Crashing And Burning In The DSL World 117
Aarthek writes: "As I was doing my usually daily browse I came across this story from PCWorld. After my experiences with PhoenixDSL being transfered to Telocity, and Telocity not delivering the service. I've been wondering how much longer companys like Rhythms can stay 'in the game.'" The article has a brief postmortem on DSL providers who have already dissolved and paints no rosy picture for the survivors. Low margins, high barriers -- sounds like another case of DSL Woes.
Re:Build your own DSL links. (Score:1)
Now if the PC industry would collectively get off it's ass and start treating ethernet as an essential motherboard component (as in they same way they treat serial ports), the providers would happily ship ethernet modems.
dslreports ... word of mouth.. (Score:1)
the last mile, it's the ISP's peering arangements and isp's customer service.
Everyone with broadband should file a report with
www.dslreports.com so that others can weed out
the good from the bad.
thanks
Internet On-ramp DSL Woes (Score:1)
your list of 5 (Score:2)
Re:It's the Baby Bells stupid (Score:3)
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:4)
Oh, good God, no. Their phone people overbilled me $300 in two months. I've been trying for six months to get those charges dropped. Every month I get the bill (and overdue notices and threats that they'll shut off my long-distance service) and I call to complain. I am assured each time that "this time it's fixed." Wait 30 days, repeat.
I would rather use a 2400-baud modem than buy DSL from Verizon, given my experiences with their billing center thus far. If there were a CLEC in town from which I could buy phone service, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
Verizon is incompetent, unhelpful, and soulless. Even their telephone division.
Re:Why small ISPs don't make it (Score:2)
Alex Bischoff
---
There's always cable modems (Score:2)
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:1)
Agreed. But I think you underestimate how often this happens. I'll bet there are several people in this office building listening to the same streaming local news station that I am right now. (And even if they aren't listening to it, most people just leave it streaming.) And around commute time, I'll bet that number increases many fold. I KNOW that there are a lot of people who connect (via internet) to live streams from local traffic cameras.
Also, during non-work hours, live sports events would certainly benefit from multicasting as well. It certainly wouldn't be uncommon for a handful of people in the same are to be listening to the same live sports feed. (My Dad and my brother do.)
I'm not saying that multicasting is THE answer. It certainly isn't, but it would help for live streams. And I think live streams account for more internet traffic than you realize. (This will probably be more so over time, not less so.) It is worth considering the technology.....
-Derek
Re:well gee (Score:4)
1) The bill is HR 1542
2) http://www.newnetworks.com/TauzinDingellisevil.ht
My local ISP... (Score:5)
http://www.iglou.com/dsl/victory/ is their press release concerning their victory in courth, requiring that BellSouth provide DSL access to local ISPs for the same amout that it changes its largest cutomser, Bellsouth.net.
I keep waiting for IgLou to offer DSL for reasonable rates.
Slashdotters across the country should be informed of , with its inclusion of a bill by y Representative Billy Tauzin (R-LA) allowing BabyBells to prevent local ISPs from accessing their DSL lines.
Perhaps I should have submitted this as a full story...
Re:It's the Baby Bells stupid (Score:1)
Texas broke off as a province from mexico, in the 1840's true. However they never seceded from the us. in fact we asked to join the union. get your facts strait, just because the mason dixon line was above TX doesn't mean that all the states south of it seceded.
Not that the troll is any better
Ahem! (Score:2)
And it won't be the long distance bundle that will make these guys money - that's just a start. If they can figure out how to use voice over DSL (VoDSL) to provide local service to small business and high end residential customers, then they will be in good shape. Long distance prices have gone way down since AT&T was broken up, but local costs have gone up in nominal terms and have just about kept pace with inflation. That's where the money is.
Re:My local ISP... (Score:2)
ISPs typically don't, as far as I know, "access DSL lines", if by that you mean "provide 'DSLtone' on DSL lines"; that's done by the ILEC or a CLEC. (Covad and Rhythms are CLECs, and Northpoint was a CLEC).
A DSL customer can access an ISP over their DSL ; if that's what you mean, then, for what it's worth, H. R. 1542 says, according to the contents as shown on the US Library of Congress THOMAS service [loc.gov], says:
H. R. 1542 also says:
It defines a "high-speed data service" thus:
This all sounds as if it states that ILECs have the duty to let ISPs connect to their ATM cloud in such a way as to let them send cells to and receive cells from users connected to the central office via DSL.
I don't know whether merely stating that they have the duty to do so means that the government is empowered to force them to do so, however, nor do I know whether, even if they are empowered to do so, they'll bother doing so.
In any case, note that I Am Not A Lawyer, and don't even play one on TV, and it may require a lawyer with a Big Fat Book Of U.S. Code (or to, for example, the Web site for the Office of the Law Revision Counsel [house.gov], which, it appears, will let you look up stuff in the U.S. Code), so that they can plow through the Communications Act of 1934 and all the various amendments to it, and figure out what the law would say after all the changes made to it by H. R. 1542, and with the law experience to say what the hell that would all mean.
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:2)
I sense, perhaps incorrectly, that you are still using Verizon. Capitalism will only work to improve that market to the extent that people are willing to avoid carriers that they dislike.
Some folks expect capitalism to turn the lowest-cost provider into the highest-quality and most-featured provider. That's ain't necessarily how it'll work in a system where providing decent service is part of the providers costs. You don't get to have it both ways.
I'm not using PacBell here in California for DSL because of my incredibly poor past experiences with them (with ISDN). I'll stick with Speakeasy.net and Covad, and pay more, for superior service and features, until there is no other choice. (And that will be a while, services like cable modems and Sprint wireless will give me options for quite some time to come. Your availability may vary.)
--JoeRe:not all dsl was made alike (Score:2)
When I call, email, etc I *expect* results. There is absolutely NO reason that I should have to put up w/the problems that we do. This poor ping response shit has been going on since the end of January (as have my calls). They don't do shit.
If Verizon wants to continue to compete in the market, they better do some work to improve, NOW.
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:2)
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:5)
I am very disappointed with Verizon as a DSL providor. Their normal telephone services are fine and their tech support is also fine.. When you get to the DSL operations they lack in many areas:
1. knowledge
2. telling the truth
3. customer first
4. calling back
5. caring that their service blows
I have used DSL under epix.net in PA and have never had a problem. They are very helpful (even w/Linux and in fact have some Linux gurus on staff that are willing to help).
When you call in for customer service I don't expect to wait on hold for 2 hours (until the portable phone dies), I don't expect to hear "yes, we know, there is nothing planned to fix that in the near future", I don't want to hear lies "oh, no technician would have told you that", and I don't want to hear excuses. I want the service that I am paying for.
It is a sad state of affairs that in a capitalist economy the best isn't winning...
Cable? (Score:3)
It is not DSL woes, it is the phone co.'s killing (Score:1)
Re:It's the Baby Bells stupid (Score:3)
How, exactly, is it the fault of the Baby Bells and congress that these companies built their network out too thin to be profitable?
Is it the baby bells putting a hex on these companies that makes a business model of building out twenty hardly-used COs for every profitable one not a good plan?
It's all well and good to asy that big business is squashing the little guy. In many cases it's true. However, the "little guy" can also self-destruct based on its own idiocy.
It's profitability, stupid (Score:5)
His beef is with DSL providers that he says care more about their bottom line than they do about customers.
Y'know, if these companies were actually paying attention to the bottom line, they might not have built out their network too wide and thin to possibly be profitable, and wouldn't be having these problems now. If anything, they weren't paying *enough* attention to the bottom line before it bit them.
As for blaming the baby bells and such, they didn't make northpoint, covad and rhythms deploy stupidly. It's not the fault of the baby bells that their numbers didn't add up. Northpoint in particular was not only poorly planned, but wildly incompetent during their best days. While the major telcos might have concievably hastened its demise, they didn't make northpoint STUPID, northpoint did that on its own. I don't blame Verizon for not wanting to buy them out after taking a look at them.
The blame also would have to go on the shoulders of bone-headed investors. Laying out a wide-scale network like this would never be profitable in anything under six years at best. After it's all built out and the market rises to fill it, then yes it could concievably be profitable, but not before then. Anyone investing in such a venture should have bothered to make themselves aware of this.
Personally, I've got some lovely DSL which is currently doing fine, and not going anywhere. I get it from a local facilities-based ISP that only builds out COs if they believe the COs to be profitable. So while it's not as wide as the coverage offered by northpoint, rhythms, covad and the like, it's at least a sane business model for stability.
sorry for the typo... (Score:1)
cmdrtaco, can we have a spellcheker here?
Re:Why small ISPs don't make it (Score:1)
I'm not sure about the situation in the US, but in Europe often when houses are built, only one telco is allowed (by the government) to install the local loop (last mile), which gives the exising single telco in the country a virtual monopoly.
So, with a government-supplied monopoly, they would try to squeeze out competition? That's just bad, plain bad.
(I'm not sure if they overcharge that much in Europe though, and there is healthy competition between multiple DSL providers (although the telco decides in which regions DSL is available, and users often do pptp (vpn) on the telco's network and are then routed to the DSL provider of their choice, so you're packets are on the telco network for longer than just the last mile))
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:1)
You're overdoing it. That is broadcasting, multicasting is a lot more selective. It doesn't have to be everybody. _Any_ number of people greater than one behind the same backbone (or from the server upstream) router will do. Even if there is a unique stream for two netizens in a particular corner of the net, then traffic to those two netizens is reduced by 50%.
And with thousands of people hitting popular spots on the net simultaneously, there is a huge potential gain.
You may think, for example, that you're the only one browsing slashdot and watching live streaming lectures from your favorite scientist, but there may be somebody in your city doing the exact same thing. If there is only one, then mutlicasting helps.
Look at it from the other side: A web server is it's popular pages, images, or files at a high rate (N times per second). And that server has only one or two upstream providers. So the exact same data packets are sent upstream only split seconds after each other. Multicasting here would save a lot of bandwidth up to the routers where the streams must split, and all the way to the web reader if they are behind the same backbone router.
The web browsing user wouldn't even notice, and no server would ever have to send the same content more than a few times per second, no matter how many hits they get.
Ok, an example: You and somebody 2 blocks away are both browsing slashdot. All the other people are doing other unique stuff. So why send all those slashdot images twice? Now replace 'images' with any imaginable content.
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:1)
You're right about multicast for html and images, that can only be proxied. I guess I'm also saying that web pages with html, images, javascipt, flash etc are not all that uebercool either. Sure, it can be extremely good, if the content is good (heck, I even like www.terraserver.com, even though it is from the Monopolist Intimidatorsoft(TM)), but as a multimedia experience it is still mediocre. I still get more of a jolt from watching a good action movie with surround sound on a large screen than from _ANY_ of the websites out there (and I do have large monitors).
Web servers are still missing something, it's still nothing more than just a faster-than-dialup-Internet experience. There is no Information Superhighway-feel to it. It still hasn't even come near to its potential.
In order to compete with watching a movie, I'm saying that web sites need more multimedia content
Maybe I should have been more clearer about that in my previous post.
Multicasts can start every minute too, you know. As soon as two people subscribe to it, it saves bandwidth. With multicasting, watching movies over the internet on request becomes a possiblity. Plus, when integrating such streaming content on a web site it not only increases the experience, it even upens up new possibilities for the income site like replacing those annoying flickering banner ads with some nicely flowing streams. The backbones won't be able to handle all that bandwidth unless multicasting is used.
Sure, we have caching for the web. to be honest, as a web user paying for my own clicks, I frankly don't give a rats ass about a web server log. A good cache does If-Modified-Since requests anyway (and send the original IP in its headers too), so the logs are fixable. A stale cache only happens when the web server has wrong "Expires:" headers or does not respond well to if-modified-since requests. Which too many sites out there do...
(FYI, a proxy really does wonders on site like slashdot, even although only the images are cached due to the dynamic content. All pages load at least twice as fast with proxy).
I really hate it when web designers that think that their server is soo important that they pragma:no-cache everything, even the images that change less than once a month.
Everybody uses a cache all the time for their personal browsing, builtin into netscape/iexplode.exe. Plus I use squid with 1GB of cache to speed up all those slow webpages with a gazillion images, resulting in the front page taking seconds to load even on a cablemodem. With my cache, all that slowness is history because the images almost never change, and if they do, it only a few will be changed so it will still be fast. yes my proxy sends IMS requests, so your logs show my hits. If people would proxy more, there would be a lot less 'Server too busy' pages from IIS-based junkservers.
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:1)
Sure, multiple providers in a particular region without an exchange point in the region results in duplicate traffic. That's just a choice of the provider, setting up a local exchange point costs money too, and routing it a few hops more may be cheaper.
s/physical geography/internet topology.
True, the Internet does not give much about geography. When I said neigbourhood or 'two blocks away', please think in Internet topology. 'two hops away' as you wish.
I referred to reduction of traffic on the the backbones. With DSL and Cablemodems giving everybody a really nice endspeed, it all accumulates on the backbones and the routers just can't handle it. They are minimizing routing table length as it is (of course, IPv6 should alleviate that problem too). Without multicasting, they will never be able to support real multimedia to the end user. On a good day, an expensive 10Gbit OC192 stretch can only serve 5000 people with a unique 2mbit stream without multicasting. Think of only half a million people active behind a particular backbone stretch: half a million streams of 2 megabit, that translates into 100 OC192 links... No backbone will be able to carry that kind of traffic for a long time. So, if we want real multimedia content now, we have to use multicasting.
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:3)
I don't think the last mile is 100% of the difficulty with DSL. The sheer volume of traffic on the backbones as a result of people being connected at megabit speeds gives a whole slew of new problems. Suddenly the best router you can buy simply can't handle the traffic anymore... what to do now?... It simply takes time to design a large high volume TCP/IP network.
I do wonder why it is then, that we don't see more multicasting of multimedia content. Multicasting saves a huge bundle on the backbones and keeps broadband users happy. Lack of innovation from the content providers? Broadband users are not waiting for more flash plugins or flickering ads on web pages, they want the real multimedia Internet experience that was promised in promotions of the 'information superhighway'. Why isn't there a big race going on between radio stations to open shop on the Internet with streaming MP3? And how about the same for TV stations (at 640kbit and up, video often looks pretty ok) Sure, there is some streaming going on, but it does not yet seem like a revolutionary thing for what we currently know as radio and TV...
The future is...
sigh.
Screwing customers == Capitalism? (Score:2)
What I mean by this, is that while you won't be able to rip every last cent out of a consumer, wouldn't it be possible to attract more customers with better overall service, leading to a larger net profit?
Just because a company can exploit you, doesn't mean that they should , even under capitalist theory.
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:2)
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:1)
your Telco (Score:1)
you are screwed..... (Score:2)
But, now I'm moving again. Just a few blocks. So I'm having my account moved to a different address and phone #, same modem, same ISP, etc. Simple. This time, however, I've been screwed. I got an original due-date for activation on 04/26. 04/27 rolled around and I called to verify the activation had been done. Turns out the 04/26 date was bogus, and they claim to have no way to find out who did the order. Now the due date is 05/15.
If my experience counts - you are probably boned. I moved about six miles on 8/29/2000 and got the run around that you are now getting. 5/15 is very optimistic. 8 months later and I still have no dsl and haven't since 8/29. I give up. I'm stopping at the cable tv office on my way home too see about a cable modem.
Don't foget Fredonia!!! (Score:1)
On the argent stripe are the words Independence, Liberty, Justice.
http://www.reisenett.no/ekstern.html?url=http:/
Long Term Customers? (Score:2)
The Bells didn't make it easy! (Score:2)
The Telecom Act of 1996 set some rules for competitors, but the Act was a typical political compromise; when in doubt, make the wording ambiguous or internally contradictory. Thus the FCC and Courts have been at it ever since, and still are. The actual rules of competition are not clear, and not constant. The Bells' attitude was to honor the unambiguous letter of the law but not one millimeter further, so the competitors have had to struggle to get what seemed obvious.
For instance, they were originally allowed to locate their multiplexing equipment in Bell COs, but the law excluded switching, so some Bells initially wouldn't let in the needed routers. The law didn't say that CLEC employees had to have access to the bathrooms, so some ILECs refused it; likewise, they couldn't use elevators to haul up the racks. These took time to fix. Lots of this kind of nickel-dime chickenkaka took place, and it still does.
The early DSL players (notably Covad) had to buy 100 sq ft collocation cages in each CO, usually over $50k a pop, before starting. Permission to go cageless was required by the FCC only after these "first movers" spent that money. The early DSL players had to lease full loops from the ILECs, typically $12-$20/month apiece, while the ILECs could share ADSL loops with voice. Again, that's changing, but it's too late for most of the early players.
Plus DSL only works on maybe half the loops in the country. So you lose a lot of potential business. And the ILECs go out of their way, unless given regulatory pressure, to do nothing about fixing it.
What also killed the first DSL startups was the race to be everywhere fast. Six DSL providers in one CO guaratee that the business is spread too thin, especially when they all please their VCs by putting in large-scale gear that requires a large market share to break even.
So now, a newcomer entering the DSL business can theoretically avoid the already-fixed roadblocks and get going using cageless collocation, smaller-scale upfront gear, and shared loops. But the capital market has dried up so you can't fund it anyway... and if congresscritter Tauzin (R-BellSouth) gets his way, the CLECs will be mostly shut out anyway.
Re:Why small ISPs don't make it (Score:1)
One main advantage that they have is 24 hour tech support. Right now, we don't, though we have considered it.
As far as the other services go, they're all pretty inexpensive so we do them inhouse. It's really not that hard to keep a system running if you know what you're doing. A couple FreeBSD servers running qmail and a Windows NT machine from before I got there. We have our outages when something breaks but generally things are pretty good.
One thing I like about our setup is we use NAT, which no one else seems to do. It's rather nice since we can allow people to have multiple computers connected without using lots of public ips. Of course, NAT has it's own disadvantages but we charge $5 per static ip so it's not too bad.
If you want, I'll email you our url (who knows, you may have already tried us). I not posting my email address or our info because I prefer not to find somebody at Verizon getting ticked off at my comments.
Re:Why small ISPs don't make it (Score:1)
They're undercutting us by paying for Verizon the ISP's losses with Verizon the telco's profits. Since the ISP and telco are actually two separate companies on paper (Verizon Communications is a parent company of Verizon Internet Services), AFAIK they aren't supposed to share money back and forth. I have little legal knowledge, so I could be totally wrong on this and if I am my whole argument is meritless.
If I am correct, I have no way of knowing whether they are doing that, but if they aren't Verizon Internet can't be making any money. Bandwidth/admins/other costs aren't cheap enough they are able to make it on $7.50 net income. There's no way they could afford to do that for more than a few months.
I'm not suggesting they should offer us some advantage, but rather play by essentially the same rules that we have to. They charge everyone $32.50 as a "line charge", fine, then expect everyone to compete on the ISP charge portion. Don't send have the telco Verizon Internet a check every month to make up for losses.
One of the primary problems is that there is a flat rate for line charges. If Congress removed the tariff that dictates the $32.50 price, then broadband might be a lot cheaper right now. (Under the terms of the tariff, the price for ISPs with over 500,000 subscribers goes down - so it is possible that Verizon Internet is doing this, it's just damn hard to figure out what's going on).
Why small ISPs don't make it (Score:5)
For example, Verizon is dictated by law that they must charge $32.50 for the DSL line (not including ISP service). That was fine when they charged a total of $49.50 for a complete package. But in order to remove competitors, they have lowered their prices to $39.99, causing their ISP division to take a loss presumably, while they pay for it with profits from the telephone division. This makes quite hard for ISPs using Verizon to supply the physical link to make it on such a small margin.
PacBell used these tactics as well and has virtually eliminated all the competition in their areas. They set their price at $39.95 and once they had most of the market, they raised it back to $49.95. This only works when they have large cash reserves or can abuse their relationship with the telco to fund price cutting with the DSL line profits
Traditionally, Verizon offered free modems to all customers who signed up for a 1 year contract with any ISP. They've since stopped that offer as well and made it so that only their customers get the modem, while ours must pay $200. Gee, which company will the customers sign up with.
This sort of crap makes it really hard to make a profit or even stay in business. We've managed to stay alive, but a lot of other ISPs in our area have gone under. From what I've heard Verizon doesn't have particularly good service, they just win through anti-competive behavior and ISPs can't afford to sue and don't have the market share to make them compromise. Definitely bad for the consumer and us as well. Hopefully, Verizon will decide they have enough of the market and raise their prices back, allowing us to make a bit more money.
Re:The DSL Era Is Nearly Over (Score:1)
That persisted for several months until Charter added more connectivity between the headend and their provider.
Note that the degradation of bandwidth isn't limited to cable -- I've been with Telocity DSL for 14 months, and average bandwidth has decreased by something in the area of 50%, mostly due to saturation of Telocity's network and significant routing screwups on the part of Telocity and Level3, their backbone provider.
Re:yowza (Score:1)
Of course things may've changed in the past two years. They stopped handing out Cisco 675's like candy, that's for sure (a friend ended up by two, they couldn't figure out how to set up a return even though he called them about it).
I had some problems the first winter, but I'm 17500 yards from the CO and my decibel level had dropped far below their qualification cutoff. They upgraded equipment in the CO before the next winter came along and I've had no problems since. Been down once in the last 15 months or so, for a couple of hours.
For $29.95 a month and no need for a second phone line (I work out of my home) I'm not complaining. 640 kbs down and 256 kbs up, good enough for my needs.
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:2)
norlight, not nortel.
not all dsl was made alike (Score:5)
Unlike the woes i have heard from many other dsl users, @link actually had an incredible amount of reliability (one 15 minute outage in 2 years!) and great tech support. It is sad to see even the good providers crash and burn before they can get off the ground.
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:2)
The DSL Era Is Nearly Over (Score:4)
The only companies that are going to survive are the ones who not only do DSL, but also Ts, dialups, webhosting, etc (ie: have some other source of profit).
Now cable, thats a totally different story. I thought Cable would be the one to go under, but its a superior technology and seems to scale very well to a large amount of customers. Why spend 100+ a month to get 1mbit when you can get 3+ mbit for 40 bucks a month?
Though I can only see cable working really well in a consumer environment. DSL is better suited for businesses and offers more functionality (everything a T1 offers but with reduced stability).
But then again, look how many providers are going under today in general. Maybe T1s aren't so safe anymore.
Re:Cable? (Score:1)
-- pupkick
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:5)
The month after that I got another bill which included late payment fees for the preceeding month. I called to complain; they said "ignore it", so I did.
The month after that I got another bill which included late payment fees for the preceeding months. I called to complain; they said "ignore it", so I sent a letter to the President of Bell Atlantic asking what the hell was going on. I got no response.
The month after that I got another bill which included late payment fees for the preceeding months. I called to complain; they said "ignore it". I bitched without success, escalated the call to the highest level I could to no avail other than "ignore it". So I wrote a letter to the State Corporation Commission explaining that I felt I was being singled out for bad service (remember 97 day delay plus dumbass charges) because I was going with another provider.
Within three days some suckup from BA was on the phone to me apologizing out her ass.
The point here is this: Complain to the bureaucrats. That's what they're there for. These PITA
Wireless "DSL" (Score:2)
http://www.plusten.com
They don't have to bend over and take it up the ass from the telcos like the DSL providers do. If covad crashes and burns, I'll have to see if they can hook me up to speakeasy.
A-Fucking-Men (Score:2)
It's about time somebody called Phoenix and Telocity for being inept at the transfer... I never heard a word about the acquisition until the day before they cut off my service. Then Telocity lost my information 5 times. I finally had to initiate a new order...Who says corporations are more efficient than government?
Re:Cable? (Score:2)
Short answer: yes, if you can live with (or sneak around) the restrictions.
Long answer: I use Comcast@Home, and in general I'm satisfied. It downloads faster than my office network, tech support is reasonably intelligent, willing to admit when fuckups are their fault, and telephone hold times are short. Setup was easy.
Now the down sides: upload is only a little faster than POTS [acronymfinder.com]. Service goes down about once a month for several hours. The included web space [home.net] is dog slow. They want to charge extra if you have multiple computers -- using a router with NAT is grounds for cutoff. You aren't allowed to run a server of any kind or access VPNs -- you're supposed to buy the identical but higher priced Comcast@Work for that.
still looking for a new DSL provider... (Score:2)
Telcos built with our subsidies! (Score:1)
****************************************
Re:Screwing customers == Capitalism? (Score:2)
It doesn't really matter what companies should and should not do. Say we have two companies A and B. A plays nice, while B plays not so nice. If B becomes more profitable as a consequence of this, it will attract the investors, and eventually A will die. Just think, you have $1000 to invest in stocks. You can choose between A, which is expected to grow 10%, or B, which is expected to grow 100%, which do you choose? It's very simple. This is why pure capitalism doesn't work so well in practice, not only are the dirty companies more successful, but not being dirty means you don't survive, so the dreams of all those honest, hard-working, companies fighting to improve the life of consumers is just bogus. Also, just like humans, companies can change the rules, so if a company can become profitable by lobbying for law changes, then B wins and A loses again, but in addition, we have crappier laws.
Re:your Telco (Score:1)
It's the Baby Bells stupid (Score:2)
While the most influencial companies keep getting bigger and killing off the competition with the support of OUR elected officials, we, the users are the ones paying the price.
Re:yowza (Score:4)
Managing expansion and the new economy (Score:3)
The plus side of all of this is it hits MSN right were it hurts. Those who have seen MSNs latest deal with QWEST for residential DSL can see they are scambling for a good broad band solution. And with QWEST they only get 14 solid states.
The down side is it gives AOL a natural advantage being relating to Time Warner. Really I don't want to see either company do well because my opinion is they both just plain suck.
Now, in defense of Northpoints, Covads, etc, they burned huge ammounts of money up by co-locating in the ILEC's CO. I've worked for an ILEC, let me tell you, the ILEC screws up all the time. It's nothing devious, it's not like they are trying to screw NorthPoint or Covad. There are just too many issues: training, facilities, moral, etc, that play into things not getting to test and turn up when the CLEC asked for it.
And basically, because the CLEC is the one talking to the customer, they are the ones having to pay $$$ for customer satisfaction.
So, shame on the ILEC for being a dumb ass, but shame on the CLEC for not managing expantion better.
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:2)
But during those 80 years the imcumbents had a government backed monopoly (at least here in canada, so it was a "Public" network. The recent shift in policy tried to undo this but seems to have failed. The consumers funded the creation of the monopoly network, so we should be able to have the choice of an alternate carrier.
I also think the last kilometre (or "mile") are now belongs to the customer (can anyone confirm?), the imcubents are supposed to allow free access to the lines for servicing. The CLECs can either re-route to their own facilities, or lease space from the ILECs at a "fair" rate.
well gee (Score:1)
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
Re:yowza (Score:1)
Old, incredibly tired class-warfare bullshit.
- Old = "started before I was born so I can't be bothered"
- tired = "my attention span's too short"
- bullshit = "I don't agree with you"
Preach your shit when you manage to come up with something that actually works better than capitalism.- Preach your shit = "I don't agree with you"
- when you manage to come up with something that actually works better than capitalism = "if you can't single-handedly solve the most vexing problem in human history you're disqualified from commenting on it."
HTHquestion: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
yowza (Score:5)
All sarcasm aside, there are some people laughing all the way to the bank here: the Baby Bells, the "last-mile" providers. In Portland it's QWest, and they don't exactly make it easy for little ISPs to sign up DSL customers. Especially since they have their own competing service, and a guaranteed revenue stream from existing customers to prop up any DSL losses.
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
Whee! (Score:1)
Fences? (Score:2)
"There are literally cyclone fences, with locks on them," said Steve Haggarty, vice president for local broadband services at Qwest.
Yeah, I bet that's why Northpoint went under... their techs kept getting arrested when the cops caught 'em cutting the locks and climbing the fence at night to install their DSLAMs.
Re:The DSL Era Is Nearly Over (Score:1)
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:2)
How is multicasting the future? OK, the way I understand multicasting it is... suppose everyone in my area (could be a neighborhood, office building, etc) wants to watch the same streaming video over the 'net. Rather than all 100 of us streaming copies of the same exact data from the live rock concert in Uruguay (or whatever the video is), we use multicasting... so the provider streams only ONE copy of the data, and a switch way way way downstream multiplexes the data out to multiple users. Thus saving a ton of bandwidth and server resources.
Um, that sounds really good, but it kinda relies on everyone wanting the same streaming video at the same time. So in that case, how is watching the video over the 'net any cooler than watching it on TV? Part of the coolness of getting... well, anything off of the net is being able to get it when you want it. I'm not sure how multicasting could work without totally defeating the purpose of the 'net.
Probably the way to go is local, mirrored servers (with the mirroring transparent to the user), like Akamai is doing. Dunno if they're making any money or not, but this seems like the way to go as far as saving bandwidth, improving access time, and still retaining the "give me my data when I want it"-ness of the net.
If there's a place for multicasting, it's probably in the online gaming world, somewhere way down the road (since in this case everyone HAS to have the same data at the same time, in order to keep the game world consistent). Although... setting up game servers would then be quite a technical challenge... part of the success of online gaming is that anybody with a sweet connection can set up their own Quake/Tribes/Unreal server....
http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:2)
But the odds of two people, even in a large area, requesting a piece of data at the exact same time are infinitely small. Sure, the same image might be requested a lot...say, several times per minute... maybe even many times a minute. And even if they were requested at the same time... at a low level, even the fastest routers process packets serially (they just do it very fast) so it still doesn't look simultaneous to the router from a programmer's perspective. So, we have two design possiblities for our MMR(tm) requesting the same piece of data twice to avoid wasting bandwidth....
- Cache data. Of course, for a cache to be useful, we'd have to cache a lot of data, and keep it for a while. Well... now we basically have a proxy server. As a web designer, lemme tell ya... they cause nothing but a pain in the ass. Proxy servers screw up the web servers' usage stat log (which is the basis by which many websites make money, through ad impressions) and the prozy server's cache often gets stale. A good example of proxy servers making everyone's life hell would be AOL's proxy servers. This raises issues similar to the reasons why Slashdot doesn't cache linked pages locally (see the FAQ)
- If you don't want to cache data, then I guess we have to cache requests. The MMR could hold onto each user's request for, say, X seconds and weed out the dupe requests. Problem is, unless you have an incredible number of simultaneous requests, the odds of a dupe request is incredibly tiny, mathematically speaking. Also, this would obviously add a disgusting amount of latency to the user's experience
So you can see, multicasting sounds good in theory but how can you make it work, practically? This is what I mean when I say it's only good for "live" content. It could be good for games. I guess it could be good for live webcasts too, but... like I say before, part of the coolness is getting stuff WHEN you want it. If you have to watch it at the same time as someone else then it's like TV.For any other type of content, it really doesn't work (well, I suppose AOL's proxy servers and other proxy servers "work" but they basically still suck).
http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:2)
http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
Yes, I have seen that with cable (Score:1)
Re:Screwing customers == Capitalism? (Score:1)
Re:The DSL Era Is Nearly Over (Score:1)
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:1)
Word to the big bird.
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:1)
At least you don't live in Ireland... (Score:2)
Its depressing to read of horror stories where ppl were forced to change providers and go down to 512KB cause a provider went bust.
At least you have adsl...
grumble....
Re:Cable? (Score:2)
I have @Home as well, and here in Seattle the terms of service are a little different. They explicity told me that they did not care about running multiple computers via NAT.
Cable broadband providers seem to have very different policies across their own networks. For example, in los angeles MediaOne cable can't provide you with a fixed IP or multiple email accounts -- which they can do in most other places. Go figure.
Re:Cable? (Score:1)
----
Re:I still don't get it (Score:2)
Yeah! And for that matter, why should there be so many providers for long distance? We demand no choice, and we want it now! Let one company (per region) control all aspects of telecommunications! And while we're at it, let's allow those Baby Bells to battle each other over how to allow access to each other's networks. Don't let Bell South have access to Verizon's network! We want to be unable to call Atlanta from Los Angeles, and we want it now!
While we're on the subject, since the Internet developed out of ARPANET, the military should own the Internet, right? We want military control of the internet, and we want it now! (Or was the research which led to the Internet funded by taxpayer money and intended to benefit the average citizen?)
The dot com bust spread to hardware (Score:5)
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:2)
This certainly wouldn't "help" companies that are already burning cash too quickly.
Re:The DSL Era Is Nearly Over (Score:2)
Re:Broadband (Score:2)
Indeed.. I've got mine through BellSouth, and I haven't had a problem through the entire experience.
Oh, and I also routinely get speeds of 120KB/s - 140KB/s downstream. Upstream is still faster than a modem user as well.
I still don't get it (Score:4)
Bottom Line on DSL Providing (Score:4)
Re:Why small ISPs CAN make it (Score:2)
Please keep in mind this is apples and oranges to your situation in SoCal. We do not do consumer DSL, we focus entirely on business solutions.
We find that people understand that we can't give away $500 sDSL modems, and respect our honest approach. If we were giving away modems, we'd be out of business with Vitts by now. So while it is more costly to them to get set up with us, it is much nicer to have a fiscally responsable ISP and not one that is spending madly to get customers.
-shameless plug- www.rhinonetworks.com [rhinonetworks.com]
DISCLAIMER:I am just the art guy. My opinion, spelling or gramatical error(s)do not reflect those of the company management
Re:Cable? (Score:2)
-- Chris
Re:Cable? (Score:2)
-- Chris
Broadband (Score:5)
I'm on Cox@Home, and while their customer service has a tendancy towards suckage, and we get a few hour outage every 4 months or so due to "hub upgrades", it's reliable and fast the rest of the time. I've looked into DSL, but there's really few reasons to switch at this point, seeing as we can be at least relatively sure of the cable service always being there. DSL may be faster during peak times or in neighborhoods where there's a large amount of cable users, but it's not as solid from a business standpoint.
Maybe if a few big companies (Like a Baby Bell?) were providing access, people'd be more inclined towards it.
-- Chris
Ah come on guys... (Score:5)
I'm planning on staying in college for a while... there are a bunch of professional degrees, right? Collect 'em all!
Big vs Small (b/c of Big) (Score:4)
Any of these small DSL providers are getting their backbones from the Big companies that either
a) Supply the large DSL companies as well
b) Will offer their own DSL service in the future
So essentially once all of these companies reach a point where their debt load (Covad = $1.3billion in debt) is too much to deal with and will sell to a larger company... It's the same pattern over and over again... Eventually it will be to the point where the bells are currently at... Government forced deregulation, which in the end never works out in the way that it was supposed to and the big bell's will simply repurchase all of the little spawned companies and the cycle begins again....
--- My Karma is bigger than your...
------ This sentence no verb
Definitely a problem (Score:5)
At least that's the issue in Canada right now. There's a few DSL providers out there, but really Sympatico is just about the only viable one. Why? Because Bell Canada owns the network, and they own Sympatico. Other providers have to pay Bell fees to use the phone lines, to get everything set up, and finally they have to wait because Bell is the only company that can service the line if something goes wrong.
Looks like the cards are stacked. Margins are low because they have to compete with Sympatico, who uses the network already in place. Installation can take months because Bell puts priority on their customers over another provider's.
Personally, I'm using Cable (via Rogers@Home, though my usership was recently purchased from Shaw through a geographic trade in service areas). Even a bigger monopoly in this case - there is only one choice.
The third option, Look [www.look.ca] (I think they operate by Microwave or something, it's wireless) unfortunately isn't accepting any new customers until they sort their financial problems out.
Re:Cable? (Score:2)
Won't help for packet sniffing, but it at least keeps them off your machine.
Re:I still don't get it (Score:3)
They spent decades as a government-sponsored monopoly. Government regulators defined their business plans and set their revenues to ensure a reasonable profit. They were not taking any risks building this infrastructure. They didn't "earn" the value of these assets the way a real entrepreneur would.
In a way, these phone companies don't deserve to own or control their infrastructure any more than anybody else, since they were only acting as agents implementing a government directed phone system.
Re:Cable? (Score:3)
In Canada, the effectiveness of cable depends on the company providing it. The Rogers@Home [shoprogers.com] service is a mess, from all user accounts - slower than dialup at peak times. Other providers are doing reasonably well. Personally, I use the competing ADSL service, which I have found to be reliable.
My concern with cable is privacy. Essentially the network is structured as a LAN which you share, unsecured, with all your neighbors. Nobody has been talking about encryption or privacy for these systems, and it wouldn't be too hard in principle to spy on the packets flying through the system. The story goes that when the system was first introduced, if you were using Windows you could see all your neighbors' shared directories on your Network Neighborhood.
Re:It's the Baby Bells stupid (Score:5)
"For all I care Texas should secede already and make their own country."
IIRC, they tried that twice already. The first time was from Mexico in the 1840's (they succeeded), and the second was from the US in the 1860's (they failed).
"I imagine it will be an ARIAN nation of sorts"
That would be interesting to see, considering the way their former governor has a latina for a wife.
"and maybe we could even get rid of the asshole Bush that way too, as a bonus."
Oh, come now. It's also been the home of great Democrat presidents as well, like Johnson.
Re:The dot com bust spread to hardware (Score:5)
That may be part of the problem, but it wouldn't be quite as bad if they weren't dependent upon their competitors for part of their infrastructure. That right there is asking for trouble.
"companies that buy their equipment at dirt cheap prices (like AT&T)"
If my experiences with AT&T's WorldNet is indicative of what AT&T is doing with that cheap hardware, they aren't even getting what they paid for.
"chip companies that can not only take a loss, but know how to turn a profit"
Blue chips and other big names can make dumb business mistakes as easily as newcomers. AT&T originally scoffed at the internet. IBM let a third party write its operating system. Xerox let GUI and ethernet walk out the door. It all depends on who's in charge at that particular moment.
Some good, some bad (Score:5)
But back in January I moved and woohoo I got very close to the home office. Verizon is now providing me with cheap and very reliable 768/128K DSL. It was installed on time and everything has been peachy.
But, now I'm moving again. Just a few blocks. So I'm having my account moved to a different address and phone #, same modem, same ISP, etc. Simple. This time, however, I've been screwed. I got an original due-date for activation on 04/26. 04/27 rolled around and I called to verify the activation had been done. Turns out the 04/26 date was bogus, and they claim to have no way to find out who did the order. Now the due date is 05/15. The shutdown date for this (old) location is 05/01. That's a 10 *working* day down-time, and they claim that's the best they can do!! Ever!!!
So, until 05/15, I need to use a POTS modem. *sigh* So I call to have a second analog line installed. Guess what... Due date is 05/03. Huh? DSL doesn't require a tech to come to my house, the analog line does. Why the hell does it take so long to activate the DSL line?
I love the bang-for-the-buck factor of DSL, but why the hell does practically every other aspect of it have to blow chunks? It seems that the phone companies don't *really* want to provide it, because it's so cheap. So why the hell don't they just charge a little more and provide decent service?? I'd gladly pay a bit more for it, if I could avoid all the problems. That would also provide a bit more cash for R&D, so maybe they could finally extend the truely pathetic distance restrictions.
Yep... DSL is great, until you find out your one of the majority who can't get it, or get screwed by phone company incompetence, or both.
--
Damn it Jim, that's my sphincter, not a jelly donut!!!
Re:Why small ISPs don't make it (Score:2)
Yeah, I have SoCal Verizon DSL. The service seems OK from my vantage point, but I see lots of people in the local Verizon newsgroups complaining about it all the time. Particularly, they complaint about the SMTP and POP mail service. Everyone thinks that the NNTP newsfeed is mediocre at best. The FTP for the websites seems to go down a lot. The only service I use from Verizon, besides the connection, is the NNTP. All other services, I get from my web host, or run off my own machine at home.
Anyhow, the thought of going with a local ISP has crossed my mind, because I might need a fixed IP address at some point, and the cost of getting THAT from Verizon is prohibitive (especially compared to the $39/month we're paying right now).
Can a small ISP provide reliable, dependable SMTP/POP/NNTP and website/FTP/TELNET ? If the service is quality, then I would consider going with them. It's just that I've been with two other small ISPs prior to getting Verizon DSL, and frankly, the service wasn't any better.
Re:not all dsl was made alike (Score:2)
Re:yowza (Score:2)
In fact, the Qwest exodous to MSN needs to be a major story here on
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:2)
There's an easy solution to this problem: have your local government socialize the distribution network. Putting the electrical grid under public control will be on the San Francisco, CA ballot shortly, for example.
Re:Definitely a problem (Score:5)
If it was easy to build-out the last mile, more people would be doing it. As it is, the cable industry almost bankrupted itself doing so (saved by Internet hype and deep-pockets such as AT&T and AOL/TW). Even as duopoly providers, the phone/cable companies usally with a tacit agreement not to eat each others lunch (despite what they told congress before the 1996 telcom act).
Now, if you had massive amounts of capital, would you spend it laying last-mile connections, or would you buy a slice of wireless spectrum and try to accomplish the same thing at much lower build-out costs?