"I'm sure the folks on the Board would absolutely love to see new client functionality that allows customers to become aware of when they'd be giving the company _a lot_ of money."
Hmm. We're not talking about just giving "a lot of money."
We're talking about a retiree being absolutely screwed, and being forced to pay $18,000 for a volume of service worth -- at best -- a few hundred bucks if that.
"Of course they are going to screw over their customers, capitalism is about the bottom line, always has been, always will be. Is this really that surprising?"
What does "surprise" have to do with pointing out what is just, and what is not? And we're talking about how the terms of service and pricing are not made clear, which is, at its base, a very practical marketing and billing problem -- NOT just "the American way" (TM). Whether this is surprising is irrelevant.
And seriously, some of you need to read the byline of articles before assailing poor Mike.
Well, technically, this ruling forces Teksavvy into offering the same crap, low cap, throttled nonsense that Bell offers. That's something I know Teksavvy has been trying to fight, but given that the CRTC is staffed with plenty of ex Bell and Rogers lobbyists -- not too surprisingly it didn't work out.
"I don't cotton to fear mongering by telecom lobbyists either, but it seems data traffic is growing remarkably. Why deny the use of a word like exaflood to describe it."
Again, because the very term Exaflood was constructed by a carrier policy vessel to infer UNMANAGEABLE growth as an effort to use fear to shape policy. Why SHOULD we use a completely unscientific term coined by a faux-scientist designed to mislead the public?
"The tone of that page is actually awed by the fast rate of growth..."
Also again, there is "fast" growth (expected), and there is apocalyptic, unmanageable growth (The Exaflood). And Odlyzko's writings (available extensively all over the web) trend toward the lower end of the projected growth and by and large downplay growth hysteria.
"We don't have a good broadband policy in the US, and we don't have enough competition, and the telcos will always lobby for a better set of laws that unfairly favors them. But that doesn't mean they are wrong when they say handling an exaflood of data will require significant capital."
The idea that networks need investment has never been in dispute.
Derek. I think you miss the point that the very term Exaflood was coined by an individual with a vested interest in scare mongering for the sake of telecom policy influence.
There's no doubt that data consumption is growing, though again, if you examine the work of MINTs and Andrew Odlyzko -- it's growing at a rate that is actually SLOWING -- and at a rate that's entirely manageable with just reasonable network investment (that's Odlyzko's conclusion). That's a far cry from the kind of chicken little nonsense hired guns like Swanson (or Nemertes Research, who we've discussed here) are pushing on behalf of their clients.
"Isn't being in "exaflood denial" just giving the ISPs a good excuse to do nothing to prepare, and then they can say, "Well, Masnick said it was a farce."
Masnick (who can obviously speak for himself) isn't the only one saying it's a farce. I've written about this industry for a decade and can absolutely say it's a farce. Much smarter men then myself who spend their life analyzing traffic patterns also say it's a farce.
"And if the people who build networks don't add capacity, data traffic might handily exceed capacity. Seems to me to be likely that exabytes of unprecedented data traffic is coming. The issue is how we handle it, as consumers, as ISPs, and as government policy. Solutions are needed."
It seems to me that the need for natural network evolution in the face of demand is an obvious reality, and unrelated to the use of fear mongering in telecom lobbying circles.
Re: Re: Re: "Harmless" is subjective and leading... oh, and incorrect
"if you know enough publicly-accessible information about someone, then you know them intimately"
Again, in this instance, all you'd know about me is that I'm not creative when naming my Linksys router. There's no data here being published, and the data that exists isn't really useful as any kind of personal identifier.
That's not to say there aren't instances of data collection that definitely need watching.
So they can see your azaleas, that any of the hundreds of service and delivery people have seen (and more)?
This is an era where AT&T hands over every byte directly to the NSA, and your ISP sells your clickstream data to the highest bidder with little to no substantive consumer protections in place.
Worrying about elevated photographs of your front door strikes me as curious.
Well, right. Still, the point being that people get all fussy about individual applications when a browser is a gateway to a world of uncensored content. Playing gatekeeper in that context feels silly, and the debate over whether porn should/shouldn't be allowed seems pointless.
Yes, they like to portray it as if bundling services provides a "discount," though as somebody who prefers buying a standalone connection (I'm lucky enough to pay $55 for a 25/25 Mbps FiOS connection) I have always seen it more as punishment.
I read a survey (I forget where) that suggested 87% of users do not know what a gigabyte is. I believe it.
But that means if 3G/4G carriers want to impose billing systems based on usage, they're going to need to use very BIG pie charts with very colorful measurement metrics if they want it to work...
On the post: Oh Look, Another Completely Ridiculous Wireless Broadband Bill
Re:
Hmm. We're not talking about just giving "a lot of money."
We're talking about a retiree being absolutely screwed, and being forced to pay $18,000 for a volume of service worth -- at best -- a few hundred bucks if that.
"Of course they are going to screw over their customers, capitalism is about the bottom line, always has been, always will be. Is this really that surprising?"
What does "surprise" have to do with pointing out what is just, and what is not? And we're talking about how the terms of service and pricing are not made clear, which is, at its base, a very practical marketing and billing problem -- NOT just "the American way" (TM). Whether this is surprising is irrelevant.
And seriously, some of you need to read the byline of articles before assailing poor Mike.
On the post: Oh Look, Another Completely Ridiculous Wireless Broadband Bill
Re: Re: 1980s
On the post: Canadians Get To Pay More Money For The Same Broadband
Re: News
They were wrong, and this proposal that just passed is the very proposal they told you was "going nowhere."
On the post: Canadians Get To Pay More Money For The Same Broadband
Re: That is amazing
On the post: Library of Congress Responds To Privacy Gripes By Making Twitter Archive Less Useful
Re:
On the post: Google Might Stop Violating 'Search Neutrality' If Anybody Knew What That Actually Meant
Re: last time i checked
I believe you're on to something there.
On the post: Google Might Stop Violating 'Search Neutrality' If Anybody Knew What That Actually Meant
Re: Re: agreed
On the post: Now That The Exaflood's Debunked, Fear The Exacloud!
Re: Re: Re: But What About The Exaflood is Fake?
Again, because the very term Exaflood was constructed by a carrier policy vessel to infer UNMANAGEABLE growth as an effort to use fear to shape policy. Why SHOULD we use a completely unscientific term coined by a faux-scientist designed to mislead the public?
"The tone of that page is actually awed by the fast rate of growth..."
Also again, there is "fast" growth (expected), and there is apocalyptic, unmanageable growth (The Exaflood). And Odlyzko's writings (available extensively all over the web) trend toward the lower end of the projected growth and by and large downplay growth hysteria.
"We don't have a good broadband policy in the US, and we don't have enough competition, and the telcos will always lobby for a better set of laws that unfairly favors them. But that doesn't mean they are wrong when they say handling an exaflood of data will require significant capital."
The idea that networks need investment has never been in dispute.
On the post: Now That The Exaflood's Debunked, Fear The Exacloud!
Re: But What About The Exaflood is Fake?
There's no doubt that data consumption is growing, though again, if you examine the work of MINTs and Andrew Odlyzko -- it's growing at a rate that is actually SLOWING -- and at a rate that's entirely manageable with just reasonable network investment (that's Odlyzko's conclusion). That's a far cry from the kind of chicken little nonsense hired guns like Swanson (or Nemertes Research, who we've discussed here) are pushing on behalf of their clients.
"Isn't being in "exaflood denial" just giving the ISPs a good excuse to do nothing to prepare, and then they can say, "Well, Masnick said it was a farce."
Masnick (who can obviously speak for himself) isn't the only one saying it's a farce. I've written about this industry for a decade and can absolutely say it's a farce. Much smarter men then myself who spend their life analyzing traffic patterns also say it's a farce.
"And if the people who build networks don't add capacity, data traffic might handily exceed capacity. Seems to me to be likely that exabytes of unprecedented data traffic is coming. The issue is how we handle it, as consumers, as ISPs, and as government policy. Solutions are needed."
It seems to me that the need for natural network evolution in the face of demand is an obvious reality, and unrelated to the use of fear mongering in telecom lobbying circles.
On the post: As If On Cue, Sony Sued For Making PS3 Less Useful
Re: Yes
On the post: UK's Turn To Worry About Google's Gathering Of Harmless, Public Wi-Fi Information
Re: Re: Re: "Harmless" is subjective and leading... oh, and incorrect
Again, in this instance, all you'd know about me is that I'm not creative when naming my Linksys router. There's no data here being published, and the data that exists isn't really useful as any kind of personal identifier.
That's not to say there aren't instances of data collection that definitely need watching.
On the post: UK's Turn To Worry About Google's Gathering Of Harmless, Public Wi-Fi Information
Re: Re: so
This is an era where AT&T hands over every byte directly to the NSA, and your ISP sells your clickstream data to the highest bidder with little to no substantive consumer protections in place.
Worrying about elevated photographs of your front door strikes me as curious.
On the post: UK's Turn To Worry About Google's Gathering Of Harmless, Public Wi-Fi Information
Re: "Harmless" is subjective and leading... oh, and incorrect
Could you name some?
On the post: AT&T (And Friends) Still Hard At Work Making Up Net Neutrality Job Loss Figures
Re: 1.5 million, sounds familiar...
Time to give AT&T a bailout!
On the post: Apple Needs To Offer More, Less Porn, Depending Who You Ask
Re: Re:
On the post: Apple Needs To Offer More, Less Porn, Depending Who You Ask
Re: Enablers
On the post: Apple Needs To Offer More, Less Porn, Depending Who You Ask
Re:
On the post: Shock: People "Addicted" To Communication, Information, Other Humans, Oxygen
Re: Re: A study
On the post: Google: Hate Competition? Come Compete On Our Fiber Network
Re: Re: Re: Re: Drooling Over 1 Gbps Fiber
On the post: Confused Users Keep Racking Up Ridiculous 3G Bills, Wireless Carriers Keep Helping Them
Re: Save Me from End Users
But that means if 3G/4G carriers want to impose billing systems based on usage, they're going to need to use very BIG pie charts with very colorful measurement metrics if they want it to work...
Fisher Price billing systems, so to speak. :)
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