"If you've been holding out hope that FiOS would rescue you from your local cable monopoly, it's probably time to give up. Making good on their statements five years ago, Verizon announced this week it is nearing "the end" of its fiber construction and is reducing wireline capital expenditures while spending more on wireless.
The expense of replacing old copper lines with fiber has allegedly led Verizon to stop building in new regions and to complete wiring up the areas where it had already begun. The fiber network was profitable, but nowhere near as profitable as their wireless network. So, if Verizon hasn't started in your neighborhood by now, they never will, and you'd best ignore all those ads for FiOS."
In most places in the continental United States you are covered with lte service through at least one provider. I am covered by At&t, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. All are better options than any satellite connection. A unmetered wisp connection would be better still although none can match the speed & reliabilty of any type of wired/fiber connection.
There was a good write up in Oklahoma living a few months back; http://content.yudu.com/web/y5... It starts on page 12 I was really disappointed with what many co-op's have accepted as a solution.
LREC. Fiber 20/20Mbps service $50/mo 150GB cap 100/100Mbps $100/mo 300GB cap.
ECOEC & KEC.
They thought about providing broadband but decided it would be to expensive so they partnered with excede now all of their customers can get blistering speeds of up to 12Mbps and at most 25GB for $130/mo.
CHEC (local co-op for my area)
Decided that it was best to keep its buisness streamlined by selling only electricity after having run fiber between its substations.
SMA Fiber run by the city. 10 Mbps down $35/mo 40 Mbps down $100/mo No caps!
It doesn't go an inch past city limits. Using CHEC's poles was discused but ultimately decided too expensive.
SMA is planning on starting a wireless isp service next year to cover outside of the city limits.
So to recap CHEC is trying to save me money by not selling internet and won't rent out their poles cheaply enough for anyone else to do it and that really just leaves me up a creek.
They only mentioned one that turned out really well.
Boltfiber a subsidiary of NEOEC.
Their lowest plan is 20/20Mbps $50/mo No caps!
And last a couple of wireless isp's for reference;
"If, on the other hand, either their desired bandwidth, desired data allowance, or both, are sufficiently low"
That's part of the problem.
Step 1 make a service that will not handle projected use.
Step 2 oversell service 3000%.
Step 3 implement usage caps to act like you are trying to fix what was broken in the first two steps.
Step 4 PROFIT!!
Several years ago online video services did not exist and you could get by on 20gb/mo if you had to today you have 50gb/mo limits and Youtube/Netflix/Steam in a few years we will have found even more ways to use bandwidth at which point we will have gigabit cellular connections with the same data caps we have today. Why? The profit margins are better in cellular.
Same reason At&t didn't want too rebuild their PSTN after katrina.
That's why Verizon stopped rolling out fiber, cell towers have a better ROI.
Especially if people can't get anything other than cell service at home because Verizon has exclusive rights for landline service to your area and refuses to install it because its more profitable to sell you data through their cellular service.
I would take a Unmetered 10/10 connection over a 1000/1000 with a 300gb cap any day!
T-Mobile just upgraded the network in my area from 2G to 4G sometime in the last 5 months. I didn't notice until today.
Of course the Ice cream shop doesn't care if you buy 500 ice cream cones in one day they cost $3 each.
As long as there is not a water shortage water is as unlimited as you can afford to pay for or possibly even more than that ever had a pipe burst and not find out till you got your bill? its about $1000 to $2000 here thats not a fine that's just the cost of the water.
What about electricity? Thats not typically rationed but in most areas its the distribution infrastructure that's limited not the generation that's why you get those stupid rolling blackouts. You are charged by the KWH. Use is unlimited although at some point you may have to buy a bigger transformer. (just fyi you will also have to buy a higher rated meter to go along with it)
So you are saying I am a thief because I pay $7.99 for unlimited use of netflix?
If I break the pipe off on my end of the water line I can use enough water to keep the people on the top of the hill from being able to get any.
If I get a large commercial transformer installed I can use enough power to cause a small blackout.
Lets say the tower can handle 40/mbps. Now lets say I have a 4g lte aircard and I start downloading the 3.3GB Plants vs Zombies required update. It starts off at 40/mbps.
Then someone else on the same tower starts downloading A 50 MB app from the app store lets say google chrome.
Now the capacity is split evenly between the two users and each gets 20/mbps.
Adding usage limits to either of the users doesn't help as much as you would think it might. because in practice everyone always ends up using the service at the same time.
So you get 300 people trying to watch a 5 minute clip on youtube at 5PM It doesn't matter so much that 299 of them only have 1GB of usage the 1 person with unlimited data still has to deal with the tower splitting the 40/mbps capacity 300 ways to 0.13/mbps just like everyone else.
You could get more speed by bonding several cellular connections but its not cost effective. Lets say have we have 2 users one user has a aircard with 100GB that they pay $730/mo for the other user has 2 aircards each with 4GB for $100/mo (total of 8gb) if bonded together through vpn the user with 2 air cards can now use 2/3rds of the bandwidth on the tower even though he pays for less data however the economics of this get much worse the higher the number of other users for instance;
Assuming there are 299 others on the tower each with their own aircard 5 4gb/mo aircards bonded through a vpn you would be back up to 0.65/mbps with a 5/304ths share of the connection (however that would be $250/mo for 20gb) to use more than %50 you would have to have more than half the devices in use so lets say 301 of the 600 are yours that would allow you to use 20.06mbps (it would also cost $15,050/mo total 1204GB OR $50 for every 0.07 Mbps) Just because you paid for more data doesn't mean your data gets a higher priority than anyone elses.
That's something that gets left out of this conversation typically with water or electricity its possible for one user monopolise and use more than 90%.
But with bandwidth it doesn't work that way. No matter how many users their are each cellular device only gets a fractional amount Its simply not possible for one user to use %90 of the network unless it was not being utilized in the first place (unless of course you have a crap load of bonded modems but if you could afford that I think you could much more easily just had fiber buried and installed several miles out in the desert for the same cost. It would be more reliable anyhow)
Atleast thats how it worked when I was on satellite 17gb/$80/mo usage and just a slow crawl during peak times. It would really fly around 3 to 5 am even with the unlimited night time usage.
As for consumables like water electric and gas it annoys me when people compla
Sorry I had not checked the maps since march it shows that I am covered with t-mobile 4g lte service now.
My primary phone is a verizon 3g samsung convoy 3. Because I need my phone to work as a phone and verizon doesn't sell any 4g phones that work as phones. I live on the border of oklahoma and arkansas.
I also have a 4g samsung galaxy victory through freedompop that uses sprint's service so I have a home phone.
An att 3g ipad 2 and a verizon 4g ipad 4 both on t-mobile's 200mb free for life of tablet plan. Neither is able to pick up t-mobile's 4g service. (although now I know its here I am going to double check that!)
A retired 3g internet on the go ap (sprint) that was replaced with the 4g karma go (also sprint) for backup service.
A verizon 4g 6620L mifi that's my primary when away from work or home.
I shouldn't have relied on t-mobile to contact me when 4g was available like I asked them to 2 years ago.
Still the 2g t-mobile coverage I can pickup on my ipads is much more spotty than the 3g sprint coverage I get on my internet go or the 4g coverage on the karma go.
No devices with att service to test atm however while in alaska a couple years ago in many places the att ipad was the only device with service.
The main reason I currently have no active att service is I am unaware of any inexpensive way to keep att's data service active or I would have one of those on standby too.
It is worth noting that 90% if not all of the gov't issued free phones use sprint and I know people that went back to their previous provider because they couldn't get service out of town with their free phone.
So no your not alone a lot of people won't use sprint even when it is free.
But where I live you have either att or verizon or you only have reliable service in town.
I can't vouch for t-mobile's voice coverage as the last person I knew that used it lived in town and only had it for the cheaper international calls. And that was years ago back before the alltel merger even I think. Most everyone moved to smart phones a while back and since t-mobile had no 3g or 4g they kinda got left out.
Now that I know t-mobile now has 4g service ill ask around and see if anyone's tried it yet.
Thats what happens when you go several years without providing any service. People leave.
I didn't know until later that was actually part of one of the spyro games I originally thought it was a parody of how free to play games make people feel.
You get so far and then its not possible to continue without paying but like in the video its a wall that goes straight up as that 99 cents gets you nowhere.
It wouldn't be that bad if it was a trial or demo and then one easy payment of $49.95. But its not its 500 easy payments of $5 $1.99 $2.99 $0.99 and if you were to actually pay enough to actually beat the game you would find that you had paid considerably more than $100.
I still happen to have one of the apps (several still installed actually never bothered to delete them) in question on this ipad I looked in for this post and it said "Welcome back! it has been 1204 days and 0 hours since you left".
Tap Store costs $49.99 for inspiration and another $49.99 for coins
If i remember correctly that was enough to get you several more levels up but was not enough to max it out. That would require even more purchases.
And then one of the better ftp ios games of a few years ago:
Zombie Gunship 2 mil coins $99 or free with purchace of $25 shirt
Why can't they sell a standalone version and go on? Is $50 per gamer really not enough? They already admit that 99% of free to play players never pay a cent. (I am part of that 99% if Im going to pay for a game I best be able to use it)
The costs are simply prohibitive to anyone that realises what they are going in.
How did this get to be so long? It was much shorter when I clicked preview an hour ago.
On that aspect a lot could be done just by making the laws on the books available online.
They say ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Yet its not very easy for most to even find out what the laws are where they live.
Is it really illegal to hunt whales in oklahoma? Is it really illegal to drive a motor vehicle on mainstreet of town? Is there really a federal law forbidding students cellphones in Oklahoma? Is it legal for me to replace a lightbulb without being a licensed electrician?
Shouldn't I be able to find this out without having to consult a lawyer? It's supposed to be public information anyway why isn't it accessible?
I would personally like to be able to play tso again even if only on a empty local server.
I paid for a copy of the client and was a 4 year+ subscriber none of it is usable now.
I although I quit buying the sims 2 expansions and stuff packs after sims 2 seasons in 2007 I couldn't keep up with the cost at the time.
Also Dear EA I am still willing to pay the $100 I offered you a few years back for sims 2 complete collection. How about that physical copy I asked for?
Slashdot Mirror
What alternatives work?
chloramine?
ozonation?
Wow you get 25/25 for $45/mo?
I only get 12/1 for $45/mo with At&t U-verse.
If only it wasn't already that way.
From earlier this year:
"If you've been holding out hope that FiOS would rescue you from your local cable monopoly, it's probably time to give up. Making good on their statements five years ago, Verizon announced this week it is nearing "the end" of its fiber construction and is reducing wireline capital expenditures while spending more on wireless.
The expense of replacing old copper lines with fiber has allegedly led Verizon to stop building in new regions and to complete wiring up the areas where it had already begun. The fiber network was profitable, but nowhere near as profitable as their wireless network. So, if Verizon hasn't started in your neighborhood by now, they never will, and you'd best ignore all those ads for FiOS."
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
Options are good.
In most places in the continental United States you are covered with lte service through at least one provider.
I am covered by At&t, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.
All are better options than any satellite connection.
A unmetered wisp connection would be better still although none can match the speed & reliabilty of any type of wired/fiber connection.
There was a good write up in Oklahoma living a few months back; http://content.yudu.com/web/y5... It starts on page 12 I was really disappointed with what many co-op's have accepted as a solution.
LREC.
Fiber 20/20Mbps service $50/mo 150GB cap 100/100Mbps $100/mo 300GB cap.
ECOEC & KEC.
They thought about providing broadband but decided it would be to expensive so they partnered with excede now all of their customers can get blistering speeds of up to 12Mbps and at most 25GB for $130/mo.
CHEC (local co-op for my area)
Decided that it was best to keep its buisness streamlined by selling only electricity after having run fiber between its substations.
SMA
Fiber run by the city.
10 Mbps down $35/mo
40 Mbps down $100/mo
No caps!
It doesn't go an inch past city limits. Using CHEC's poles was discused but ultimately decided too expensive.
SMA is planning on starting a wireless isp service next year to cover outside of the city limits.
So to recap CHEC is trying to save me money by not selling internet and won't rent out their poles cheaply enough for anyone else to do it and that really just leaves me up a creek.
They only mentioned one that turned out really well.
Boltfiber a subsidiary of NEOEC.
Their lowest plan is 20/20Mbps $50/mo No caps!
And last a couple of wireless isp's for reference;
Provalue.net Partner of CREC.
10/3Mbps $110/mo No caps!
Csweb.net (local wisp).
10/8Mbps $100 No caps!
What you need to be asking is; What if they don't deploy wired broadband and just use wireless for every mile?
Would you be happy with a wireless connection for broadband being your only choice?
Because that's exactly what many people are going to get.
More profits that way.
"If, on the other hand, either their desired bandwidth, desired data allowance, or both, are sufficiently low"
That's part of the problem.
Step 1 make a service that will not handle projected use.
Step 2 oversell service 3000%.
Step 3 implement usage caps to act like you are trying to fix what was broken in the first two steps.
Step 4 PROFIT!!
Several years ago online video services did not exist and you could get by on 20gb/mo if you had to today you have 50gb/mo limits and Youtube/Netflix/Steam in a few years we will have found even more ways to use bandwidth at which point we will have gigabit cellular connections with the same data caps we have today. Why? The profit margins are better in cellular.
Same reason At&t didn't want too rebuild their PSTN after katrina.
That's why Verizon stopped rolling out fiber, cell towers have a better ROI.
Especially if people can't get anything other than cell service at home because Verizon has exclusive rights for landline service to your area and refuses to install it because its more profitable to sell you data through their cellular service.
I would take a Unmetered 10/10 connection over a 1000/1000 with a 300gb cap any day!
I got a canned letter back from them once informing me I had the right to sue. They did not however tell me which report they were talking about.
T-Mobile just upgraded the network in my area from 2G to 4G sometime in the last 5 months. I didn't notice until today.
Of course the Ice cream shop doesn't care if you buy 500 ice cream cones in one day they cost $3 each.
As long as there is not a water shortage water is as unlimited as you can afford to pay for or possibly even more than that ever had a pipe burst and not find out till you got your bill? its about $1000 to $2000 here thats not a fine that's just the cost of the water.
What about electricity? Thats not typically rationed but in most areas its the distribution infrastructure that's limited not the generation that's why you get those stupid rolling blackouts. You are charged by the KWH. Use is unlimited although at some point you may have to buy a bigger transformer. (just fyi you will also have to buy a higher rated meter to go along with it)
So you are saying I am a thief because I pay $7.99 for unlimited use of netflix?
If I break the pipe off on my end of the water line I can use enough water to keep the people on the top of the hill from being able to get any.
If I get a large commercial transformer installed I can use enough power to cause a small blackout.
Lets say the tower can handle 40/mbps.
Now lets say I have a 4g lte aircard and I start downloading the 3.3GB Plants vs Zombies required update.
It starts off at 40/mbps.
Then someone else on the same tower starts downloading
A 50 MB app from the app store lets say google chrome.
Now the capacity is split evenly between the two users and each gets 20/mbps.
Adding usage limits to either of the users doesn't help as much as you would think it might. because in practice everyone always ends up using the service at the same time.
So you get 300 people trying to watch a 5 minute clip on youtube at 5PM It doesn't matter so much that 299 of them only have 1GB of usage the 1 person with unlimited data still has to deal with the tower splitting the 40/mbps capacity 300 ways to 0.13/mbps just like everyone else.
You could get more speed by bonding several cellular connections but its not cost effective.
Lets say have we have 2 users one user has a aircard with 100GB that they pay $730/mo for the other user has 2 aircards each with 4GB for $100/mo (total of 8gb) if bonded together through vpn the user with 2 air cards can now use 2/3rds of the bandwidth on the tower even though he pays for less data however the economics of this get much worse the higher the number of other users for instance;
Assuming there are 299 others on the tower each with their own aircard 5 4gb/mo aircards bonded through a vpn
you would be back up to 0.65/mbps with a 5/304ths share of the connection (however that would be $250/mo for 20gb)
to use more than %50 you would have to have more than half the devices in use so lets say 301 of the 600 are yours
that would allow you to use 20.06mbps (it would also cost $15,050/mo total 1204GB OR $50 for every 0.07 Mbps)
Just because you paid for more data doesn't mean your data gets a higher priority than anyone elses.
That's something that gets left out of this conversation typically with water or electricity its possible for one user monopolise and use more than 90%.
But with bandwidth it doesn't work that way.
No matter how many users their are each cellular device only gets a fractional amount Its simply not possible for one user to use %90 of the network unless it was not being utilized in the first place (unless of course you have a crap load of bonded modems but if you could afford that I think you could much more easily just had fiber buried and installed several miles out in the desert for the same cost. It would be more reliable anyhow)
Atleast thats how it worked when I was on satellite 17gb/$80/mo usage and just a slow crawl during peak times.
It would really fly around 3 to 5 am even with the unlimited night time usage.
As for consumables like water electric and gas it annoys me when people compla
Sorry I had not checked the maps since march it shows that I am covered with t-mobile 4g lte service now.
My primary phone is a verizon 3g samsung convoy 3.
Because I need my phone to work as a phone and verizon doesn't sell any 4g phones that work as phones.
I live on the border of oklahoma and arkansas.
I also have a 4g samsung galaxy victory through freedompop that uses sprint's service so I have a home phone.
An att 3g ipad 2 and a verizon 4g ipad 4 both on t-mobile's 200mb free for life of tablet plan. Neither is able to pick up t-mobile's 4g service. (although now I know its here I am going to double check that!)
A retired 3g internet on the go ap (sprint) that was replaced with the 4g karma go (also sprint) for backup service.
A verizon 4g 6620L mifi that's my primary when away from work or home.
I shouldn't have relied on t-mobile to contact me when 4g was available like I asked them to 2 years ago.
Still the 2g t-mobile coverage I can pickup on my ipads is much more spotty than the 3g sprint coverage I get on my internet go or the 4g coverage on the karma go.
No devices with att service to test atm however while in alaska a couple years ago in many places the att ipad was the only device with service.
The main reason I currently have no active att service is I am unaware of any inexpensive way to keep att's data service active or I would have one of those on standby too.
It is worth noting that 90% if not all of the gov't issued free phones use sprint and I know people that went back to their previous provider because they couldn't get service out of town with their free phone.
So no your not alone a lot of people won't use sprint even when it is free.
But where I live you have either att or verizon or you only have reliable service in town.
I can't vouch for t-mobile's voice coverage as the last person I knew that used it lived in town and only had it for the cheaper international calls. And that was years ago back before the alltel merger even I think. Most everyone moved to smart phones a while back and since t-mobile had no 3g or 4g they kinda got left out.
Now that I know t-mobile now has 4g service ill ask around and see if anyone's tried it yet.
Thats what happens when you go several years without providing any service.
People leave.
I would have a broadband connection installed at home.
Yeah ill just leave this here as people seem to forget that they do make dual sim adapters for iphones.
http://www.magic-sim.com/categ...
The Karma go uses sprint's 3g and 4g network and offers non expiring data.
Sprint has a bit better coverage than t-mobile imho. (sprint has 4g here t-mobile still 2g only)
This is the best choice for decent coverage with occasional use. But keep in mind they do charge more for the data since it doesn't expire.
Op did not really state how much he used or how much he was willing to pay.
If you need near universal coverage go with verizon or att.
If you need cheap data you have come to the wrong country.
Glad I wasn't the only one to have that problem.
Check out this amazon review of the fire tv version of twitch:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/custo...
There is no search which is odd considering twitch is owned by amazon.
Why cripple your own app? It works fine on the roku and roku Doesn't own twitch.
Please prove me wrong.
Seriously I would like to be able to search twitch on my fire tv.
It has a search function!!! Thats amazing!!!
Twitch has been doing this for years why have they never thought of that??
(Amazon owns Twitch yet fire tv has no search in twitch app)
Comcast turns 50,000 paying customer homes into public hotspots, millions more by the end of the year.
http://www.extremetech.com/com...
Nah must have just been my imagination.
Free to play.
Most games on ios are free to play.
Im going to complain about "The Sims FreePlay"
Its naggy to the point of being unplayable or atleast it was a few years ago when I got my ipad 2.
You can't buy it and there are no real cheats. (other than paying)
You can buy the sims 3 but then the cheats don't actutally work...(thats why it has a 3 star rating)
Most others are like this.
This video best discribes the state of ftp games on ios:
http://youtu.be/dY9D606ANtc
I didn't know until later that was actually part of one of the spyro games I originally thought it was a parody of how free to play games make people feel.
You get so far and then its not possible to continue without paying but like in the video its a wall that goes straight up as that 99 cents gets you nowhere.
It wouldn't be that bad if it was a trial or demo and then one easy payment of $49.95. But its not its 500 easy payments of $5 $1.99 $2.99 $0.99 and if you were to actually pay enough to actually beat the game you would find that you had paid considerably more than $100.
I still happen to have one of the apps (several still installed actually never bothered to delete them) in question on this ipad I looked in for this post and it said "Welcome back! it has been 1204 days and 0 hours since you left".
Tap Store costs
$49.99 for inspiration
and another $49.99 for coins
If i remember correctly that was enough to get you several more levels up but was not enough to max it out. That would require even more purchases.
And then one of the better ftp ios games of a few years ago:
Zombie Gunship
2 mil coins $99 or free with purchace of $25 shirt
Why can't they sell a standalone version and go on? Is $50 per gamer really not enough? They already admit that 99% of free to play players never pay a cent. (I am part of that 99% if Im going to pay for a game I best be able to use it)
The costs are simply prohibitive to anyone that realises what they are going in.
How did this get to be so long? It was much shorter when I clicked preview an hour ago.
On that aspect a lot could be done just by making the laws on the books available online.
They say ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Yet its not very easy for most to even find out what the laws are where they live.
Is it really illegal to hunt whales in oklahoma?
Is it really illegal to drive a motor vehicle on mainstreet of town?
Is there really a federal law forbidding students cellphones in Oklahoma?
Is it legal for me to replace a lightbulb without being a licensed electrician?
Shouldn't I be able to find this out without having to consult a lawyer? It's supposed to be public information anyway why isn't it accessible?
Central Mall Fort Smith Arkansas.
They had a setup about like this: http://youtu.be/ELnMD6RrKMI
Every once in a while someone is setup in a booth in one of the aisles doing that.
Yeah ftp is worthless I hate what it has done to the games and the community
I have to admit I am still hoping that the EFF will win their dmca case https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
I would personally like to be able to play tso again even if only on a empty local server.
I paid for a copy of the client and was a 4 year+ subscriber none of it is usable now.
I although I quit buying the sims 2 expansions and stuff packs after sims 2 seasons in 2007 I couldn't keep up with the cost at the time.
Also
Dear EA I am still willing to pay the $100 I offered you a few years back for sims 2 complete collection. How about that physical copy I asked for?
sincerely sims.
I want to know if it can replace the people in the mall that make the pretty handmade hummingbirds and butterflies.
Now that would be neat to own!
Yeah in practice most smart phones are actually smarter than thou phones.
Most seem to think I want to do everything except make a call.
Although I did hear that next year apple is coming out with an iphone that also works as a phone! [Citation Needed]
Spider silk*
Same but I also want it to have the durability to do that several thousand times.
Also machine washable several thousand times.
Replaceable battery would be good.
Although I assume we will be stuck with a battery made with the finest spider that can not be replaced in the name of aesthetics.
I know many people with severe problems that need dialysis can't make it through a treatment. Will this help with that?
Its still amazing what they have done and if it works it will save a lot of lives but TFA did not mention the stress to the patient.