dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
view:
topics flat nest 
Comments on news posted 2009-12-24 13:41:50: Last week consumer advocacy groups weren't very impressed with their first glimpse of the country's first ever broadband plan -- noting that while it touched on a bevy of uncontroversial subjects (like accessibility assistance), it didn't address the.. ..

iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

1 recommendation

iansltx

Member

I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

Granted, it's not a high number at all, but I'd say that about 95% of everything on the internet can be done perfectly well over a connection that delivers 3 Mbps down and 768 kbps up, with a latency to the nearest major city less than 60ms. For ADSL that means provisioning the link at 3490 kbps down and 894 kbps up, and delivering provisioned speeds 24x7. Granted, these are laughably low numbers for everyone on 20+ Mbit cable connections, but if the above connection was made available to almost everyone in the US (90% or more, maybe 95% or more) at a reasonable price ($50 or less per month either unbundled or with the cost of the minimum bundle included) then everyone AT LEAST would be able to use the internet of today, though more upgrades will be needed to bring things up to par for, say, five years down the road.
MASantangelo
Premium Member
join:2004-07-19
Pittstown, NJ

MASantangelo

Premium Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

3/768 for what? Your average household of 2 adults and 2 children?

What about my college apartment, consisting of 8 college students (including myself). 3/768 is not nearly enough. Cablevision has been supposedly providing us 30/5 (supposedly because, well, at any given moment we get 3/1 due to 'node saturation') and I can tell you: It is NOT enough.

Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08

Premium Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

Its better then dial up right? The transition from dial up to 3/768 would be a miracle for alot of people. It might not make you happy but im sure it will make a household with 2 adults and 2 children happy. Im grateful with my 1 mbps down and 40kbps up. Would I love something faster, You bet your ass I would but atleast im out of that dial up hellhole no one wants to be in.
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by Duramax08:

Its better then dial up right? The transition from dial up to 3/768 would be a miracle for alot of people. It might not make you happy but im sure it will make a household with 2 adults and 2 children happy. Im grateful with my 1 mbps down and 40kbps up. Would I love something faster, You bet your ass I would but atleast im out of that dial up hellhole no one wants to be in.
Look, even your not on dialup. Nobody is. Anyone who really needs web access and is stuck on dialup has gotten wildblue by now. Its slow, but youtube and microsoft updates is somewhat usable now. With a contract, the equipment is basically free. Today's dialup is satellite, 3G and DSL less so.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese

Premium Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by patcat88:

said by Duramax08:

Its better then dial up right? The transition from dial up to 3/768 would be a miracle for alot of people. It might not make you happy but im sure it will make a household with 2 adults and 2 children happy. Im grateful with my 1 mbps down and 40kbps up. Would I love something faster, You bet your ass I would but atleast im out of that dial up hellhole no one wants to be in.
Look, even your not on dialup. Nobody is. Anyone who really needs web access and is stuck on dialup has gotten wildblue by now. Its slow, but youtube and microsoft updates is somewhat usable now. With a contract, the equipment is basically free. Today's dialup is satellite, 3G and DSL less so.
Nobody is on dialup? I am sure those millions still on AOL would beg to differ.
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by Cheese:

Nobody is on dialup? I am sure those millions still on AOL would beg to differ.
Either they subscribe to AOL and don't use the dialup portion anymore, or they don't use the public internet, or the public internet is optional in their life, and they would drop it on a dime for financial reasons if they had to.

Mike
Mod
join:2000-09-17
Pittsburgh, PA

1 recommendation

Mike to Cheese

Mod

to Cheese
I have fios... 3/768 is dial up to me.

yolarry
join:2007-12-29
Creston, WV

yolarry to Cheese

Member

to Cheese
said by Cheese:

Nobody is on dialup? I am sure those millions still on AOL would beg to differ.
and Hughesnet

Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08 to patcat88

Premium Member

to patcat88
I was on dial up for years and didnt want to deal with the crap of satellite internet. Satellite internet (for example) is for people in the sticks miles and miles away from society . Not for people less then a mile away from san antonio city limits.

CaptainRR
Premium Member
join:2006-04-21
Blue Rock, OH

CaptainRR to patcat88

Premium Member

to patcat88
All I have is dialup at my house and no cellular and I can do Microsoft updates and other things on a 19.2k dial connection. I just start the downloads at night and go to bed and when I get up the next morning walla! good to go. Updates finished.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

1 edit

CylonRed to patcat88

MVM

to patcat88
Tell that to my father - he is on dialup and there are MANY more who are.

He has no options and he bought the house he is at many years before broadband was even available.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to patcat88

Member

to patcat88
Have you used satellite? Having used both dialu and satellite there are times when dialup is actually FASTER than sat. Latency is actually less than 200ms with a decent dialup connection...sat is 4-10x that. Also, sat internet starts at $50 per month (WB's $40 promo currently going on doesn't count for much...it'll be gone soon enough and your average cost for the length of the required two-year contract is $45). Your garden-variety DSL/cable services run $30-$40 for a standard tier last I checked.

As for equipment costs, they might be "practically" free (aka $6 per month for 24 months, or $140ish overall) but installation is over $100 most of the time (WB's current special for shipping + installation is $125).

In closing, from my LARGE amount of experience with areas where DSL doesn't reach (thank you very much Verizon...the nearby cooperative may charge $70 for 3M DSL but at least DSL is available pretty much everywhere they have phone service) there are still a surprisingly large number of folks on dialup. Sat internet is a luxury at $50+ per month plus setup fees, whereas dialup is about $10 per month. Guess what grandma gets to check her e-mail? Guess what I downloaded several GB worth of software over until my parents got tired of sharing our phone line with?
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

1 edit

patcat88

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by iansltx:

Have you used satellite?
As of 3 weeks ago I have.
said by iansltx:

Having used both dialu and satellite there are times when dialup is actually FASTER than sat. Latency is actually less than 200ms with a decent dialup connection...sat is 4-10x that.
Latency means nothing when the average website is 200 or 400 KBs. My thread that I am posting in is 164KB, 52KB of HTML. Satellite will be faster than dialup. I would say satellite is a slow 3G connection in its feeling, or about a 3G connection after average cell tower congestion in an urban area.
said by iansltx:

Also, sat internet starts at $50 per month (WB's $40 promo currently going on doesn't count for much...it'll be gone soon enough and your average cost for the length of the required two-year contract is $45). Your garden-variety DSL/cable services run $30-$40 for a standard tier last I checked.
Close enough, unbundled cable internet with some cable cos can go into the 60s or 70s.
said by iansltx:

As for equipment costs, they might be "practically" free (aka $6 per month for 24 months, or $140ish overall) but installation is over $100 most of the time (WB's current special for shipping + installation is $125).
So they give you a mortgage/subsidy cellphone style, its basically under $10 a month amortized.
said by iansltx:

In closing, from my LARGE amount of experience with areas where DSL doesn't reach (thank you very much Verizon...the nearby cooperative may charge $70 for 3M DSL but at least DSL is available pretty much everywhere they have phone service) there are still a surprisingly large number of folks on dialup. Sat internet is a luxury at $50+ per month plus setup fees, whereas dialup is about $10 per month. Guess what grandma gets to check her e-mail?
Shes checking email, not using the WWW. Shes not a browser. Shes the same as a credit card checker or a MUD player or IM user.
said by iansltx:

Guess what I downloaded several GB worth of software over until my parents got tired of sharing our phone line with?
But you apparently have a few spare days to wait for that to finish, if you use the connection while its downloading, extended that download into a week or 2. Some people have jobs, or will be left behind when they can't see a youtube video that was posted to review for a conference tomorrow.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

Heard of TubeGrip? I have to use that to get YT videos to download sometimes over "broadband" connections due to congestion somewhere along the line (possibly at Google's servers).

As far as unbundled cable goes, you can get a basic tier for $20-$35 practically everywhere. Here TWC offers RR Standard for $40, no bundles. DSL from Verizon is $20-$43...if you can get it. So sat internet picks up price-wise where DSL/cable leave of, thus killing adoption.

As far as 3G versus satellite goes, look at any 3G reviewer who has moved from satellite. 99% of the time they'll say there's no comparison; unless you're using an overloaded network (thank you very much AT&T...second-least-predictable 3G network out there behind CricKet) your 3G experience will be miles better than satellite. About 22,000 miles better, to be exact.

As for equipment amortization, you only do that if you're a business. If you're a residential user you see the large setup fee and tend to walk away. Speaking of business users, you're right in saying that they'll go for satellite from dialup before residential users. However not all residential users are business users (far from it) and for many $10 dialup plus a $20 phone line (local only, after taxes and fees) is low enough compared to $50 per month plus that same phone line (you can't do VoIP over sat) that they aren't going to make the switch. Sat internet doesn't do double- or triple-play discounts so people will be paying $40+ more per month for it than dialup, $20+ mmore per month if they had a second phone line for internet only.

Satellite is NOT the new dialup because it's not cheap (I haven't seen a dialup plan anywhere outside of AOL above $22 per month in the last eight years or so) and it's very spendy for the initial equipment, whereas dialup might be $50 for a modem (usually more like $20). If you want to say anything is "the next dialup" it's "lite" DSL in areas that have the service for $10-$20 per month when bundled with a phone line as that service is inexpensive on both setup and monthly charges. However lite DSL isn't available beyond 15-22kfeet from the CO (depending on whether you're talking to AT&T or Windstream).

Lastly, DSLReports is a text-heavy site that has very little in the way of essential content other than the HTML page file itself. That sort of thing (a large stream of data that isn't latency sensitive) is what satellite does fairly well. However a website with multiple page elements will tend to choke more unless optimizations are made, since you get hit with a second or two of latency each time you request a page element. So elements smaller than about 20KB will come down faster over dialup than satellite. Don't get me wrong, I'll take sat any day over dialup when it comes to downloading the newest 30MB game file...as long as doing so won't put me over the transfer cap.

skuv
@rr.com

skuv to patcat88

Anon

to patcat88
said by patcat88:

Look, even your not on dialup. Nobody is. Anyone who really needs web access and is stuck on dialup has gotten wildblue by now. Its slow, but youtube and microsoft updates is somewhat usable now. With a contract, the equipment is basically free. Today's dialup is satellite, 3G and DSL less so.
Are you joking or something? If everyone that had dialup that needed access to the web switched to satellite Internet, sat Internet providers would be some of the biggest providers out there.

They are NOT. Not even close. They aren't even bigger than major dialup providers.

Plenty of people that use the web are on dialup. They just obviously don't use YouTube or Hulu.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to MASantangelo

Member

to MASantangelo
Sounds like you're on 3/1

I'm not saying that 3/768 will do everything you can possibly desire for a ton of people on one connection. But it's a decent "family sized" internet connection as long as your router is smart enough (router, not network) to prioritize surfing and video watching over BitTorrent that Johnny's running in his room.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS to MASantangelo

MVM

to MASantangelo
said by MASantangelo:

What about my college apartment, consisting of 8 college students (including myself). 3/768 is not nearly enough. Cablevision has been supposedly providing us 30/5 (supposedly because, well, at any given moment we get 3/1 due to 'node saturation') and I can tell you: It is NOT enough.
True enough, but ... Split the cost of the Internet 8 ways, each contributor kicking in just $20 a month, and you could probably afford the $160 a month for a 50/5 connection. Would that be enough to sate your desire?

For some of us, though, $160 a month is just too much to bear. Knock it back to $40 a month, or so (I prefer $30 a month, but don't know if that is achievable), and I'll sign up. But no way I'll pay even $80 a month for Internet. I'll just find something else to do.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

Whereas I'd probably eat a $100 per month internet bill if FiOS came to town (I'd buy through DSLExtreme to get the $100 rate). Though I'd probably downgrade to 35/35 when it comes out...different strokes for different folks.

michieru
Premium Member
join:2009-07-25
Denver, CO

michieru to MASantangelo

Premium Member

to MASantangelo
Colleges normally have and pay for hard lines providing internet access to their students in dorms or the college in general.

Also if you have 8 college students more than likely downloading music, uploading videos on youtube, and watching hd movies on a free movie site all at once, then yeah, not even 30/5 will just barely handle that.

Not everyone is a college student, and 3.0/768 serves quite well for a family for web browsing, and just making everything faster in general.

If you eliminate video and music from your web experience, 3.0/768 will be sufficient for keeping your computers up to date and downloading large iso files from linux distros.

Can't wait 5-20 minutes to download an entire operating system? If not, I think you are just a spoiled brat who does not care if he or she puts half the country in more debt, just to run a fiber optic line at a cost of thousands of dollars per househould and further tax burdening the american tax payer.

The fastest line I ever had was a 10/2 from some cable company that me and room mate paid 60 dollars a month for at the time in 2008.

We both never saw the need for 10/2 and I was the one normally downloading stuff such as music off amazon (because itunes blows) and watching comedy shorts from comedy central on youtube. I live in NC right now, but I used to live in Miami, FL.

The only reason I ever saw the need for such capacity was because I ran a FTP server and ran a small business at the time, and even then I was only asking for 3.0/3.0 just because I wanted to save and download files from my FTP server back home and exchanged project data.

3.0/768 is good enough for now, and for 10 years down the road. Until html files are 3-10mb in size, I don't see it becoming a problem anytime soon, enough said.

Mike
Mod
join:2000-09-17
Pittsburgh, PA

Mike

Mod

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

technological advancement: because the hand crank was good enough

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

CylonRed

MVM

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

Technical advancement will go on but the cost to deploy the fastest to those hardest to reach will cost billions more than people seem to think.

Most people (general population) do nto need 20\10 - common sense and common sense that advancement WILL continue (like Internet2). Advancement will not stagnate due to gvt\military\University needs and that will always filter down to the private sector.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese to iansltx

Premium Member

to iansltx
said by iansltx:

Granted, it's not a high number at all, but I'd say that about 95% of everything on the internet can be done perfectly well over a connection that delivers 3 Mbps down and 768 kbps up, with a latency to the nearest major city less than 60ms. For ADSL that means provisioning the link at 3490 kbps down and 894 kbps up, and delivering provisioned speeds 24x7. Granted, these are laughably low numbers for everyone on 20+ Mbit cable connections, but if the above connection was made available to almost everyone in the US (90% or more, maybe 95% or more) at a reasonable price ($50 or less per month either unbundled or with the cost of the minimum bundle included) then everyone AT LEAST would be able to use the internet of today, though more upgrades will be needed to bring things up to par for, say, five years down the road.
No, no it can not handle 95 percent of everything. Maybe 5-10 years ago.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

CylonRed

MVM

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

I would absolutely say the average household can get by just fine with 3\768. I know far too many who are getting by with no issues with 3 down and even 1.5 meg down (like me).
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by CylonRed:

I would absolutely say the average household can get by just fine with 3\768. I know far too many who are getting by with no issues with 3 down and even 1.5 meg down (like me).
That`s probably because they limit their activities to things that actually work on a 3/1.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

1 edit

CylonRed

MVM

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

No - they have no problems and they do not limit. I have yet to find anything I can't do on 1.5 meg. Large downloads can be done over night without issue. Streaming has zero issues as well.

I won't and don;t (and neither do my friends) watch tv or movies online but streaming a TV has (the few times I have done it) has never been an issue. We do not watch movies on the PC - we have TV we do that on and prefer to watch on.

I would bet teh majority of folks in the US would use the internet connection to download files - and for that you do nto need a uber fast 50 meg download.

udontneeddat
@ameritech.net

udontneeddat

Anon

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

IDontUseItSoYouDontNeedIt(TM)
YouDontNeedFasterBandwidth(TM)
AllWebSitesAreUnder500K(TM)
YouDontNeedYouTube(TM)
SlowLinesAretheNewGreen(TM)
ThereAreNoHomesWithMultipleUsers(TM)
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

My apartment complex is shared with about twenty other colege students. Most of them (everyone except myself and, some of the time, my roommates) are sharing a Qwest connection that's about 4.2 Mbps down and 700 kbps up. It's not blazing fast (the university connection next door is as long as you plug into Ethernet) but I'm the only one paying for my own internet connection. I have friends on 7M 9really 6M) Qwest and they're fine too. I personally like my 22/5 Comcast but realize that most people don't use the internet as much as I do, and the only benefits I see with the speed are faster downloads and uploads of large files (I could still do them over a slow connection, but it would take longer). Assumiing Qwest's network wasn't jacked up at the time, Hulu would work fine over their 1.5 Mbps tier.

I can definitely find things to do with a 50-100 Mbps connection, however I've yet to find out what more than 1% of the population needs this connection for, right now. Of that 1%, most people aren't actually on that connection. Some can't get it, some can. Those who can say it's too expensive. Well then, you obviously don't need the connection enough...getting 50 Mbps here would require a dedicated fiber circuit and several thousand dollars per month. if you thought that $100 with cable TV was expensive, think again.

As for all websites not being under 500K, that's absolutely correct. Some websites aren't terribly well-designed or wee made specifically for high-speed connections. However a 1 MB web page can be pulled down in a couple of seconds on a 3 Mbps connection, which is acceptable considering that at that point you're looking more at latency and browser rendering speed than connection speed. At least for now. Anything bigger than 1MB or so and you're dealing with streaming meia or large images, which by default take a fair amount of time to load. Not that you can't set a goal that a 12 megapixel low-compressio JPEG load instantly, but we've got to talk about priorities.

As for YouTube, you can run that on a high-quality 384 connection. I believe HD can be run on a few Mbps, 5 Mbps at most. Probably more like 3 Mbps. If you want to find a bandwidth-hungry site Hulu, YouTube, Vmeo, Crackle etc. won't do it; they're optimized for people's current connections.

As for the multiple users bit, see my first point. Also, right now I'm sitting on a 512k conection. If the quality of the connection itself didn't suck so badly and my router had decent QoS the family would have no problem sharing it around. Hopefully we'll be able to get 1 Mbps Verizon DSL in (fingers crossed) and the problem will go away. Two simultaneous YouTube videos plus some background downloads and everything should be just peachy.
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by iansltx:

My apartment complex is shared with about twenty other colege students. Most of them (everyone except myself and, some of the time, my roommates) are sharing a Qwest connection that's about 4.2 Mbps down and 700 kbps up. It's not blazing fast (the university connection next door is as long as you plug into Ethernet) but I'm the only one paying for my own internet connection. I have friends on 7M 9really 6M) Qwest and they're fine too. I personally like my 22/5 Comcast but realize that most people don't use the internet as much as I do, and the only benefits I see with the speed are faster downloads and uploads of large files (I could still do them over a slow connection, but it would take longer). Assumiing Qwest's network wasn't jacked up at the time, Hulu would work fine over their 1.5 Mbps tier.

I can definitely find things to do with a 50-100 Mbps connection, however I've yet to find out what more than 1% of the population needs this connection for, right now. Of that 1%, most people aren't actually on that connection. Some can't get it, some can. Those who can say it's too expensive. Well then, you obviously don't need the connection enough...getting 50 Mbps here would require a dedicated fiber circuit and several thousand dollars per month. if you thought that $100 with cable TV was expensive, think again.

As for all websites not being under 500K, that's absolutely correct. Some websites aren't terribly well-designed or wee made specifically for high-speed connections. However a 1 MB web page can be pulled down in a couple of seconds on a 3 Mbps connection, which is acceptable considering that at that point you're looking more at latency and browser rendering speed than connection speed. At least for now. Anything bigger than 1MB or so and you're dealing with streaming meia or large images, which by default take a fair amount of time to load. Not that you can't set a goal that a 12 megapixel low-compressio JPEG load instantly, but we've got to talk about priorities.

As for YouTube, you can run that on a high-quality 384 connection. I believe HD can be run on a few Mbps, 5 Mbps at most. Probably more like 3 Mbps. If you want to find a bandwidth-hungry site Hulu, YouTube, Vmeo, Crackle etc. won't do it; they're optimized for people's current connections.

As for the multiple users bit, see my first point. Also, right now I'm sitting on a 512k conection. If the quality of the connection itself didn't suck so badly and my router had decent QoS the family would have no problem sharing it around. Hopefully we'll be able to get 1 Mbps Verizon DSL in (fingers crossed) and the problem will go away. Two simultaneous YouTube videos plus some background downloads and everything should be just peachy.
Your arguments are silly and irrelevant. You`ve basically taken a `race to the bottom` approach.

Regardless of what your personal judgment or opinion of the current situation entails, the history of infrastructure construction has demonstrated that use of that infrastructure only truly becomes a necessity after the infrastructure is already built.

If you build it, they will come. Just because you can`t imagine something now, or perhaps simply refuse to, doesn`t mean we should all lower our expectations to satisfy your view of the world.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by sonicmerlin:

Your arguments are silly and irrelevant. You`ve basically taken a `race to the bottom` approach.
They are neither. Not that I wouldn't mind 100 Mb/s symmetrical. But if you can't profitably deliver it for less than $40 a month, I don't want it.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to sonicmerlin

Member

to sonicmerlin
Ya got me all wrong.

Companies should be able to offer high-quality service and such, including 50 or 100 Mbps symmetric if they feel like it. If I had money to deploy a fiber optic system in my town right now I'd START with TWC's current tiers, up them by a few megabits, make them symmetric and charge the same price as TWC is right now. So 20 Mbps symmetric for $50, 10 Mbps symmetric for $40. I'd probably add 50 Mbps symmetric around $80, and would subscribe to that tier if I were a customer.

However we're talking about a baseline here (or at least I am). Let's get everyone who wants to walk speedwalking before sending a select few to the moon "just because." I'd rather get 3/768 to ten customers who couldn't get it before than 50/50 to a single customer who can currently get 15/2. Don't get me wrong, technology will benefit from higher broadband speeds, but our big issue is getting the speeds we do have out to everyone.

FWIW the average speed of the top country in the world right now, according to speedtest.net, is "only" about 21 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. So if we had percentile-based billing with 30/15 Mbps (down and up) as the fixed speed and heavy customers paying more (and lighter customers paying less) that would actually put us on top of the heap...assuming we could bring that to everyone. Which would cost a dozen or two times what the current broadband plan calls for.

Though with Ubiquiti equipment (yay »ubnt.com) I'm guessing you could push out a 10/2 or so service (maybe even 10 Mbps symmetric) to a lot of places for relatively cheap. You just have to have a decent middle mile. Which we might be getting around here...pretty excited about that...
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

said by iansltx:

Ya got me all wrong.

Companies should be able to offer high-quality service and such, including 50 or 100 Mbps symmetric if they feel like it. If I had money to deploy a fiber optic system in my town right now I'd START with TWC's current tiers, up them by a few megabits, make them symmetric and charge the same price as TWC is right now. So 20 Mbps symmetric for $50, 10 Mbps symmetric for $40. I'd probably add 50 Mbps symmetric around $80, and would subscribe to that tier if I were a customer.

However we're talking about a baseline here (or at least I am). Let's get everyone who wants to walk speedwalking before sending a select few to the moon "just because." I'd rather get 3/768 to ten customers who couldn't get it before than 50/50 to a single customer who can currently get 15/2. Don't get me wrong, technology will benefit from higher broadband speeds, but our big issue is getting the speeds we do have out to everyone.

FWIW the average speed of the top country in the world right now, according to speedtest.net, is "only" about 21 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. So if we had percentile-based billing with 30/15 Mbps (down and up) as the fixed speed and heavy customers paying more (and lighter customers paying less) that would actually put us on top of the heap...assuming we could bring that to everyone. Which would cost a dozen or two times what the current broadband plan calls for.

Though with Ubiquiti equipment (yay »ubnt.com) I'm guessing you could push out a 10/2 or so service (maybe even 10 Mbps symmetric) to a lot of places for relatively cheap. You just have to have a decent middle mile. Which we might be getting around here...pretty excited about that...
The capacity of the internet actually grows approximately according to Moore`s law. We should set a goal to string fiber to 95% of the population in the US. Once the fiber is laid, we won`t have any more significant capital expense issues.

This is our *national broadband plan* and we are the *friggin` United States of America* darn it! We do not let anyone in the world better us.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: I'll beat the 3/768 dead horse

It would on average take maybe $2000-$2500 per house to string fiber to it at this point. Multiply that by the number of houses that don't have fiber yet and you're looking at a LOT of money. A lot of your (and my) tax money. No thanks.

Out of curiosity, what kind of connection are you on now, and what's the fastest connection that you've been on? I've been on everything from dialup to a 100M-port gigabit-to-internet university network and the biggest consumer of bandwidth on-campus is our twelve-rack supercomputer. Second-largest is probably BitTorrent. Third-largest is probably YouTube. Then again we're looking at college students here. They couldn't possibly be showing what everyone will do in the future on the Internet of tomorrow...it's too low-bandwidth and similar to what the ydo today!

Well, seeding a public-tracker torrent of the latest movie in BlueRay-Rip format isn't quite low-bandwidth...
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin to CylonRed

Member

to CylonRed
said by CylonRed:

No - they have no problems and they do not limit. I have yet to find anything I can't do on 1.5 meg. Large downloads can be done over night without issue. Streaming has zero issues as well.

I won't and don;t (and neither do my friends) watch tv or movies online but streaming a TV has (the few times I have done it) has never been an issue. We do not watch movies on the PC - we have TV we do that on and prefer to watch on.

I would bet teh majority of folks in the US would use the internet connection to download files - and for that you do nto need a uber fast 50 meg download.
My God, people are not all the same as you. Their preferences and habits are quite often different.

Waiting `all night` for something to complete deters people from using it. Make something easy and accessible, and the people will come.

Your attitude is incredibly narrow.

•••

skuv
@rr.com

skuv to Cheese

Anon

to Cheese
said by Cheese:

No, no it can not handle 95 percent of everything. Maybe 5-10 years ago.
3m/768k can't do 95% of everything needed on the Internet?

If you believe that, name some things it can't do then.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS to Cheese

MVM

to Cheese
said by Cheese:

No, no it can not handle 95 percent of everything. Maybe 5-10 years ago.
My 3M/512k connection is quite capable of handling 1000% of everything I do on the Internet. Even YouTube and Veoh. I suppose it would be a PITA if I were trying to push streaming video to other people; but I am not.
nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD

nasadude to iansltx

Member

to iansltx
said by iansltx:

.... over a connection that delivers 3 Mbps down and 768 kbps up, ... ($50 or less per month ...
that's a pitiful target. the US used to be the leader in broadband; now we're hoping the govt will develop a plan to give people 20th century speeds at high prices.

in France, you can get a triple play (20Mbps symmetrical, VOIP, TV) for about $40.

other developed countries have similarly high speeds at much lower prices than the U.S.

how far the mighty have fallen.

•••

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Main problem with line sharing - determing wholesale cost

Line sharing always was a problem. And the biggest part of that problem is who determines what the real WHOLESALE cost is to the 3rd parties wanting to use an ISPs lines and how is that value determined.

Obviously, the 3rd parties(aka Clecs when it was just voice access) want regulators to make that value as absolutely low as possible so that they can undercut the market price being offered by the ISP. In other words they want to only pay variable marginal costs for their access.

The ISPs want a fully burdened cost that reflects all costs; including taxes; depreciation of assets; a portion of debt burden; etc.

Regulators would, of course, try to walk some middle ground. Satisfying neither group and resulting in non-stop lobbying by both sides; lawsuits; and court cases. Is it any wonder that the FCC doesn't want to run full speed in to that minefield. They have already seen how that worked with the Ilec/Clec battles over voice access.

•••••

Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08

Premium Member

Is this about competition

or trying to get areas that dont have broadband covered? Why not give broadband to the areas where broadband doesnt exist with atleast 1 ISP since 1 is better then none right? Give it some time. Competition will eventually move in. Cant do everything at once.

pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium Member
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

pnh102

Premium Member

Fools

Did anyone seriously believe that a "public option" for broadband would do anything to improve service?

•••••••••

jester121
Premium Member
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL

jester121

Premium Member

So how does it feel?

The Obama administration has been using the "it isn't very helpful" line for the past year every time one of their proposals/positions came under fire from the opposition; suddenly just because it's broadband this is an unacceptable tactic?

roymustang
Premium Member
join:2002-01-12
Cincinnati, OH

roymustang

Premium Member

Correction

Not a huge deal, but Rick Boucher is a congressman, not a senator.
jdir
join:2001-05-04
Santa Clara, CA

jdir

Member

Mean while...

Someone has to mention - Japan/Korea ISP is offering affordable (ie $20 range) and 100Mbps broadband- so why can't we ?

•••••••
Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL

1 edit

Mr Matt

Member

Tell me which shell the bean is under?

American Citizens are not getting the message. Which government agencies are looking out for citizens? I do not believe that any are. If we look at most economic issues in the United States we find that the corporatist are in control. The corporatist are simply interfering with fair treatment of these issues. Whether it be Health Care, Broadband Service and other services there is no voice representing American Citizens. Government officials are simply tools of the corporatist. The rural voice telecommunication network was created by telephone cooperatives. Unfortunately whenever an effort is made to provide services through the government or public agencies, big business throws a wrench in the works.

In the areas that the Bell System (Pre. 1982 AT&T) did not want to service, the cooperatives with the cooperation of the US Government, constructed the first rural telephone systems. The only way to provide universal broadband service to American Citizens, would be for the government to create the necessary networks.

Gbcue
Premium Member
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA

Gbcue

Premium Member

Public Option

There should be a broadband public option.

The government should pay to lay fiber everywhere and have a minimum of 100/100mbps service to 100% of the lower 48.

••••••••
qworster
join:2001-11-25
Bryn Mawr, PA

1 edit

qworster

Member

Meet the new boss.....

....same as the old boss!

When did "Won't Get Fooled Again" come out? 1972? It seems to me that we've been fooled PLENTY of times in the past 38 years!

....and we continue to be fooled every day!

As long as we remain mouses, nothing will change. If you truly want to make things change, GET PISSED!
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

1 edit

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: Meet the new boss.....

said by qworster:

....same as the old boss!

When did "Won't Get Fooled Again" come out? 1972? It seems to me that we've been fooled PLENTY of times in the past 38 years!

....and we continue to be fooled every day!

As long as we remain mouses, nothing will change. If you truly want to make things change, GET PISSED!
If you truly want change, then elect true Progressive Democrats to office. You can worry about their screwed up vision of human relationships and interactions later. For now the economic sector takes precedence.
m80
join:2000-10-07
Cary, NC

m80

Member

capping speeds

is the equivalent of telling land line telephone customers that they can buy service based on "tiers".....

for x amount, you can hear every 4th word the person on the other end is saying.....for x+ you can hear every 3rd word.....and so forth..

for x+++$$$ you can hear the entire conversation and in real time too!!

OPEN THE PIPE !!! -

thender
Screen tycoon
Premium Member
join:2009-01-01
Brooklyn, NY

thender

Premium Member

The guy in the picture looks like James Woods from Shark.

Click for full size
Indeed.

Zen6
@rr.com

Zen6

Anon

Gifts to unions

Most of the money going to the broadband plan goes back to the unions who supported various members of congress. After looking over where the projects are going, then looking at opensecrets website it all makes sense. Taxpayer money being used to support more union jobs, and in some areas competing with private companies.
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

1 recommendation

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: Gifts to unions

said by Zen6 :

Most of the money going to the broadband plan goes back to the unions who supported various members of congress. After looking over where the projects are going, then looking at opensecrets website it all makes sense. Taxpayer money being used to support more union jobs, and in some areas competing with private companies.
What the devil are you talking about? You just twisted reality to support your screwed up view of life.
Expand your moderator at work
shark27
join:2008-12-01
Elyria, OH

shark27

Member

Cable BB

I got lucky- Turbo RR has run 25/Mbps consistently from various test sites on my i920, 6Gb Corsair, Nvidia GTX 275 1.8Gb,etc. Paying $30 w/ HD TV pack. Got over 18/Mbps w/ my Bro's E5300 dual-core (just bought new w/no mods). That really impressed me for his $450 Asus.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA

NormanS

MVM

Don't Criticize our ...

Godvernment!
cswann1
join:2009-12-28
Hutto, TX

1 edit

cswann1

Member

Thanks for the article Karl but...

The greatest country in the world, unfortunately, is suffering from a disease.

The United States has such a horrendous infection of corporate greed that we can discuss and debate these and other (health-care) problems until the rapture, but it won't make a bit of difference.

As long as we keep electing government leaders who will "play ball" and make sure that the interests of big business are given the highest priority, us working-joe-consumers are going to suffer. It sounds like Mr. Levin is just another ball-player in the greed machine. I'm sure he has profited handsomely for his hard work on behalf of the telcom industry.