Well my question to this is, is the bandwidth actually as advertised at all hours of the day and do they guarantee it will be available at that rate at all times in the future under the terms of the agreement?

For instance, Time Warner in my area was consistently fast at all hours of the day when I first got it....much better than the DSL I had prior. And it slowly got a little slower...a few more outages a year...more "massive outages"... plus other problems unrelated to speed like them cutting off my net connection because they can't read a street address properly so they killed my net access when they installed my neighbors "business class"...that took me 2 days of calling to straighten out and total of 5 days to fix.

So the conclusion I can draw there is, his business class plus the other subscribers signing up in my loop drastically affected my bandwidth. Yet they claim higher bandwidth offerings with "Roadrunner Boost"...and I've got that...it's almost as fast as my connection was back when I first got it maybe a little better late at night.

So their claim of higher speeds is technically true, only because they've gotten slower. And the minimum speed they offer is pretty appalling although I don't remember it off the top of my head...I think it was like 125 or 250 kbps down.

Killing off non-digital television was supposed to give more bandwidth on the line for better internet speeds and better digital programming, except you have to pay for both...and the internet speeds aren't guaranteed until you step into business class. And for them to guarantee those speeds on a loop they would have to throttle residential users on the same loop.


I am not aware of DSL being improved upon. I know they offer the Fios and what not offerings through some of the phone companies, but they are not offering in this area. And you have to research them to see if they have hidden download caps or other nasty little things in the works to stick on their network to create artificial speed bumps to their own offerings.

Beyond that you'll have to direct to me to the information you speak of.

As for cell phones, I don't use data plans on them, but my parents have a property that has cell towers located on them...and I've been able to catch a couple of the guys and ask them some questions. Even without asking them...there's a screwed up little story related to these towers.

About 10 years back they got hot and heavy about putting in towers, for 3-5 years they were renting lots of land off people and installing these towers. My dad did some work for them paving the roadways, got to know one of the head guys in charge of the project. And while my information is not going to be perfect I know a few things affected their installation and their coverage.

Many of the cities and burbs wouldn't allow them to install towers that would be consider eyesores, in some cases they decorated the towers or put something on them to mask them being a tower...maybe the city name or some kind of design. Many of the "perfect" spots for towers people would not rent the land, so they had to pick imperfect places as close as they could get. So this led to problems with the coverage areas and causes some towers to bear more burden than they should, which Im taking a stab here and saying this really affects big cities network speeds. Within the last 3 years they upgraded the tower on my parents property by installing fiber landlines to the towers, presumably to speed up their network and alleviate some of the congestion.....however....the tower on the property has 2 "boxes" (equipment rooms with racks of network gear and the like) it feeds signals into...and I believe each ring or triangle of receivers transmitters is another cell phone companies signal range...so it services at least 3 networks. Meaning all 3 of those networks shares that one fiber line they installed to the tower unless they have multiple lines in the cable to be split, not very familiar with fiber cable.

Now the weird thing here is...Verizon did the majority of the tower installs I'm familiar with..as soon as they finished all of the towers were taken over by a company called "American Tower". They service the towers, you call them when you see a problem... I called them once about their air conditioner unit running all the time (it has 2 and one was running morning noon and night every time I got close enough to hear it). Two or three months later I thought I'd check to see if they fixed it, I could hear it running as I approached it...and when I got to where I could see it..it was frozen solid. This was in the Fall a year or two back, like 50 degrees or so outside with Winter coming. So they obviously don't pay very close attention to their equipment. AC failing in the summer means their shit cooks, and engineer said stuff in there is easily 100 grand worth of equipment.

So what I gather is, Verizon sold the towers, and rents from them....and now the other carriers rent from them. American Tower is in charge of maintaining the property and the building, but probably not the equipment since I see the various company engineers show up from time to time. They also provide power generators, there's a diesel powered unit that sits near these buildings and turns on from time to time.

I was also told the height of a tower limits it's usefulness. The tall towers can host more companies various signals versus the short towers. So For some reason they put in a bunch of short towers but they have limited utility and are just as ugly as the tall ones...so I dunno why in the hell they did that.


But for them to offer less congestion and higher speeds in high population areas they need more towers so they can break the area up in smaller coverage areas to limit the number of devices hitting any one tower. I have not see them put in a new tower since American Tower took over. I have seen them remove tower locations, probably due to cost of operation/replacement being high due to people hitting them with vehicles or breaking in.

In my opinion, cell phone pricing is a little better than it was but I am not happy with how Verizon handles their plans. For instance, if you want just a voice plan..no data no text. Your phone selection is terrible, I mean basic basic phones...most generally being flip phones with poor external screens and OK internal screens. If you want a better phone, you have to buy a text or data plan. Because if you buy specific types of phones, Verizon assumes you will be using that phone for what they specify that phone is. Take the EnV line of phones, I hate texting, but I like having the keyboard for typing in contacts and just general moderate to heavy usage it's easier to use than a flip phone keying in alternative. If I wanted that phone, I need a texting plan. If you get into smart phones you need a data plan...you can't activate one on your account without the plan. I don't know if the phones need the data plan to even function or not, but texting phones don't need texting plans to function...that's Verizon's plan offerings to maximize their earnings.

And texting in general is cheaper to the phone company than any voice call will ever be. Except texting is almost universally in ADDITION to voice packages....yet texting costs them very little in transfer costs compared to transmitting voice.

I hope some company out there is actually trying to implement new technologies and improve transfer speeds and push down prices. But if they are, they are taking their sweet time doing so...because if it was a big push...the other companies would have to react to that. Right now the only thing I see them all doing is trying to push through contract changes, shutting down government implement ISPs, and influencing laws that help keep us in the stone age.


>> ^deathcow:

> Everything except their networks seems to increase in size and capability, which is an odd thing.
All the ISP's I'm aware of have RADICALLY increased bandwidth and package offerings. It's called survival.

As far as I know, this only affects certain ISP's, specifically DSL ones. Bell is one of the ones being hit with it, Other companies like Rogers who give internet through cable are going to remain the same.

Cable is supposedly going to be targeted next, but I'm not sure the entire specifics.

Personally I'm with rogers and have a 90gb/mo cap and that's reasonable. The only time I've ever maxed it out was when I built my own PC and re-downloaded all my steam games in the same month, but a 25Gb cap/mo is ridiculous.

Some of the supposed driving factors behind this are that "If you're downloading movies or games, then you're saving money from not buying gas because you're not going to the movie store, etc." Which in itself is also complete BS.

The only thing I slightly agree with is the fact that people are canceling their cable t.v. because why pay for something you can see free online?

Hopefully this entire thing is short lived.

had to turn hd off to play. I'm on a dsl

All those ads that say "high speed internet available" without giving any specifics are annoying. They could convey more in fewer characters by saying "Cable/DSL available" or "FIOS available". Some of them call <1M DSL "high speed internet" -- 1997 called and they want their outdated definitions back.

Considering how much it adds to the property value it would be idiotic to construct any new MDU without wiring for fiber or gigabit ethernet. One 150/35 fiber connection to the building shared between a dozen units via gigabit ethernet would be way faster than DSL or cable, and cheaper per person. (<$20/month)
So maybe I'll investigate recently-built buildings first.

She has large breasts and DSL's. It's near impossible for a woman to overcome the systematic conditioning that are the result of the male gender's response to those two simple things.

Tech                                                     Accomplished By
book scans                                          Google books
civilian gps                                           various
fax from beach                                     wifi + web pdf->fax services (but who would want to?)
Electronic Toll Collection                       fasttrack,EZ-pass etc
ticket kiosk                                           various
vid-phone                                             i-chat, etc (and the near extinction of public phones)
voice lock                                             not common
med card                                              taiwan, etc
vid-confence                                         i-chat, etc
movie on demand                                Tivo,Comcast,Hulu, etc
interactive online class                        Many Universities, MIT Open Courseware, etc

Unless they mean "we can sell you the DSL connection you will need for all of this" then, they clearly failed to deliver.

DSLs.

this is old school , I'm so old Matrix 1 is starting to look old.

First time i sore this clip was when i first had DSL

Well... I hate:

Willful ignorance
People that fuck up their own language (were/where, pluralizing with 's, needless use of the quotation mark, insure/ensure, they're/there, too/to, do/due) - yes I've seem them all.
Stupid drivers
Asshole drivers
Not being able to turn right on red
Being forced to pay $45/mo for a 1.5 Meg DSL connection because that's all there is
Popcorn flavored Jelly-Bellies
Celebrities
People that spend rediculous amounts of money on clothing like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and the like. $60 for cheap flimsy sunglases? Seriously? $120 for jeans? WTF!? a $600 fucking purse!?
Bad parents
Ill-behaved kids
Screaming kids
Crying kids
My gut
The chow hall here
Banana pudding
My barracks room (the AC is broken and I live in North Carolina)
Sweating my ass off
The end of a really good book/video game
Inconsiderate people
Cigarettes
People that use a right blinker to turn left (saw it this morning)
Having to piss in the middle of the night
Shitty roommates
"Pimped out" Civics
Fart can "mufflers"
Guys with white sunglasses
Guys with pants tighter than my girlfriend's (shudder)


And much much more.

If they have their machines spread out enough that their customers have < 50ms round trips through the net ,then I don't see a problem. As long as they have graphics cards which can generate the HD data stream in the GPU and send it to some form of super fast (single digit ms turn around) digital video routing system the video lag should not be a problem. I have seen lag comparisons between CRT and LCD, and it is a hell of a lot more than 50ms.

I don't have a 5Mbps connection, so I don't really know how big their potential customer base is, as it is I could not even get 480i from their service with my DSL.

Paying for more then 1Mbps seems to me to just be subsidizing services like this. If I was inclined to use half a dozen or more such services then it might make sense, but as it stands I don't see paying $50 more per month just to have the option to pay for a service like this, that kind of money can buy me games and consoles pretty quickly.

The thing is, to get 50 megabits in Japan costs the equivalent of only $30 a month.

$30 a month in DSL from my provider (a middleman provider between Verizon and I that charges maybe $5 a month extra for unlimited bandwidth + more) gives you a 1 megabit connection!

$25 a month for a 1 megabit connection is bullshit. It's utter garbage.

I live in a city in California between Santa Barbara and LA where Verizon and Time Warner Cable have both rolled out fiber. But the cost for FIOS is ridiculous, and gets you only 5 megabits to start.

TWC offers a 10 megabit line for $40-some a month, but is interested in metered bandwidth. That's unacceptable, and I refuse to support it.

The low end broadband speeds haven't changed in 10 years or so. There shouldn't even be a .766 megabit option available at all.

I understand that there's an infrastructure problem with doing this, and that these companies need to recover their losses. Thus, they want to keep shitty DSL and whatever speed $30 solutions available.

But someday the low end options need to be upgraded. 5 megabits should cost $20 a month.

>> ^Entropy997:
As far as broadband deployment, I think that's great. However, Internet connection speeds need to be improved. There should be a forced switch to a minimum 5 megabit connection.
Supposedly the national average is 2 megabits, but that is a lie. The average HARDCORE GAMER on Steam has a .766 megabit DSL line, according to Steam surveys.
We invented the Internet. We should be in the top 5 countries in the world for connection speeds.
Japan's national average is supposed to be 50 megabits. Ours isn't even actually 2.

Japan is smaller than California with more than triple the population density. If you live in a major US city, you can get a 50Mb pipe. They can't roll that kind of infrastructure into fucking Liberty, NY and expect to even approach breaking even, let alone profit. There just aren't enough customers.

On the other hand, cable here is 7Mb. I imagine most US broadband is well over 2Mb and the average is just being dragged down by people who don't see any reason to upgrade from dialup.

They auctioned off the airwaves and made a nice chunk of change, too (billions, I believe). Though nothing compared to what is needed to revive the economy.

Also, the whole digital thing is overrated. All it amounts to is interactive menus. The picture quality is the same.

Watching standard def on an HDTV though definitely improves the image quality. Simply using an LCD screen does something right there.

As far as broadband deployment, I think that's great. However, Internet connection speeds need to be improved. There should be a forced switch to a minimum 5 megabit connection.

Supposedly the national average is 2 megabits, but that is a lie. The average HARDCORE GAMER on Steam has a .766 megabit DSL line, according to Steam surveys.

We invented the Internet. We should be in the top 5 countries in the world for connection speeds.

Japan's national average is supposed to be 50 megabits. Ours isn't even actually 2.

There's a problem.

KP, I have seen a TV from HP and 1 other brand that have built-in streaming features, but the unit was much more expensive than just buying an HDTV + game console (or that Roku player), so I would find a TV you like first.

Some other points related to some comments above:
1080p- a few years ago this cost a lot more, but nowadays it's only marginally more expensive than a 720p, many blu-ray discs are encoded 1080p, so it's worth getting a 1080p screen today. (I have a 720p LCD TV that I bought 2 years ago, and it's fine, though I use it mostly for games).
^MycroftHomlz, p (progressive vertical lines) is not dpi (dots per inch) (a 46" 720 dpi display would cost over a million dollars and have 225 times the resolution of 1080p)

120Hz- this is the new fancy feature on higher-end hdtv's. it doesn't magically make your content any better. Even the best Bluray movies are still recorded and encoded at 30fps. It will make some DVD content look better, because 120 is an even multiple of 24, whereas to display 24fps content at 60Hz (standard refresh rate of LCD's) you have to drop or add frames (called inverse-telecine) so sometimes you see tearing. So movies, sports, games, with lots of motion or many small moving details will look better. I've asked several Best Buy "tv specialists" some specific questions about 120Hz that I already knew the answers to, and NONE of them got it right. and instead of just saying "I don't know" they talked out of their ass and tried to sell me some special hdmi cable that supports 120Hz... epic lolz. If your total budget is $1500, don't waste your money on this feature.

LCD vs Plasma vs DLP- The quality depends a lot on the manufacturer. It used to be that LCD screens simply could not be made as big as plasma, but they are getting larger and cheaper each year. Plasmas still have burn-in problems (more problem for games than movies), and a shorter life span (about 7 years vs 10+ years for LCD- both assuming you use the TV several hours per day). Plasmas are also more fragile, so be careful when moving them. That said, I think the picture does look slightly better on plasma, but would still get LCD. (samsung, sony, mitsubishi- all great choices. other brands, try to look at it in person before you decide). DLP is a rear-projection TV, and I've found these to not be as crisp as LCD/plasma (sometimes the pixels blur and/or you can see horizontal scan lines). They are usually 80+ lbs vs an LCD being 30 lbs (base detached). Some people can see a flickering of the color-wheel with DLP (personally I can't, depends on lighting conditions and how sensitive your eyes are).

streaming content- if you have a PC with windows XP media center or Vista premium/ultimate, and all your content is windows compatible, an xbox-360 will make a nice front-end that you stream videos from your PC. If you use other formats, the PS3 has a better chance of playing them (also recommended since it plays bluray). I have both consoles, and the PS3 is much better at playing H.264 videos from CD-R/DVD-R and wired network. I haven't seen Roku player in person, and I don't have netflix, but it looks like a nifty device. If you subscribe to cable or fios, many of their DVR's can stream content that was recorded in other rooms.

projectors- not sure if you will find a decent 1080p one under $1500, but you can get a very large screen. Keep in mind the cost of replacing the lamp/bulb can be several hundred $$ (lamps usually last 2000+ hours in eco-mode). I have a 480p (widescreen but not high def) projector in my bedroom with an 8' diagonal screensize. Upon advice from someone else, I bought a 4'x8' foam board, and painted it with brightest white but non-glossy paint, and hung it on a wall for my screen. $380 projector + $30 screen + $37 progressive DVD player + $15 component cable + $30 black curtains. Compgeeks has a electric roll-up screen for pretty cheap.
Choosing a projector also depends on your room size, visit www.projectorcentral.com and use their calculator for any given model you are considering.

cables- buy online. someone mentioned monoprice, they are good, just check their in-stock status to be sure. they always ship ground from CA, so can be slow depending on where you live. HDMI and DVI are electrically identical, so it's a passive adapter. HDMI includes extra pair for sending digital audio. Component and VGA are analog, HDMI/DVI is digital - means more accurate colors, less ghosting/interference effects. Although analog is capable of carrying a full 1080p signal, content creators (namely Sony blu-ray) will cripple devices stating that you need HDMI to do 1080p output. This is because HDMI support encryption in the form of HDCP, which they think will reduce piracy (obviously they have been proven wrong already). fiber (sometimes called TOSlink) vs digital audio over copper (RCA jack) doesn't make a difference in quality, digital is digital. Look for a stereo receiver with many inputs and outputs.

antennas- hdtv's can pick up all the local broadcast channels with perfect picture and digital surround sound, if you get the right antenna. check www.antennaweb.org to see where channels are broadcasting relative to your home and to pick the correct antenna. It's a 1-time fee, unlike month-to-month cable/satellite. www.titantv.com is a tv-guide style website, lets you sort by broadcast type.

internet speed- 1.5Mbps should be fine, as long as you have patience to download the video before watching it. Will stream standard def no problem, but high-def or netflix downloads would take longer-than-realtime. Most services let you download in advance, so I wouldn't upgrade your 'net connection until you try it out for a month or 2.

buying online- go to best buy or walmart, and look for a screen you like, so you can see it in person. a lot of times the specs "on paper" look good, but the display is mediocre at best. Then look for exact model online, try to get a pricematch. Get the extended warranty if it's not outrageous (a single repair could be $500+ without it). We bought a 46" LCD for work from www.lcdtvs.com, they are New Jersey based, and their salespeople might try to up-sell you some cables, but we got free shipping and a free hdmi cable from them, and 3rd-party warranty was cheap (service is actually provided by best buy locally). Took about a week to arrive (western PA). If you buy online, make sure you factor in shipping costs, it could be $150+ since it's considered freight.

wireless vs wired- Roku, Wii, PS3 have wifi built in. xbox-360 is $99 for the wifi adapter (all except wii have wired ethernet built in). It's not too hard to run cat-5 cable if you are a DIY'er, but would be really expensive to get an electrician to do it. Ethernet hubs/switches are cheap, put a 4-port hub at your TV, run single cable between hub and DSL/cable/fios router, and all devices are online.

hope that helps. sorry for the long post. I'll answer specific questions if you have any.