We currently have shit for bandwidth, many people want way more bandwidth and could argue they need more bandwidth NOW much less in the future. Billions? How about the money already given to these companies by our Govt. actually be used for rolling it out? The Govt. and the people, except apparently for you, recognize that bandwidth offers opportunity and innovation. I will point out, again, that if everyone had your attitude we'd still be using 2400baud modems to download ASCII p0rn instead of streaming HD movies from Netflix. Were it not for bandwidth Netflix simply wouldn't have the business opportunity that they have now. You apparently think that all of these opportunities are done and gone despite what Google is doing - wake up.

Other countries are already doing this - we are FAR from the top of the heap when it comes to availability much less bandwidth. I spoke to someone just tonight from Finland who told me that network access was as much a critical utility as water where she's from. Our attitudes, and yes your's, are all wrong. If there's fail here it's you.

Done feeding the troll now O/

Google is doing it, DOCSIS 3 gets us 300+Mbps, and FIOS has made some inroads with fiber into the home - I have it. Other countries are doing it too albeit with more density.

My point was that it CAN and would be utilized and that there IS a point for rolling it out. If we all took the attitude of "good enough" I'd still be listening to a 2400baud modem making connections.

Interesting, you say it's for metal detection the other guy says it's for being charged by RF and is continuous. Someone ain't right. Regardless, once the cable goes in the ground, is attached to a house, is strung on a wire, and is then left alone - shit happens. One would hope the original installer did it right (I've seen some FIOS installs...) but after he leaves? Jimmy Bob does who knows what and might even just bury some Romex on top of your cable :-) Hell I've actually SEEN guys use ductape to secure ladders before climbing to some pretty decent heights and couldn't help but shake my head. In my area code inspectors actually got into a heated argument about how best to run power to an outbuilding I was having constructed. My contractor simply excused himself, allowed them to continue, and we had it inspected with the bare minimum to pass. Right after they left we had a licensed electrician run it the way he best knew how and called it a day - they haven't seen it since or the double handful of circuits I added once the box was in. "Code" has to take into account freaky things and while it's extremely possible this was simple stupidity of them treating glass like copper it's also possible they've seen things and decided to protect against them. Code seldom ever sits still either, it seems ot be ever changing and fluid plus it varies from locale to locale

Lotus WAS a company in and of itself before IBM bought them and at the time I was downloading Lotus Notes both server and workstation. At the time those were fairly beefy downloads :-)

and yet we apparently have dark fiber all over the place. Aren't we squeezing ever more capacity out of existing fiber? Is bandwidth somehow getting more expensive? That would be odd now wouldn't it?

Capacity != latency. you could have a 1Gb SAT link and still be driven near mad by the high latency :-(

Yes, this is exactly why so many TV shows are now broadcast in 5.1 surround sound - for the cheapo' radios that the 99% have /s

What bitrate are those "1080p" videos at? Oh, I thought so.

Imagine having that 1Gb connection. Imagine that you can't use it all but that you can do anything you want with it. do you think maybe you might sit down and ponder, that you might try to imagine better ways to use it? Cloud backup service is obvious and done. Video is done and being done. Keep going. Just sit and use your imagination and I suspect that you will eventually think of something new that cannot be done now with existing normal bandwidth. Maybe it's something silly, maybe it's something crazy, maybe it turns out to be something life changing.

THAT is why we need to have bandwidth well over and above what we have now. We need to have enough that people sit down and think up new ways to use, innovate, maybe find a way to save a life or help another. We've done this with CPU and GPU for a long time, disk space too. My first HDD was 40MEG and nearly the size of a shoebox. Suppose way back then someone had spoken as you have and decided that we would never need more and was listened to. We need to bring fuel for dreams and imagination - right now we're WELL behind the curve for that...

I don't know too many geeks with just one device though. Between streaming services (ick), games, VPNs to friend's homes to share media and do backups, and all sorts of other things I think I'd really really enjoy Gig internet. I also think I probably wouldn't be saturating that and I'm okay with that. I think I'd be looking for ways to host interesting things, perhaps interactive things. I can certainly see where having THAT much bandwidth would drive all sorts of new innovation and applications as people tried harder and harder to find uses for it. I think we could really use that!

Metal tracer is conductive - no? While the equipment it may be attached to is low voltage there's no telling what's likely to happen later. Nails driven through it - and a high voltage conductor. Rubbing against high power cables. Stuck in conduit that rubs it and then somehow gets energized. Weird. Shit. Happens. People do stupid stuff, go lookup some of the redneck repair sites to see what i mean. Some of the shit is dangerous and downright scary. One of my faves that actually worked was a guy who built a contraption for his BBQ grill that he used to heat his POOL. Seriously. You can't fix stupid and while that might not exactly be the worlds biggest example I would put forth that people do some weird shit and it's better to be prepared than get electrocuted or have your house burn down because of it if possible...

Years ago while awaiting a position on a contract with my employer I was using a workstation and decided to download some large files from Lotus. I started several file downloads at once and though nothing of it until I noticed that my mouse was acting jittery and weird. When I investigated I found out why - the download was hitting the computer so damned hard that HDD light was solid and the computer was choking on the download. I quickly stopped one of them and then marveled as the first continued to download at speeds I had NEVER seen before. Honestly I was stunned that Lotus had that kind of capacity and really surprised that my employer was letting ME suck up so much of it. I never asked what our pipe looked like but it was a pretty big employer and we were situated in an area where getting fat pipes was possible but wow I'd never seen that before or since. Sadly I don't recall the numbers and if I did I'd probably be depressed to find I do as well at home now or something even if I can't manage to stress any of my computers :-)

This is done for short periods of time to recover data from HDD that exhibit read issues when they warm up to operating temp. Sometimes, a very big sometimes, these drives can be read from if you freeze them first. However the drive quickly warms up to operating temp and you begin to get errors that require another freeze cycle. To slow this warm up time I've dunked them in ice water with the electronics protected by a baggie and I think an ice pack sandwich might also work. Don't drop it so far into the water that it gets into the baggie, condensation hasn't ever been an issue for me the few times I've been forced to do this and this really just prolongs the time needed before another trip to the freezer.

Condensation isn't really a big concern and neither is the longevity of the drive since at this point it's already screwed and you just want as much data off of it as possible FAST.

Their own client... You do recall a certain secure email provider that folded up shop rather than compromise their software to spy on users right? I wouldn't trust software being provided like this after seeing that.

I actually use this with DropBox. It synchs in the background so the size hasn't been a concern but it was software that I trust and could control!

Well, there's the answer then for Unitron. I'm not surprised at all that they do this and I may have even seen a few myself but since they shortened the warranty I don't think I've had any that fell under it to go back. I did once have one that I was sure was new enough but their system kept kicking out as being an invalid serial and it drove me crazy! I know they pull shenanigans and it sux but much like ISP who else are you going to goto but the very few HDD vendors these days? I'm just BackBlaze is providing info and wish others would as well...