Knowing how evil telcos can be, I'm legitimely surprised they didn't exploited this crisis and their virtual monopolies to squeeze more money from customers.
Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
91–100 of 132 posts
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#92If the current strategy of making telecommuting the default takes hold post corvid-19 the governments of the industrialized world is going to be forced to treat internet the same way it treats other core infrastructure like roads or railways which means that nationalization will happen if the industry fail to deliver high speed and low prices to the undeserved rural areas.
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#93If the current strategy of making telecommuting the default takes hold post corvid-19 the governments of the industrialized world is going to be forced to treat internet the same way it treats other core infrastructure like roads or railways which means that nationalization will happen if the industry fail to deliver high speed and low prices to the undeserved rural areas.
There is hope that now politicians will face real pressure from their voters to get Internet regulated as utilities and to properly fund its build-out.
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#94Knowing how evil telcos can be, I'm legitimely surprised they didn't exploited this crisis and their virtual monopolies to squeeze more money from customers.
I was surprised to hear from a struggling mother of two that Charter of all companies was offering free 60 days of Internet. That should let her kids keep up with online school.
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
In first world countries it is. In Poland since 2009: http://www.prepaid-wireless-internet-access.com/page/Poland+...
Not universally. In Germany, there is only a federal decree guaranteeing 56kbit/s modem speed, and this is not a human right but merely an obligation to the state telco.
In Poland Aero won its licence on preferential terms with obligation to provide free mobile internet for everyone who wants it.
It is limited and many people will rather choose commercial providers (faster, more flexible plans) but it is working and is free.
PS. Germany has toll-free highways, Polish are quite expensive..
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#96If you live in a condo, what about sharing your internet on the guest WIFI network? Does it make sense? Will people misuse it? (It probably violates TOS, I guess.)
Not sure about any TOS but I’ve been sharing my WiFi for more than 10 years now. I live in an appartment block in an Eastern European capital.
I guess it depends. At least in my contract for connectivity is a clause then I cannot share the connection with people not living in the same household. I would imagine it is fairly common.
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#97Here in Australia, a few responsible providers like Aussie Broadband have already announced unmetered data usage and temporarily stopping all service suspensions. https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/blog/aussie-broadband-ann... Edit: The real test though will be the bandwidth of our gov-sponsored, substandard, widely FTTN (instead of full FTTP).
As a kiwi it blows my mind how bad your broadband is over there. My cousin recently moved to some rural Aussie town and will be getting 25 megabit, tops. Here in NZ we're rolling out 4 gigabit connections nationwide over the next 6 months. EDIT: props for getting rid of limits and disconnects though. NZ providers are just saying we'll be able to cope with everyone working from home because we have a fancy network.
25mbs is bad?! Lol I would KILL for that -- here in small-town Canada I'm still on DSL that tops out at 12mbs. My dad who's on a farm gets six through a point to point connection that he pays an arm and a leg for -- although he's shortly getting an LTE connection at 25.
Last week they started laying cable down my street, so it seems pretty soon I'll be able to join the modern world.
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would expect rationing of the available bandwidth to become more important, not less, as the entire population is stuck at home using it all day.
Reality is that peak usage (at least in Canada) is in the evening hours. Impact from WFH during office hours will just use excess daytime capacity. WFH (RDP/Webex/VPN) uses much less bandwidth than streaming Netflix. But the kids being at home might make a big difference.
What is more important is that WFH traffic is far more balanced in it's up/down ratio and hence is likely to have neutral pearing costs if it leaves the ISP's network at all.
Not to mention that most of the people now moving to home office will be spending their time working in relatively low bandwidth applications not sitting video conferences.
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a kiwi it blows my mind how bad your broadband is over there. My cousin recently moved to some rural Aussie town and will be getting 25 megabit, tops. Here in NZ we're rolling out 4 gigabit connections nationwide over the next 6 months. EDIT: props for getting rid of limits and disconnects though. NZ providers are just saying we'll be able to cope with everyone working from home because we have a fancy network.
25mbs is bad?! Lol I would KILL for that -- here in small-town Canada I'm still on DSL that tops out at 12mbs. My dad who's on a farm gets six through a point to point connection that he pays an arm and a leg for -- although he's shortly getting an LTE connection at 25. Last week they started laying cable down my street, so it seems pretty soon I'll be able to join the modern world.
Also in Canada here, albeit the big-city part - our telecommunications sector is uniquely bad in terms of bandwidth / service for value and consumer choice.
We have organizations like Internet Society Canada (https://internetsociety.ca/) that are aiming to help change that, but it's an uphill battle.
Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections
#100If the current strategy of making telecommuting the default takes hold post corvid-19 the governments of the industrialized world is going to be forced to treat internet the same way it treats other core infrastructure like roads or railways which means that nationalization will happen if the industry fail to deliver high speed and low prices to the undeserved rural areas.
I'm sure it was probably a typo, but I just want to point out it's COVID-19, not CORVID-19. Don't want anyone mistakenly thinking this is related to birds of the crow family.