Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

+ - My son pays $22/month for symmetric, 100 Mbps Internet service in South Korea

Submitted by lpress
lpress (707742) writes "My son lives about 50 miles outside of Seoul and has a choice of three major Internet service providers and several smaller ones. He pays $22 per month for symmetric, 100 Mbps Internet connectivity (with a two year contract). The Korean ISP market is highly competitive — the major company prices are within a few dollars of each other and repairs and other service is excellent. How is it that Korea has achieved intense ISP competition? There is no simple answer, but the government has pursued a multifaceted policy encouraging investment and demand creation and providing common infrastructure, which is used by compteting ISPs (as in Singapore, Sweden or Latvia)."

+ - Office for the iPad -- yawn -- It's the browser, stupid.

Submitted by lpress
lpress (707742) writes "Microsoft finally released Office for the iPad four years after it came out. Folks can debate whether they waited too long, but, regardless, tablets and phones were the previous battleground for Microsoft and they pretty well lost in spite of holding Office back. The next battleground will be the browser and the chromebook. Don’t take my word for it — in a 1998 memo to Microsoft executives, Bill Gates wrote “Allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company...This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows.” Who has the advantage — Microsoft or Google? MS has a lead in productivity apps and the enterprise, Google has Chrome and the lead on the Internet and both may use Mainframe 2 if that works out. Maybe it will be a tie — that would be best for customers and society."

+ - The Net routes around censorship in Turkey-> 1

Submitted by lpress
lpress (707742) writes "Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been embarrassed by social media showing corruption, vowed yesterday to "eradicate Twitter." He followed through by cutting off access, but users soon found work-arounds like posting by email and using VPNs. The hashtag #TwitterOlmadanYaayamam (I can't live without Twitter) quickly rose to the top of Twitter's worldwide trending topics."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score 1) 206

by lpress (#46374663) Attached to: How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33%

Based on the email address and the info on the blog, it puts you right in dense Los Angeles suburbia.

The email address is my school. I live in West Los Angeles, but in a house built in 1946 that is and pretty far from my C. O. That being said, they may be lying about the distance and old wires -- it may be that they have under-provisioned the C. O.or backhaul. I don't trust them any more than I trust TWC. It would be nice if there were some viable competition. Maybe Google Fiber some day -- LA is shopping around for a municipal network partner -- but even Google may become "Comcastic" at some point.

FttH

I agree 100%. You might even own the line coming to your house -- the way you own your water, gas pipes and sewer pipes.

Comment: Re:I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score 1) 206

by lpress (#46374593) Attached to: How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33%

Nope, you still get cable TV. At least the several places I've had TWC Internet in NY, I also got free(ish) basic cable. It's only ten or twelve channels, but it includes the major networks and the local news.

Right -- same in Los Angeles -- a bunch of local channels -- many foreign language. I even got a $5 gift card from TWC because they mistakenly (?) blocked the Super Bowl (which I watched anyhow using a rabbit ear antenna).

Comment: Re:I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score 2) 206

by lpress (#46374429) Attached to: How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33%

On the phone -- I could not drop it on the spot without talking to my wife ... plus lazy inertia. But, I do have telephone alternatives, which is more than I can say for Internet connectivity.

Verizon DSL is another weird story. I was their customer many years ago, getting around 5 Mbps down on a plan that promised up to 7. One day, they throttled it down to 1.5. When I complained, they told me that at my location with my geriatric wiring, I could only get 1.5. They were not willing to un-throttle it in spite of the fact that I had been getting 5 Mbps the day before. That is the day I became a TWC customer.

I just rechecked my Verizon DSL availability. They say I can get "high speed Internet enhanced" -- 1.1-3.0 Mbps down and 384 Kbps up.

In general, many people are like me -- busy and lazy -- and it takes something big like Verizon throttling my DSL or hearing that I was paying $40 for phone service to get them to get our attention.

+ - A strategy for attaining Cuban Internet connectivity

Submitted by lpress
lpress (707742) writes "In the mid 1990s, there was debate within the Cuban government about the Internet. A combination of pressure from the US trade embargo, the financial crisis brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union and fear of free expression led to a decision to limit Internet access. This has left Cuba with sparse, antiquated domestic infrastructure today.

Could the government improve the situation if they decided to do so? They don't have sufficient funds to build out modern infrastructure and foreign investment through privatization of telecommunication would be difficult to obtain. Furthermore, that strategy has not benefited the people in other developing nations.

A decentralized strategy using a large number of satellite links could quickly bootstrap the Cuban Internet. Decentralized funding and control of infrastructure has been an effective transitional strategy in other cases, for example, with the NSFNET in the US or the Grameen Phone ladies in Bangladesh.

This proposal would face political roadblocks in both the US and Cuba; however, change is being considered in the US and the Castro government has been experimenting with small business and they have begun allowing communication agents to sell telephone and Internet time.

It might just work — as saying goes "Be realistic. Demand the impossible.""

Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. -- Lazarus Long

Close