I can fill in a few of the details people seem to be debating. Our company currently subscribes via Hood Canal Communications. We have a block of 16 static IPs and the fiber connection comes to our business at 100mb, though we typically see about 5mb/s to the internet. Keep in mind that I don't know that our connection is the limiting factor in that.

While I agree that the bandwidth cap might discourage home users, it still makes great sense for business users. The cap is set at 5GB (that's gigabytes, no matter what the website says) and our service is not affected if we go over the limit--our checkbooks, however, are. We pay a rate of $2.20 for each GB after the 5 GB limit. Consider the amount of data we can send for the same price as our (now backup) T1:

$900 for the old connection - $40 for the first 5GB = $860
$860 / $2.20 per GB = 390GB
390GB Extra + 5GB Included = 395GB monthly

We can deal nearly 400GB monthly for the same price as our old connection. If I recall correctly, we paid the PUD $200 to bring the fiber from the road to our building and we pay something like $5 monthly for each of our IPs (except one, which obviously is included with the base price).

We're extremely happy with the service and frankly I'm amazed that a county as rural as Mason has such great internet access. It's far better than is available just 30 minutes away in Olympia, WA.

Yes:

The country with no enemies needs no walls.
If we hadn't spent the last 30 years pissing off the smaller nations of the world, they wouldn't have motive to do this. America is a demonstration that competing religions can co-exist. If we treated the rest of the world like we treat ourselves then there would be fewer radicals, more patriotism (in the off season if you will... peacetime), and greater worldly respect. We are standing at a great opportunity, a chance to no longer tell the world what we are about, but _show_ them. A violent response will breed terrorism. If we really do mean freedom and justice for all why does the news say "revenge and death to all"

My hope is that the careful consideration yields a calm and effective response rather than more terrorism-inspiring violence.

peace!
vote!

(linux!)
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