erm, we don't live in 1999? NO "Sensible" ISP would get more than 0 customers on anything less than 2 MBs in this country (UK). My point is if they advertise a service at x MBs and don't deliver, than they are NOT a sensible service, and there ARE iSPs who DO deliver on promises. If this means I am paying an extra £10 a month, say, to guarantee me a decent speed (for ME, I would count 8 MBs as a BARE MINIMUM, I currently have 20 MBs and for the most part am happy with it). IF they are in breach of my contract (which is my ENTIRE point that you have quoted), than I have EVERY right to do whatever I please, and would be an idiot for staying with a company who has already breached their contract. Such a throttling WOULD put them in breach of my contract. That is my argument here

no not touchy, just pointing out that your response was erroneous. You CAN get the iPhone free on contract (I got mine free). APPLE do not charge more, the Tele-com providers do. Also, the iPhone IS a more expensive phone - IIRC the cost to BUILD the iPhone is something like £150 not including the price to design, tool the machinery, pay for patents, the R&D, advertise, ship, etc. When combining these costs, it is estimated IIRC that to break EVEN Apple need to sell the phones to the customer (the telecom companys; the user is the end user)for aroudn the £350 mark) O2 ARE subsidizing the phone when they sell it on PAYG - which is not a contract, as they take a small loss on each phone sold this way. And as my point was originally, the price of the SIM free N97 is not much cheaper (in fact, comparing it to the 16G 3GS means it works out more expensive!); you tried to compare the N97 to the iPhone to show the N97 was way cheaper and failed. This is because the PAYG phone IS, essentially, the same as the SIM free N97 with 1 proviso - that with the iPhone you (or a 3rd party) have to unlock the phone, rather than Nokia; which is NOT illegal. And I didn't read the entire thread, so missed the point which pointed out that the N97 was expensive - so was just responding to your claims that the iPhone was expensive. Interestingly, I read, beause of the price of the N97 in the US is MORE than that of the iPhone (neither SIM free), to sweeten the deal they are chucking in a free Dell laptop with it! How cool is that! (althoughdoes show that in the UUS the iPhone is way cheaper than the N97, which if that is where the people who were claiming it was expensive was from, then they would be right)

How I am cheating? I am comparing the same thing (unless you are now claiming that the Nokia is sold WITHOUT subsidy, which therefore mean it is a cheaper phone than the iPhone becuase, well, it is much cheaper to make. Just because the O2 PAYG phone are subsidised slightly does NOT make it a bad thing for you to take advantage of this rather than stupidly paying over the odds for an already unlocked one. here I repeat my point regarding SIM-less phones in case you didn't understand my point of you not comparing like for like. If you buy a PAYG, you are NOT obligated in ANY WAY to continue using it after a month [on O2]. There is NO contract involved. IT is NOT ILLEGAL to unlock a phone as there are no laws AT ALL on this issue (ie. it is not illegal to unlock it, but the networks THEMSELVES do not have to unlock it for you). This applies EVEN to a contract phone (which we have ALREADY said that we are not considering due to a contract being, well a contract, where you would keep paying for the network usage regardless) So to summarise, I could either a) Exercise my consumer rights by taking advantage of the subsidy O2 generously applies to the PAYG iPhones, then after 1 months usage (and OUTSIDE of any contract) unlock it (yes,you dont need to JB it) TOTALLY WITHIN THE LAW it so I then had the carrier free phone you are claiming to compare. This iPhone would then cost (depending on which memory capacity) £439 or £539 (plus the 1 months £30 odd PAYG usage that O2 ask you to buy instore when you get the PARG phone). Yes this took advantage of subsidies, but so what? Surely if I am the one gaining benefit of the subsidies it is me "reaming O2s ass totally" (NOT Apple, who have already made their money through the O2 subsidy). or b) Go your way, allow NOT Apple but Expansys who are offering this Italian iPhone to "ream my ass totally" to quote you and pay almost double that £919,99 for a carrier free, unlocked iPhone. This offer has NOTHING to do with Apple, who do not support/endorse it, so how are they as a company "reaming my ass totally" on a phone which I can get for much cheaper, legally, using their approved distribution channels, this is purely a company who have seen a niche and decided to exploit those mal-informed muppets why importing Italian iPhones than charging extortionate amounts to do so. PS: IF you still do not believe that getting the subsidy paid for by O2 is a good idea than you only have to google "Apple iPhone SIM Unlocked" and it comes up with many traders who can import the Italian iPhones for you for around £550-£600, nowhere NEAR the £919.99 from the other site. PPS; If you want to dispute my use of the words Italian iPOhone it is because it is well known that in Italy it is totally illegal to sell any phone with ANY degree of locked-ness (there may be other countries, eg Finland i think) so it is frequently the place where people will import them so you can use them anywhere.

Are you just trying to dictate to EVERYBODY ELSE (your customers or otherwise) how you demand the internet to be used? Yes, the ISP is trying to do so. ========= My point here was the ISP DOES NOT (or at least Should Not) have the right to ditate to, say, Valve, or Microsoft/Bungie, or Electronic Arts, etc. over how their games, that THEY designed, should operate on a wider basis, which is effectively what your arguments regarding map downloads prior to playing a game, etc would do. I have no problem with the ISPs Trying to dictate to their customer base, what they can and can't do, AS LONG AS these conditions are clearly stated in all promotional merchandise AND contracts that customers have to sign, so that the customer can't use ignorance as an excuse when they complain about throttling. However, most ISPs will not do so, as otherwise, their prospective buyers will realise it is a sucky ISP, go to another ISP and their will be NO customer base. From what I read into the article (which is surely what we have to keep coming back to), this throttling was not advised of in promotional leaflets, or prominently in contracts, so could be easily construed as a breach of contract. I know for a fact that unless my ISP can PROVE I have been "using the internet unfairly" they have no right to restrict the access to the service to ME (which such a throttling would do), and I would be completely correct to try and sue them, or better still walk out of the contract (or threaten to unless compensated) and find a sensible ISP

Just going to respond to a few of these points, and yes, I know you are playing devil's advocate, just that either you are playing it badly, OR that the counter arguments that would be offered up are SO weak that even a kanagaroo court would throw them out if used in a legal style argument

THe point is, earlier you were saying prove that it is entirely new - that is NOT the point of plagarism/copyright infringement laws (ceratinly ASAIK in Europe) - the point is the plaintiff has to prove that you HAVE copied their work, not that you have to prove it is entirely original. The comment regarding therefore no worry is if you have NOT copied someone else work (for instance with a home video of you children, unless the plaintiff is a stalker) is to do with the side of the burden of proof.

You appear to have not understood the whole CONCEPT of Free and Open Source Software (at the very least), or understood that copyright only holds for a limited period of time. The large proportion of FOS developers feel it actually anathema to their whole project to charge even a nominal fee for their work. Those that do feel they should have *some* small recompense usually do it via the method of donations for truly satisfied customers. There are even those who DO NOT accept small donations ethically.

Firstly, the majority of large programs offered for download the company ask to be downloaded either from a FTP mirror or via bit torrent as it doesn't suck the entire bandwidth from their webhosting, slowing the website (which is what the HTTP Protocol is for). If you do not believe that such large files should not be distributed over the web, than maybe you would like to talk to all the largest software companies in the world as they obviously do (ie. Apple make their XCode and X11 available over the web (via FTP), you can't order a dvd copy; 90% of linux distos ask you to download it via FTP or bittorrent; Windows Updates use SUP not HTTP, etc.)

There are other encoders though that ARE FREE (and Open Source) - ffmpeg is a free encoder much like XVid, and unlike what you seem to think, does not break patents.

Now you are forcing both the user of the game, the people running the server AND the company that MAKE the game produce the maps to d/l in http SEPARATE to the game itself for Online play? Are you just trying to dictate to EVERYBODY ELSE (your customers or otherwise) how you demand the internet to be used? Games companies produce their own software, which integrate with their own games, to push maps whilst loading on a server - are you actively saying that companies should NOT do this as it is not http? you also obviously have never played an online game. Not everyone has the Hard drive capacity to download every single map for every single game they play online, which is effectively the solution you are suggesting (download overnight/ANOther time, play when ready); on top of this you get the problems with who is controlling the map usage (it is fairly simple to edit said map "accidentally" after downloading - the point of downloading a map IMMEDIATELY before playing (ie. download and play slot) is so that everyone playing has the same version of the map, hosted by the server, etc. Going Idle on this would mean effectively signing in to playing a game, joining a hosted game, then not signing off or whatnot when away - this would mean that games would launch with non-active players, which WOULD limit the number of players who could actually PLAY the game at once.

How the hell did you arrive at the price of a 3GS at £919.99? Have you been mistaken a MacBook or iMac for 1?? The price of a 16G 3GS is £440, the 32G £539 (on O2 PARG, which you can straightaway stop paying, JB/Unlock and use a different SIM And the N97 is £499, not £454.99 according to the Nokia website. If we are going to compare plans etc. and look at overall costs, then we should again look at comparable plans, and again we see the N97 on a contract aboput the same as the iPhone (which 16G you can get for free on), only difference being "unlimited" texts on the Vodafone contract. So try and get your facts right before posting some completely wrong (and wrong to the extent that 30 secs research could disprove) numbers to try and support your case. The effective difference between the 32GS is for £40 more you get a faster processor, nicer overall phone, better UI, llthough no expandable memory