Re: [PLUG] DSL providers (was: Install)

[gabriel rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net>]

On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 02:05:32PM -0400, k hill wrote:
> Covad has a nice backbone, even if they die their new owners are likely
> to make good use of it. The equipment I have seen in the COs is
> versatile, it almost seemed as they were preparing to implode.

No argument there. (And as I Covad subscriber--by way of Speakeasy--
I'm none too interested in seeing them die.)

This month's Wired (that is, 9.05) has several interesting articles
on the topic of broadband and where it's going and why it's not. A
valid point brought up a few times there is that as more and more
people get broadband access, it'll be less and less able to keep up
anyway. All we're doing is moving the traffic jam off each
individual's phone line and onto the backbone, which isn't really
solving much, and the baby Bells are in no kind of hurry to upgrade
their systems, which is what we *really* need to get decent speed
out of home network connections.

No matter how prepared Covad is, they still have to deal with
whoever owns the copper one one side and whatever backbone providers
they can touch with for a reasonable price. There is more and more
fiber going in, but it's definitely not enough yet (largely because
it's ridiculously expensive).

My work place two summers ago went the fixed wireless route (wish I
could remember the name of the company... they were local to St.
Louis at the time). They came and mounted a low frequency microwave
antenna on top of the building the office was in, and the service
was great (almost never affected by the weather, though I had the
feeling that electrical storms got in the way, whether or not they
actually came near our building--just getting the disturbance in the
atmosphere between our antenna and the provider's was enough).
That's no good for residential service, though, as it needs to be
line of sight. (It is good for upscale apartments that provide
service to all of their tennants, I guess, but most of those landlords
go with an underground T1 line anyhow.)

> Agreed, if you can't use standard connections to the potential they
> present, what is broadband, with it's heftier price tag, going to do for
> you?

Yeah, well, at the same time, being able to ssh to the various
machines I maintain with basically no noticeable latency over what
would have been there even if I were sitting on an OC3 (that is,
it's because of an upstream provider) is pretty nice. 

But that's definitely *not* general public appeal.

> Call me a nostalgic fool, but less media makes me happy. I guess movies
> would be nice, but I think they are going to hit the same brick wall
> broadband did. How many consumers have a system that would make it
> comporable to the new nifty DVD and HDTV they just bought?

I suppose, but when I'm just sitting around in front of the computer
answering personal email, it'd be kind of nice to have the white
noise and vision of crappy WB programming going on. Not so much
something I really need to pay attention to, but just something to
stop thinking for a bit. (Of course, I used to do this in front of
the real TV, but that was before the backlight in my laptop died.
Which reminds me: anybody got a spare screen for a Thinkpad 760 XL?)

       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net


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