Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)

[Hewitt Tech]

Ah yes, but why, after a pile of telecommunications companies went bankrupt
laying thousands of miles of buried fibre-optics cables are we still talking
about dial-up connections? What *does* it cost to deliver high speed? For
that matter, I think copper/fibre is passé. It should be possible to use
wireless and it ought to be dirt cheap. When Mediaone delivered cable-modem
service in our area they thought they'd be doing well if they got a 3%
penetration. One of their techs told me that in fact they were achieving 17%
and higher depending on the town they were operating in. I know there has
been a big improvement in the speed of connections over the last few years
but we're not exactly using 110 baud modems anymore are we? Should I expect
to pay $100k for a shiny 2.8 gig P4 computer? Ah the good old days, not!

-Alex

P.S. What we're seeing here is a consolidation of providers who can get away
with high prices because they are monopolies. Verizon hasn't exactly pushed
DSL and most of the companies that depended on them to provide the lines
were driven out of business. These guys really aren't competing. I saw a
discussion on the Libranet mailing list recently where some Canadians were
relating the cost of DSL and cable-modem in their areas. They were paying
about 1/3 of what we pay.

----- Original Message -----
From: <bscott at ntisys.com>
To: "Greater NH Linux User Group" <discuss at gnhlug.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)


On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, at 5:18pm, hewitt_tech at attbi.com wrote:
> I'm not willing to pay increasingly large monthly fees for progressively
> poor service.

  It continues to amaze me how short people's memories are.  It was not long
ago at all that an Internet feed of the speed you get from a cable ISP would
cost you thousands of dollars per month.  Not that I am in any way defending
the AT&T/Comcast monopoly; I just don't understand how anyone can see a
3000% price reduction in the space of five years and wonder why service
suffers.  Did "cheap, reliable, fast Internet access" get added to "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" when I wasn't looking?  :-)

  I'm still stuck on a rather undependable 28 kilobit dialup.  Nothing
better is available where I live.  I would *love* the chance to complain
about how bad my Verizon or Comcast Internet service is.  And I know I'm not
alone on this list in that.

--
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
| The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do  |
| not represent the views or policy of any other person or organization. |
| All information is provided without warranty of any kind.              |

_______________________________________________
gnhlug-discuss mailing list
gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss