61–70 of 90 posts
They have Android smartphones... I'm very much wondering how this service will ever be able to work between the plentiful applications, including third-browsers (plus Flash support on 2.2). I imagine that the power user, at least, will have no trouble getting around it; the block won't be total either way.
Blocking sites because they're "not on the service plan" is likely to be much more acceptable in western countries than explicit censorship, as in Iran or China. It's authoritarianism dressed up as commercialism. In the post-Wikileaks era my bet is that governments will either encourage, or at least not do anything to hinder, the erection of walled gardens which make it more difficult for the average internet user to…
Oh come on, do you really think that governments are so shook up over WikiLeaks that they might encourage ISPs to turn the internet into a series of walled gardens? For that matter, do you really think that they're that evil? Obviously they're not happy about WikiLeaks, and I'm not saying that governments or ISPs are perfect, but some perspective is badly needed here. What you've written screams hyperbole and is veer…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ssh and vpn charges will predictably be outrageous and seriously curtail the popularity of darknets. Similarly with any alternatives that are centralized by service or protocol. It'd be an awfully tall technological order to create a distributed Tor-style traffic relay to the darknets. Or are you suggesting pirate wireless carriers? That said, if such a too-difficult-to-effectively-filter Tor-style relay came int…
http://www.i2p2.de/ If they start banning the protocol from routers, we can tunnel it through other protocols. You can push anything you want through an HTTPS link. Good luck banning that protocol. Or we can do the wireless-mesh thing. There are a lot of people working on mesh-based peer to peer routing layers and DNS. Wish I could remember what the projects were called...
Mobile YouTube? Fine. Mobile Facebook? Great. If it's a walled garden, call it that and discount it accordingly. But once you have "Internet" and "more Internet," something's gone terribly wrong.
It seems to me that lowering phone prices[0] -- making subsidies, and thus long-term contracts, uninteresting to consumers -- and LTE compatibility across networks will create a more competitive market, lowering prices and forcing these tactics out the door. Obviously, the carriers will do everything in their power to prevent the commoditization of their networks but am I crazy in thinking that's at least a path we a…
I doubt it; irrational consumers will still choose "free with contract" instead of $100.
LTE compatibility across networks
I doubt this too due to frequency incompatibility.
Blocking sites because they're "not on the service plan" is likely to be much more acceptable in western countries than explicit censorship, as in Iran or China. It's authoritarianism dressed up as commercialism. In the post-Wikileaks era my bet is that governments will either encourage, or at least not do anything to hinder, the erection of walled gardens which make it more difficult for the average internet user to…
Oh come on, do you really think that governments are so shook up over WikiLeaks that they might encourage ISPs to turn the internet into a series of walled gardens? For that matter, do you really think that they're that evil? Obviously they're not happy about WikiLeaks, and I'm not saying that governments or ISPs are perfect, but some perspective is badly needed here. What you've written screams hyperbole and is veer…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Population density of Germany is 229 persons per km/sq. In the US it's 32. It's a lot more expensive to run the infrastructure for a country 27 times the geographic area and 1/7th the density.
Finland has a population density of 17/km^2. From a campaign, I can right now get unrestricted data at 384kbps for 3€/month, or "as much as the connection can handle", up to 14,4Mbps, typically 4Mbps, for 14€/month. Lower population density actually helps wireless internet -- the cost is mainly not about the transmission equipment, it's about the very limited amount of total over-air bandwidth.
I really wouldn't mind this at all if it weren't being sold as Internet access. Mobile YouTube? Fine. Mobile Facebook? Great. If it's a walled garden, call it that and discount it accordingly. But once you have "Internet" and "more Internet," something's gone terribly wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Population density of Germany is 229 persons per km/sq. In the US it's 32. It's a lot more expensive to run the infrastructure for a country 27 times the geographic area and 1/7th the density.
Then explain why there's no EU-comparable regional service in areas of the US with far greater density, like any of the top ten metro areas. Even the cell carriers have large roaming-only gaps and dead zones, not just in the unpopulated western US, but on major freeways in California. Using national population density to explain the extraordinary relative suckage of US broadband is a straw man argument.
Because nobody wants regional service? There used to be regional service that was cheaper--I remember my parents signed up for it when they first got cellphones, around 2003--but it lost out in the marketplace, because people would cross a state line and be shocked by the roaming fees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ssh and vpn charges will predictably be outrageous and seriously curtail the popularity of darknets. Similarly with any alternatives that are centralized by service or protocol. It'd be an awfully tall technological order to create a distributed Tor-style traffic relay to the darknets. Or are you suggesting pirate wireless carriers? That said, if such a too-difficult-to-effectively-filter Tor-style relay came int…
http://www.i2p2.de/ If they start banning the protocol from routers, we can tunnel it through other protocols. You can push anything you want through an HTTPS link. Good luck banning that protocol. Or we can do the wireless-mesh thing. There are a lot of people working on mesh-based peer to peer routing layers and DNS. Wish I could remember what the projects were called...
[1] It's a rather romanticized attachment, that originally hinged on people one-day realizing that having all your data primarily on other people's computers probably isn't a great idea.
[2] Though that, too, triggers appealingly romanticized notions of 'place', 'dialect' and 'local culture'. Which is to say: it would all make for great cyberpunk fiction atmosphere; I'm just pretty sure it'd still suck compared to the current state of affairs.