fucking roof; some of us have vegetarians to feed and nuts are a cheap source of good protein.
Yes, there are enough memes going around The Dot (now, including calling it The Dot) that we don't need another one.
Especially not one so fucking annoying as quoting an entire article, plus one line, only to add one more line.
Gift suggestion for mods; all the above gratuitous quoting should be considered redundant.
yes... so
deredevertebrated
i made the same mistake
deredeverberated
Except, in this case, these aren't all resellers. Many of the companies complaining lease last-mile (backhaul) bandwidth, and have their own pipe to the 'net.
These companies are not reselling Bell services, they are supposed to be getting 5Mbit/sec per customer of BACKHAUL (from the phone jack to their routers) bandwidth. Again, they supply their own pipe to the 'net.
Fuck me for having already commented, I wanted to mod GP up, too, after reading it...
nobody in their right mind would let Windows in willingly.
Know what's funny about taking 2 weeks to figure out overtime in order to earn interest on that money?
It earns them more interest for exactly the first 2 weeks.
Then, they've paid out what they were saving and will keep paying out what they've been saving, every pay period. They break even after the first two weeks.
Instead of breeding hatred among their employees, they should earn a little less interest for two weeks and start paying overtime when it's owed.
It's called fdisk.exe
They only have to be marginally better than Microsoft AV. I'd say, no AV can pull that off easily.
You could decompile the compiler to verify th... oh... wait a minute...
Troll? Really? I've been here backing up my stance and, really... fuck it, there's no -1 Disagree, so I guess someone with modpoints (hey i have 5 of those, maybe i should have just modded the guy down instead of contributing to the discussion) can decide to just mod people down instead of stating their point of view when they disagree.
meh... if anyone here on visa could vote, imagine the flood of immigrants 2 months before election day every 4 years, followed by mass emigration a week after.
you do have a very good list there, and all of it is really common sense.
most of these aren't really rights, so much as privileges granted to citizens, with the exception of the right to work and the right to start a business.
here's the funny thing, i know a lot of cambodians who own small shops in the area. one became a citizen last year. the rest don't pay a penny in taxes until they do. the one who became a citizen last year is closing his store the day his brother's visa application is accepted and, guess what, his brother is taking over the store, tax-free for another 10 years.
that's fine, really and he's a decent guy. I go in there sometimes just to BS with him. what I take issue with here is how people can take issue with our system when it is one of the most lenient in the world. I would have been a canadian citizen long ago if it weren't such a PITA to become one; never mind the fact that, in the interim, I'd have none of the rights as a non-citizen attempting to become a citizen the i currently lack as just a plain-ol' non-citizen.
Come on, it just makes sense. Someone who's in med school should get that.
Ok then, strike that from the list. The rest still stands.
For those of you who didn't want to read through all of that, I'll sum it up... a few different ways.
You're getting more than you're giving, be grateful.
Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth.
We'll like you better when you appreciate the gift we're giving you.
Oh, shit, that's common sense, isn't it?
---
And now another rant. Don't know why but this guy really pissed me off.
---
I mean, hell, he's from the UK. In a global sense, that's about as close to American as you can get without being Canadian. I fail to see how he's not welcome here, if not for his attitude toward HAVING TO PAY TAXES WHILE HIS EDUCATION IS BEING PAID FOR. Does he know how much he's NOT paying while he's complaining about how much he IS paying?
If he were indian, arab, asian, mexican, or even black or jewish, I could see a case for a "my rights are being oppressed and I'm being discriminated against" type argument. From the UK? Hell no.
If you can't find it in yourself to stick around and help the people who are helping you, whether they appreciate it or not, how the fuck are you going to find it in yourself to help people who had nothing to do with you becoming a doctor, when they don't want you to?
That's what doctors do a lot of the time; they deal with people who know they need treatment but don't want it. Those people will downright treat you like the scum of the earth. Be prepared to be called a motherfucker, an asshole, a cocksucker, even a nigger (regardless of race) and a racist. Be prepared to be called those names and much worse. If you've ever spent any time in an ER, you'll know what I mean.
Wait until you get a patient who's high as a kite, who needs to detox. I've witnessed a druggie who was STRAPPED TO A BED still manage to throw a bedpan across the room while calling his WHITE doctor a nigger... SCREAMING it, actually. The result was five large BLACK Cleveland police officers rushing in to restrain him (mind you, as I stated, he was already restrained by leather straps, though I wasn't in the room, he may have torn them by then) so the doctor could inject him with a sedative. He spent the next 5 minutes screaming suggesting several different strings of obscenities as new names for his doctor before finally passing out.
How, if you can't find it in yourself to put up with this from the people who are paying for your education, the ones who are helping you, how, please tell me, will you find it in yourself to put up with it from anyone else?
I've seen people attack their doctors. I've seen people threaten their doctors. I've seen people straight up ignore their doctors and then sue when something bad happens.
Did you know that most uninsured patients never pay their medical bills because they simply can't?
So, you're telling me that you're willing to put up with this, being threatened, being attacked, being ignored, being called every name in the book (and a few that aren't written yet) and possibly not getting paid... from people who don't care enough to put you through school to do so? But you won't take it from people who do care enough to put you through school?
I'm sorry to say it, but, you're not going to make it as a doctor. I'm sure the money spent on your education could have been put to better use, but since it wasn't at least I can rest assured that I'll never have to be treated by you.
He feels unwelcome because he's not considered a citizen yet. He's here on a visa. What rights does he not have that I do? Honestly, not many.
He can't collect Social Security, though he's paying into it. Neither can I right now. Eventually, I'll be able to; so will he.
Medicare is not available to him, nor is it available to me. Eventually, I'll be old enough to make use of it; so will he.
I can rely on the police, firemen and ambulances when I need them. So can he.
I can speak my mind freely, so can he.
I can bear arms. I'm not sure where the law stands as far as him and, honestly, I'd hope we're not allowing people who are here on visa to carry weapons. Again, something he'll be able to do once he becomes a citizen.
Possibly no right to bear arms for a few years seems a small price to pay for a free MD PhD. Hell, I'd give up my right to own a firearm for 10 years if the US Government was going to put my through premed, med school and postmed courses for that period of time. I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Other than that, he really has every right I do.
If you don't like the terms, you shouldn't have signed up. Quit taking more than you're paying in, bitching about it the whole while, pack up and go home.
You're more than welcome here if you're willing to abide by the terms you agreed to when you came here. If you have a problem with that, why are you here in the first place?
Do a 180 and appreciate that you actually have more of an advantage in this country right now than many, if not most, who were BORN here. Then, I'll welcome you to my country. Hell, do that and I'll do whatever I can to make your new life here the best it can be.
You're paying taxes like I do, yes. However, you're also having your PhD paid for by the Government?
Tell me, which number is higher? The amount you pay in taxes or the cost of your education?
I wish I had that opportunity available to me, you ungrateful sonofabitch.
We don't need "doctors" like you here, please, do take your PhD and go back to the UK. Thank you.
Gag on Siemens?
It's also your bandwidth bill. Probably your repair bill, too.
Good job.
I think you've confused the iPhone with the BlackBerry.
Sorry, since I won't eat it myself, I had to feed that load to a troll.
I'd have to say, the ones who saw him peeping called him Windows and the ones who didn't called him Microsoft.