Some random topic, always changing [ was comcast does it again Port 25 ]

[Bill McGonigle]

From: Paul Lussier <p.lussier at comcast.net>
> Which government has granted the monopoly?

It's usually local for cable and state for Telco.

> In many municipalities the cable contract is written such that the
> provider has a non-exclusive right to provide service.

Oh, interesting - the ones I've seen have been exclusive.  I'll have  
to look into that, thanks.  It would at least be worth having here  
for renewal time.

> And, in many cases, there's plenty of competition, especially between
> Comcast and Verizon.

In some cases, yes.  In many it's one or the other, or neither.

> And, you can always get a dial-up connection to
> the internet from someone.  You may not *like* your choices, but you
> do have them :)

>> From: "Travis Roy" <travis at scootz.net>
>
> or even Dial-up or Sat (but you probably wouldn't
> want to host a server on either of those).

Yeah, it's interesting to talk about what defines an "Internet"  
connection.  There's a lot between CPIP and FiOS and if we're talking  
about governments picking a number things get iffy.  I went to a  
recent State working group on this, and the state laughs at the FCC's  
definition of 'broadband' (200Kbps) much the way that the  
technologists were laughing at the State's definition.  The state  
thought 1.5Mbps was pretty good while others thought that enough for  
one or two 1080p streams per resident was a floor for forward-looking  
work (other countries are using these kinds of metrics for planning).

So, Sat is useless if you're on the north side of the hill, and even  
on the south side you can't do games or VOIP-ish stuff (or ssh).   
It's OK for shopping, I guess.  Dial-up excludes things like YouTube,  
VOIP, software updates, and it's not even polite to talk about  
NetFlix in this sentence.  Gangbusters for SSH, though! (yes, I did  
once setup a linux box to route ssh over dial-up while HTTP went over  
sat... don't ask).  Oh, and also throw in cell, like my Verizon 1xRTT  
connection which never stays up more than 10 minutes ("no IM for  
you!" - Connectivity Nazi).  So, defining what's acceptable for  
Internet is tricky and has lots of ramifications from economic  
development to education to getting dirty movies - it's almost  
becoming more of a societal norm than a technical measure.

> Plus it's your local, as in very local, government. Call up your
> franchise agreement board.

Local is good.  10 year contracts not so much.

-Bill

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