NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Subject: Re: [IP] "Entry level pricing"
"We can't even use that to do remote work on our computers at work and the
overall thruput is severely limited by the ridiculously low upstream
bandwidth."
Just out of curiosity, what kind of work do you do that requires more than 3
Mbps? I know plenty of offices with 50 people all sharing a single 1.554
Mbps T1 line. Well designed remote productivity applications are designed
to work at 0.028 Mbps modem speeds and you can use Citrix and RDP on
dial-up. I've got 3 Mbps at home and the only thing that's annoying is
trying to download larger video files but it does work. Posting 10 Mbps HD
content onto YouTube so they can encode a good 2.25 Mbps version is much
slower than I like but it does work.
My particular housing complex unfortunately does not have Comcast when it's
available everywhere else across the street because we have a local
Satellite based analog cable company, and U-verse isn't here yet but
hopefully soon.
Is 3 Mbps great? No, it's well below the national average. Is it that bad
that you can't "work remotely"? Only if your work involves HD video content
creation and you need to publish it from home.
George Ou
[ George, your response is notable, in the "best" traditions of Big
Telecom telling customers "what Big Telecom thinks they need" rather
than reacting to what technically-skilled customers are asking for.
If Robert, obviously no slouch at this stuff, says that his firm
is unable to work effectively at those bandwidths, who are you to
tell him "no, you're wrong, you can work just fine!" That sort
of reaction encapsulates so much of what is wrong with Internet
access in the U.S. today.
When I saw your note, I instantly flashed back to a conversation
I had with a telephone company tech rep back in early ARPANET
days. I was discussing our desire to more widely deploy 1200 bps
(Vadic) dialup modems to replace the 300 bps units commonly in
home use. The telco guy couldn't see the point. He claimed we'd
be wasting our money, since "almost nobody can really read as
fast as 1200 baud anyway!"
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
-----Original Message-----
From: nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org
[mailto:nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org] On Behalf Of
Robert J Berger
Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 10:52 PM
To: Declan McCullagh
Cc: Shannon McElyea; nnsquad@nnsquad.org
Subject: [ NNSquad ] Subject: Re: [IP] "Entry level pricing"
That was one of the most bogus and nonsensical responses I've seen in
a long time.
That's like saying, those who live in rural areas should not be
concerned that they don't have electricity.
And Shannon is not talking about being 100's of miles from some metro
area. She's somewhere in the realm of 15 - 20 miles from the heart of
Silicon Valley and just off a major road. I'm less than 10 miles from
the heart of Silicon Valley and only 3 miles from the heart of
Saratoga CA and less than 2 miles to an AT&T U-Verse VRAD or the
Comcast cable plant and have no choice of any high speed Internet.
My company is literally in the heart of Silicon Valley (Mt. View, near
the corner of El Camino Real and San Antonio Rd in the same complex
where Interop had their original offices) and the best Internet
connection we can get is 3Mbps down and 500kbps up DSL. We can't even
use that to do remote work on our computers at work and the overall
thruput is severely limited by the ridiculously low upstream bandwidth.
When I talk to Comcast to see if we could get their service they won't
consider bringing service in for less than $10,000.
If its this bad in Silicon Valley, what is it like 20 miles out of
most third tier cities in the US?
We make sure that there are roads, water and electricity to most
people in the US. High Speed Internet is now a critical element to
economic viability and growth. Why is it considered ok not to have
world class connectivity to most people in the US?
China hasn't stopped building out hight speed internet to their lesser
cities. The US is now behind Lithuania in broadband deployment.
Its because we allowed the CableTelcos to re-monopolize the
fundamentals of electronic communication and to have completely
captured their regulators. Its time for proper divestiture. AT&T aka
SBC, the company that accumulated the capital to buy the other Bells
by not building infrastructure and Comcast who is more interested in
extending their content control by buying NBC than building
infrastructure are obviously not going to fix that.
And we the taxpayers and ratepayers should not be giving these
oligopolies government money based on promises by the oligopolists to
build more networks. That has not worked for all the other billions of
dollars given directly or thru rate changes to the Telcos for similar
promises.
Its time to structurally separate content from transport. Transport,
particularly "First/Last mile" needs to be treated as a "common good"
like roads, sewers and water. Built and operated by municipalities and/
or regulated monopolies. Note this would be just the physical plant,
not the Internet service. Just the rights of way, conduit, utility
poles and dark fiber. It would be the substrate for a vibrant
marketplace of services on top of the physical plant that would be
leased at prices based on 20 - 50 year amortizations in open access.
This is where government bailout money should be going (along with
renewable energy infrastructure, but that's another story). We need to
be building the infrastructure for our future. Not stuffing the
wallets of cronies and corporate campaign contributors.
__________________
Robert J Berger
http://blog.ibd.com
On Oct 2, 2009, at 7:27 PM, nnsquad-request@nnsquad.org wrote:
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>> Date: October 1, 2009 10:29:40 PM EDT
>> To: shannonm@gmail.com
>> Cc: dave@farber.net
>> Subject: Re: [IP] "Entry level pricing"
>>
>> Shannon McElyea <shannonm@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I have hughesnet -- the only carrier to serve where I live. It's
>>> expensive horrible and a threshold of 300 mb per day and if you go
>>> over it throttles to almost nothing for 48 hours!! Try getting any
>>> work done with that.
>>
>> My wife works in Mountain View and takes highway 101 to work -- the
>> only highway to serve where we live. The gas prices are expensive;
>> the
>> commute is horrible and the traffic throttles to almost nothing for
>> 48
>> minutes!! Try getting any work done with that.
>>
>> Nevertheless, we still live in a non-rural part of the SF bay area
>> because the benefits outweigh the costs. It's true that we have much
>> faster Internet connections than you do, but I suspect that you have
>> cleaner air and cheaper acreage.
>>
>> If all you care about is speedy Internet access, there are plenty of
>> new lofts in San Francisco that will be happy to give you 100 MB/sec+
>> rates with no caps for a dollar a day.
>>
>> I know I'm being a little cute, but there are some important issues
>> here: If you live in a low-population-density rural area where your
>> only choice is HughesNet satellite service, should IPers living in
>> high-density Manhattan condos be taxed to subsidize running fiber to
>> the hinterboonies? And maintaining it after storm damage? If it's not
>> economically feasible to wire your house at a profit, who will (or
>> should) subsidize faster service for you? I know you didn't call for
>> such measures, but other IPers have.
>>
>> BTW, it looks like you might be able to upgrade from the "Pro" to the
>> "Elite" plan and boost your cap from 300 MB to 500 MB:
>> http://consumer.hughesnet.com/faq/fair-access-policy.cfm
>>
>> -Declan
>>
>