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The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

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Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#101

Post by zw123456 »

zw123456 wrote: post #63
warfangle wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if an automatic peering arrangement could be built on top of a mesh infrastructure, to give incentive for running more robust nodes (not just for in-network traffic, but for uplink to the internet at large).

Interesting. I was thinking about some of the open source implementations of LTE that have been posted here but maybe the wifi mesh approach needs tweaking. Also, from a business perspective, I think it would be cool if there was a way to make it sort of like a "co-op" so people who host hot spots or base stations would get some profit sharing or something?

Very interesting, that is exactly what I was thinking about. I guess something like that would some how have to reach a critical mass.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#102

Post by dangrossman »

alayne wrote: post #90
wtallis wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a technological problem. The technological barriers have been taken care of. Google Fiber exists and is awesome and affordable. The reasons we don't all have Google Fiber level of service are political: regulatory capture, monopolies and oligopolies, conflicts of interest, etc.

It's only not a tech problem if every service has Google levels of server capacity and performance. Websites still regularly fall over when posted on aggregation sites.

They fall over because they're misconfigured (namely, default Apache config on a $5 VPS; works fine at low traffic, but throw some more at it and Apache spawns more processes than you have RAM, starving the DB and OS filesystem cache, then swapping to death), not because websites are bandwidth-limited.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#103

Post by pionar »

pionar wrote: post #55
michaelochurch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an American. There are some ways in which I like living here. Would I come here if I were a Swede? Hell no, except for a $300k+ job in banking or the Valley, and only then knowing that I could get on a plane and leave if I got sick. (You can get 100-200k in the EU; at the 300k level, the jobs start getting rarer in the EU relative to the US, which is why Wall Street gets a surprising amount of French, German, and…

I don't get all the apologies in this thread. The US is a great country! Has its warts, but I've lived in Europe, and I've been to Australia, and I wouldn't live anywhere else. It's the maverick, can-do entrepreneurial spirit that's more prevalent among Americans and the rich cultural diversity that comes with being a melting pot that I love about this country. Outside of a few bad spots in a few cities, it's one of…

I'm replying to digisign -

I would argue that it's the media that's stirring that anger up and the fact that partisan hacks turn every small thing into an OUTRAGE more than everything truly being outrageous.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#104

Post by Istof »

brownbat wrote: post #76

It took fierce competition to even get broadband companies to advertise what they are offering. I had to deal with a very small local monopoly in Western Maryland that just advertised "faster than dial up," had typical pings of over 200. It was thick on the local board, had a deal with local government as the sole authorized supplier in the county. Now I'm in a different part of the country, can get FiOS, but while V…

I pay $15/month for 3Mbps download but I have to switch company every year to keep this rate (ATT->Comcast->ATT->Comcast->etc...). This special price if often fairly difficult to find on their website. Also, I can play Youtube 720p.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#105

Post by projct »

mikeash wrote: post #35
robzyb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that a significant majority of the United States' healthcare system is lacklustre. I understand that a significant majority of the United States' only offer limited annual leave (compared to Australia's 4 weeks). I understand that a significant majority of the United States' suffers from an extremely high murder rate for a 1st world country. This is a sample of why I don't want to live in the US, even th…

The health care system is fine if you can afford it. The main problem with American health care is financial, and if you have good insurance (which should come with any good job) it's fine. Not great, but on par with the rest of the first world. Limited annual leave depends on the job. If you're in software engineering or similar, you're unlikely to have a problem. If you get offered a job that doesn't offer the annu…

Are they not really correct? I have (in the past) looked into all three of the things you rebutted and I'm not so sure the evidence agrees with you.

It seems to me that the murder rate really is high for being a first-world country that isn't on the brink of collapse or recovering from it.

Lowest number is for places with less than 10,000 inhabitants (roughly, read the details that go with the source to know what this means.) For that we see a murder rate of 2.7 per 100,000.[1]

Countries in Europe that are higher than this: 4.9 - Belarus, 2009 8.6 - Moldova, 2011 9.7 - Russian Federation, 2011 (down from 18.9 in 2004) 4.3 - Ukraine, 2010 4.8 - Estonia, 2011 19.2 - Greenland, 2009 (this fluctuates wildly, 3.5 in 2007) 6.4 - Lithuania, 2011 4.4 - Albania, 2011 3.6 - Montenegro, 2011

Meanwhile the entire rest of Europe (44 other countries) is below that, and I picked the lowest rate of a reasonably-sized group out of the ones listed (26 million people.)

And it only goes up from there, in terms of murder rate - as high as 12.1 in some of the other groups. Also, this is not the only source and there are better analyses than mine out there that do a much better job of correcting for various things.

Similar data exists for healthcare, and I'd be happy to cite sources - our healthcare isn't great even when you can afford it.

[1] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/c... [2] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/c...

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#106

Post by alayne »

dangrossman wrote: post #102
alayne wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only not a tech problem if every service has Google levels of server capacity and performance. Websites still regularly fall over when posted on aggregation sites.

They fall over because they're misconfigured (namely, default Apache config on a $5 VPS; works fine at low traffic, but throw some more at it and Apache spawns more processes than you have RAM, starving the DB and OS filesystem cache, then swapping to death), not because websites are bandwidth-limited.

I'm not just talking about simple static websites. Please, let's not pretend that upgrading everyone to fiber will be sufficient. You know better than that.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#107

Post by superuser »

baddox wrote: post #3

Just remember to resist the urge to think of this as corporations stealing money from the government. This is government stealing money from citizens.

Yes. Less government, more free market. The government should be fighting anti-competitive behavior not granting monopolies. There is no reason for a government sanctioned monopoly in ANY market...it's just a breeding ground for corruption.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#108

Post by dangrossman »

alayne wrote: post #106
dangrossman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They fall over because they're misconfigured (namely, default Apache config on a $5 VPS; works fine at low traffic, but throw some more at it and Apache spawns more processes than you have RAM, starving the DB and OS filesystem cache, then swapping to death), not because websites are bandwidth-limited.

I'm not just talking about simple static websites. Please, let's not pretend that upgrading everyone to fiber will be sufficient. You know better than that.

I don't know what systemic tech problem you think exists for web hosts. There's no lack of bandwidth on their side of the internet -- heck, if you excluded Netflix and YouTube, over 60% of last mile capacity in the country would be completely unused during peak hours. Those few sites, like video streaming services, that are bandwidth-limited also tie their revenue to consumption -- more bandwidth on the consumer end just widens their potential customer base.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#109

Post by sachingulaya »

fragsworth wrote: post #51
andyl wrote: post #16

My broadband service is terrible. Far to expensive, it is slow and drops packets. And the competitive environment sucks. Comcast and Regulators: go to hell. I'll vote for any politician who is interested in improving the situation.

> My broadband service is terrible My business gets 10mbps down, 2mbps up, for $90/month in Los Angeles. It also goes down frequently (5-6 times a year). I think the next best upload rate (5mbps) was $400/month or so with some bullshit "enterprise" plan. It takes way too long to do simple file transfers from my office to a remote machine. I fucking hate it and our culture of monopolies can go to hell.

I have Comcast at my business in Los Angeles. It's $65/mo for what I measure at 50mbps down and 10mbps up.

When I tried the small, local cable ISP they were offering me 10/2 for 200 per month.

There's definitely no rhyme or reason to it.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#110

Post by jodrellblank »

mikeash wrote: post #37
michaelochurch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might have experienced our healthcare. Even if he had insurance, our system is a clusterfuck that makes everyone worse upon contact. Or, he might be older than 30 and therefore not willing to deal with the puny two-week vacation allotment that is still socially acceptable from US employers. Or, he might have children who will have to be educated someday, and see that a system that combines astronomical tuition plu…

Are you seriously saying that life in the US is terrible if you're a woman? Do I understand that correctly? Has HN really reached that level of boneheadedness?

No, he's apologising for using 'he' all over his comment.
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