Spring RTS Engine

If you wanna call it that, but everywhere has at least 3 companies challenging the bigger company.

Everest is bucking vs Time Warner Cable hard. TWC is better service than any other provider, but due to the way our economy works, small companies can get footholds rather easily. Plus there is always DSL which sucks compared to cable, and AT&T has been laying fiber all the way to the modem.

TWC has been on a fiber backbone since the early 80's which is why their service is so damn good, but even everest which started as a very small company has grown into something of a giant, so you have comcast, twc, everest, at&t, fighting tooth and nail, then you have the dsl providers which edge in like southwestern bell, and a lot of other small companies that do internet access as well.

Believe me, competition in a market place is a very very good thing for the consumer.

Back in the 1800's train fare competition got so violent (figuritively) that at one point you could ride a train from virginia to california for about 7 bucks, which is roughly a span of about 3500 miles or in othercountry terms, somewhere around 5.6 thousand kilometers.

And that is only one example...

lol.

but yeah, we have unlimited bandwidth in the states but we have shitty speed.

Forboding Angel wrote:TWC has been on a fiber backbone since the early 80's which is why their service is so damn good, but even everest which started as a very small company has grown into something of a giant, so you have comcast, twc, everest, at&t, fighting tooth and nail, then you have the dsl providers which edge in like southwestern bell, and a lot of other small companies that do internet access as well.

lol wut

Also AT&T DSL is pretty much fine, I get 6 mbit/768 kbit (real connection rates are about 5.6/600 to 650 most of the time due to my distance) for $15 less than comcast's 8 mb/256 kb plan, and I don't have to put up with their shit. In my particular locale those are the only two broadband services available.

my speed is 15mbit down and 1.5 mbit up with TWC

I'm talking about in cities Gnome...

BTW wimax coming to a rural area near you

Also smoth, you think you have shit speed, go to a different country and see how you like it

Like Finland or Sweden

rattle wrote:Like Finland or Sweden

Bow to my almighty 512/256 line!

The stupid shit cable companies pull is why I use DSL. You can call it shitty if you want, but I have 768/128, and actually get ~750/~120, which is about as close to the promised rate as I've ever heard. It's been down a total of about 30 minutes in the last two years, too. Plus, the best part? $20 a month, half the cheapest cable package.

Erom wrote:The stupid shit cable companies pull is why I use DSL. You can call it shitty if you want, but I have 768/128, and actually get ~750/~120, which is about as close to the promised rate as I've ever heard. It's been down a total of about 30 minutes in the last two years, too. Plus, the best part? $20 a month, half the cheapest cable package.

Depends where you live. I pay about 30 a month for cable, which is the same as what the DSL provider charges.

SwiftSpear wrote:Depends where you live.

Yes, I very much agree, and didn't mean to indicate otherwise. I was simply stating that when the economics works out in your favor, a slightly slower DSL connection is sometimes worth it because of the slightly better behavior of the company.

u think u got it bad 60 dollars a month for 512/256

Forboding Angel wrote: Also smoth, you think you have shit speed, go to a different country and see how you like it

I posted to the internet from rome and amalfi last summer.

I think there has already been a case of an ISP trying to blackmail another by dropping all packets to and from their clients.

768/128

That's what I had in 2000

In 2000 I was rocking a 56k modem that didn't even have it's own phone line. Of course, I was still in high school at that point.

Canada is pretty much on par with third-world countries when it comes to communications technology companies. Bell Canada owns all the phone lines and Rogers/Cogeco owns all the cable, so yes you CAN get another provider but you're still using all Bell's equipment so if Bell decides pages featuring the color blue need a subscription fee, everyone else has to fall in line.

My ISP is very specific that they DO NOT filter torrent traffic and they DO NOT cap download activity in any way - Until just recently when Bell insituted these pratices. Still get unlimited downloads, but a lot of good that does you when most of the time you can only get 30 kb/s unless you're downloading from HTTP.

Realistically, with unified coherance the big companies could pull this off. They know they have the market cornered, what are people going to do, boycot the internet? The people of the internet, can and will retaliate violently, but in terms of actually forcing chance, there's probably very little that can be done.

Snipawolf wrote:I disagree with the ideas of these people. Nobody will ever limit the internet. Really, imagine the havoc that would be loosened upon the world...

I disagree. Laws are made by incompetent seventy years old that don't have the slighest idea what's that internet thing is about. And those people are voted in charge by mindless forty years old mothers that have been scared of the internet by non-stop TV brainwashing about how the internet is nothing but a cesspool drug, filled with pedo latching on their kid, nazi, porn, and worst, evolutionnist.

It can happen. The internet is young and unknown, so it's principle are not a stable as you want to believe. And already it has many enemies, including the deciders.

And no, the prospect of two nerds coming out of the basement to make a protest only them will understand is not a deterrant.

You have to realise that the internet (edit: not "the internet", but "the websites that you visits") being full of same-minded people doesn't mean these views are shared by the outside world.

zwzsg wrote:

Snipawolf wrote:the internet is nothing but a cesspool drug, filled with pedo latching on their kid, nazi, porn

4chan?

Internet cannot be limited. Period. There is no way customers would accept having to pay for something previously free (like site access). That's like introducing a world wide road toll. If some dimwit tried that, there would be absolute hell to pay. Besides, isn't cartelism illegal?

smoth wrote:

zwzsg wrote:the internet is nothing but a cesspool drug, filled with pedo latching on their kid, nazi, porn

4chan?

About every TV documentary on the effect of internet and videogames on kids.