Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
On 04/07/2010 11:48 AM, Benjamin Scott wrote: One idea I've heard that seems like it might be good is structural separation. One company runs the lines, but doesn't offer service over them. Other companies offer service over the common lines. Lines could be privately owned, or owned by the town and run by contract, like roads. I've read it's been done successfully in some smaller European countries. There are several initiatives going on in that state to our left, Vermont: http://www.ecfiber.net/ That looks promising. -- Ted Roche Ted Roche Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:26 AM, G Rundlett greg.rundl...@gmail.com wrote: I hope to not only preserve an open Internet, but to expand it. Please explain open Internet. The Internet is not open in the sense of a public park, and never has been. Not in the US, anyway. That idea is a romantic myth. We've been over that before. I refer people to the archive link I posted earlier. Short version: It's always been a controlled government project, and/or privately-owned commercial networks which let you connect to them for a fee. You want to argue the Internet should be a public utility, okie dokie. I might even agree. But don't claim to be fighting to preserve something that doesn't exist, because you might just preserve what we have now, and end up unhappy. ... it's already fact that in America broadband is treated more like a luxury service (only for those who can afford it) rather than a public commons that benefits all. Information may want to be free, but infrastructure wants to be paid for. If you know a way to make infrastructure not cost money, please speak up. To those who think regulation is the aim, that's not the point. I have to disagree with you there. You say you want the FCC to have jurisdiction. The FCC is a regulatory agency. This is what I mean when I say I hate net neutrality. I might actually *support* some regulatory measures, if the people who want them would stop shouting FREEDOM!!! and start calmly discussing specifics. There was no regulation in the first place. Well, I would argue that the ARPANET/NSFNET days had some pretty clear rules (albeit not always enforced). Since the 'net has moved to a commercial model, it's been largely unregulated, yes. That's what we have now. But you don't seem to be happy with that we have now. Just a statement of principle that consumers are entitled to freedom and choice. Statements of principles are nice. I think that one has a particularly nice ring to it. That and a few bucks will get you a cup of coffee. I personally know from first-hand experience that it's bad when Comcast (a practical monopoly) slows your (paid) service to a crawl because you're (legally) downloading files from open source projects. It's bad *for you*. It's likely better for other people on your optical node. It's certainly better for Comcast's transit costs. Bandwidth is not an unlimited resource. Comcast Internet is a flat rate service. So either they place limits on usage, or people can overload the system without any repercussions. Any time a provider suggests going to metered service levels (which would allow heavy uses to use more bandwidth, but fairly), almost everybody screams bloody murder. It seems like most people just want a free lunch. I'll side with Comcast in laughing at that. I also know from first-hand experience that it's bad when Comcast seemingly interferes with the quality of competitor's VOIP traffic to the point where you're forced to quit and sign up for Comcast's competing service. [3] The source you cite openly admits it completely lacks any technical detail. One could just as easily read it as saying Comcast will prioritize VoIP traffic, where before it was treated as any other traffic, thus subject to greater congestion. You don't need to *do* anything to disrupt VoIP communications. Simply *not* doing anything is enough. I know from experience that if you don't use a good QoS configuration, VoIP on a gigabit Ethernet fiber link will go into the mud every time a large file is copied. Certainly, if Comcast *is* de-prioritizing their competition, that's a problem. It might even be actionable under anti-trust laws. If a company controls as much of the network transport market as Comcast does, I don't think they should be allowed to de-prioritize their competition at the application layer. (That's an example of the sort of specific regulation I would support.) What's the solution if Comcast doesn't want to play nice? I'm not sure. Your second sentence highlights my biggest concern. Calling for regulation without an idea of *what* you want is a recipe for trouble. You're upset because you have insufficient control over Comcast, but as a solution you instead want to give control to someone else and let them make the decisions for you. But, I do have the opinion that a commonly owned infrastructure (aka government or public) would seem lower cost than having multiple large investments competing to create networks. Hey, a specific! Took us long enough to get there. :) Structural separation is the idea I like best out of the ideas I've heard, in theory. My big concern is that I'm not sure it's realistically possible in the US. A small number of big companies own most of the infrastructure. Building it all again for public use would cost a lot, and that's not likely to get taxpayer approval. Seizing existing infrastructure by eminent domain makes more
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On 04/07/2010 08:59 AM, Seth Cohn wrote: If we have companies, like Comcast, who abuse their providerships, we route around them, sooner or later. The 'sooner' part is very hard because the government: 1) claims ownership of 'rights of way' alongside roads where telephone poles are placed. 2) grants monopolies/dualopolies to owners/users of those poles (Comcast/Fairpoint). I don't completely dismiss the ideas of natural monopolies, but without potential challenges, they're not proven. Add to that 10-year franchise agreements that guarantee against competition and the outlook is dismal. 3) will not allow small business and/or residents access to those poles (even though most pole contracts in NH allow the option specifically). Disruptive models always start small and those are precluded. It's like they're trying to fight known economics on purpose. A few have taken local initiative to own the network like the sewers, but that's very thinly implemented. Largely the business model seems to not work in practice unless they only own the network and let competitors provide services on it (e.g. Burlington Telecom vs. Ashland Fiber). So, imagine the case where somebody like Comcast is a competitive Internet provider on a local network. They start sending TCP resets for bittorrent and your data stops flowing, but your neighbor's doesn't. This is easy, the free market flows money to those who provide good service and the rest whither (you cancel your account and switch providers). As long as there's demand for a service and there aren't artificial barriers to entry for those who wish to provide it, people will have good options. Personally I think bittorrent ought to be shaped against, e.g. SIP, when traffic is tight, but I should be able to chose a provider who agrees with me (and those who want pure best-effort can chose their provider). I agree in general that government telling ISP's how to pass traffic is a bad idea, but they need to get completely out of the way so the market can function properly. And, just for completeness, it's 2010, and all that's available on the traditional government/monopoly market is 26.4k dial-up at my house, 1.2 miles from a big fiber drop in a CSA of a quarter-million people. I was getting my shoes muddy this morning planning an expensive fiber run through the woods. -Bill -- Bill McGonigle, Owner BFC Computing, LLC http://bfccomputing.com/ Telephone: +1.603.448.4440 Email, IM, VOIP: b...@bfccomputing.com VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf Social networks: bill_mcgonigle/bill.mcgonigle ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
On 04/07/2010 04:08 PM, Coleman Kane wrote: (ca. 1915): http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/quackcures/standradiumsolution.htm Sure, today we all are taught that radiation is bad today, and so we all know it is. However, how much of this knowledge is due to government regulation via the FDA, etc... and public standards of education? Marie Curie died in 1934 of radiation poisoning. You'd expect an FDA to know in 1915 that it was dangerous? What alternative to these institutions has a track record of providing sufficient confidence in our consumables marketplace? Underwriters Laboratories is a great example - insurance companies use it to control the risk of the assets they insure, and people buy insurance to control their own risks. A great negative-feedback loop. There's little competition to the FDA in the US because it's hard to compete against a 'free' government program. But I do subscribe to Nutrition Action from CSPI ($12/yr) to get a much more science-based and less corrupt idea of what foods are good or bad for me. In other countries without a strong central food authority there are independent third-party evaluators and certifiers. If they become unreliable/corrupt, they'll lose reputation and be replaced. Not so much with the FDA, even now with Monsanto's chief lobbyist as the FDA's 'food-safety czar'. _Food Inc._ is a great watch for a sub-two-hour summation (on Netflix streaming, BTW). The Stonyfield/WalMart partnership against rBGH is a striking contrast. In a thinly-veiled effort to remain on topic, the same potential applies with the FCC, though I don't know their agency to have such corruption problems. Except that an agency tasked with maintaining radio frequency registrations (a natural scarcity) is busy trying to tell private network operators how to manage their networks. -Bill -- Bill McGonigle, Owner BFC Computing, LLC http://bfccomputing.com/ Telephone: +1.603.448.4440 Email, IM, VOIP: b...@bfccomputing.com VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf Social networks: bill_mcgonigle/bill.mcgonigle ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
: On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:26 AM, G Rundlett greg.rundl...@gmail.com wrote: I hope to not only preserve an open Internet, but to expand it. Please explain open Internet. Open for me means, I, as a consumer or business, I buy bandwidth from a provider. If a bandwidth provider says they will deliver me 10Mpbs, and (non-real-life) let's say a content source can deliver data to me at 10Mbps, I should get 10Mbps throughput. No protocol fiddling, nada, (For now, let's ignore the technical realities.) - An open internet means if I want to bit-torrent all day from a site who can deliver me content at rated speed, I can. - An open internet means that if I want content of a certain type (VOIP traffic, for example) which competes with a product my bandwidth supplier happens to provide, I can be sure the traffic will be delivered without hindrance or fiddling. - An open internet means that If I'm a business trying to compete with, let's say Comcast, in a business like, for example, VOD, and the only competitive supplier of bandwidth is Comcast, I will be able to do it without restriction or worry that they will hinder my business. Without regulation, there is too much temptation to mess with things. Remember, Comcast did NOT change the way it handles bit-torrent traffic (in fact they denied they were doing anything) until they were embarrassed into admitting it and then they finally made changes.. I'm not for regulation -- but let's not let the megacorps control the internet like the megabanks control the financial system. - An open internet is one where the small guy is on the same footing with the big guy. Although it would never happen, I'd like to see bandwidth providers STAY in the bandwidth-providing business... The problem is, they see all the innovation and huge profits going on with content providers and want a piece of the action. That's all well and good -- until it stifles the little guys. I do not confuse open internet with universal access. Universal access for true broadband is a big problem in the US, and that's one of the things the FCC is trying to tackle with the National Broadband Initiative (perhaps using some of the USF). A couple of other comments: - I use VOIP exclusively for home and home office. No Comcast or Vonage -- just a great gateway provider (voip.ms) and a hosted pbx My 1Mbps/512kbps Wireless ISP provides almost flawless call quality to my endpoints in the house/office. (I can count the number of bad calls on 1/2 a hand in the last two years). - Those who complain that bandwidth is still too expensive and have Comcast or Verizon are not living in reality. The above mentioned service is $80/mo. Ouch! Gerry Hull ge...@telosity.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Thu, 2010-04-08 at 14:27 -0400, Bill McGonigle wrote: On 04/07/2010 04:08 PM, Coleman Kane wrote: (ca. 1915): http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/quackcures/standradiumsolution.htm Sure, today we all are taught that radiation is bad today, and so we all know it is. However, how much of this knowledge is due to government regulation via the FDA, etc... and public standards of education? Marie Curie died in 1934 of radiation poisoning. You'd expect an FDA to know in 1915 that it was dangerous? Yes. Considering that it was widely blamed for the death of many others since its discovery in 1898. I suggest you look up history on the U.S. Radium company and the Radium Girls episode. Radium had gone well into mainstream use prior to Curie's death. Curie's death in 1934 occurred long after it was determined to be a health hazard: a fact that could have been revealed much earlier had there been an avenue for appeal for the complainants. What alternative to these institutions has a track record of providing sufficient confidence in our consumables marketplace? Underwriters Laboratories is a great example - insurance companies use it to control the risk of the assets they insure, and people buy insurance to control their own risks. A great negative-feedback loop. Not great enough as we found out recently. There's little competition to the FDA in the US because it's hard to compete against a 'free' government program. But I do subscribe to Nutrition Action from CSPI ($12/yr) to get a much more science-based and less corrupt idea of what foods are good or bad for me. In other countries without a strong central food authority there are independent third-party evaluators and certifiers. If they become unreliable/corrupt, they'll lose reputation and be replaced. Not so much with the FDA, even now with Monsanto's chief lobbyist as the FDA's 'food-safety czar'. _Food Inc._ is a great watch for a sub-two-hour summation (on Netflix streaming, BTW). The Stonyfield/WalMart partnership against rBGH is a striking contrast. By what means, or after what consequences, do they lose their reputations? As corrupt as the FDA appears today (which you only know about because of transparency, unlike private agencies), you cannot write it off without a review of the history that led to its creation: widespread use of harmful additives to food products, as well as medicinal products advocating baseless claims. The utopian point of view that a bunch of certification agencies will compete in good faith on a level playing field hasn't proven to have much historical credit in this country. Rather, vertical integration and monopolistic practices intended to control production, distribution, and certification have been the standard in the absence of oversight (such as the events that led to the FDA's creation). In a thinly-veiled effort to remain on topic, the same potential applies with the FCC, though I don't know their agency to have such corruption problems. Except that an agency tasked with maintaining radio frequency registrations (a natural scarcity) is busy trying to tell private network operators how to manage their networks. Because maintaining RF registrations isn't, and never was, the entire scope of the FCC's duties. -Bill -- Coleman ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Gerry Hull ge...@telosity.com wrote: If a bandwidth provider says they will deliver me 10Mpbs, and (non-real-life) let's say a content source can deliver data to me at 10Mbps, I should get 10Mbps throughput. As you say, that's not a realistic example, so I'm not sure what good it does to raise it. One of the many misconception people have is that if they have a 10 Mbit/sec Internet connection, then they have dedicated 10 Mbps pipe to every uplink or peering point on their provider's network. That's simply not true. That 10 Mbps is is the nominal rate from the subscriber interface (modem, etc.) to the first concentration point (generally the CO or head-end). From that point on, bandwidth is shared and oversubscribed. The result is, someone sucking Bittorrent all day uses substantially more resources than someone who reads email, browses the web, and watches the occasional YouTube video of drunk college students. I can't blame providers for having a problem with that. (I can, and do, blame Comcast for their poor handling of it.) You can, of course, arrange for a higher service level with good providers (not Comcast). Such service costs orders of magnitude more. You think $80/month is bad? Try hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. - An open internet means if I want to bit-torrent all day from a site who can deliver me content at rated speed, I can. Sounds good to me. The problem is people don't seem to be willing to pay for it. They want to pay the same no matter how much they use. See above. - An open internet means that if I want content of a certain type (VOIP traffic, for example) which competes with a product my bandwidth supplier happens to provide, I can be sure the traffic will be delivered without hindrance or fiddling. At first read, that sounds good to me. But consider: What if a subscriber wants to pay more for their packets to be given higher priority? Say I'm a VoIP user, and I don't want my quality to go in to the mud just because there's a surge in Internet traffic because there's some high profile media event happening. I'm willing to pay more for that. How does that fit in? What if it's not a subscriber but a provider? What if it's a VoD provider who wants to make sure their videos always look good and is willing to pay for it? As you say, there's a real conflict-of-interest in many of these companies (Comcast, TWC, etc.) They sell communications transport, plus voice and TV over it, plus content itself. But at the same time, there are legitimate reasons to impose selective priorities and limits, as described above. That's one of the reasons structural separation seems to be an ideal solution, at least in theory. It reduces or removes the conflict-of-interest. It should also let subscribers more easily switch providers, and lower the barrier to entry for new providers. I'm just not sure it's a practical possibility in the US cultural/political/economic whole-sort-of-general-mish-mash. I hold out some hope; that link Ted posted is intriguing. Assuming structural separation proves impractical, I'm not sure what the next-best-thing would be. I suppose a simple solution would be to tell the big providers they have to treat all packets equally, and limit themselves to simple bandwidth caps, but there are potential problems with unintended consequences there, as noted above. I got an email from Comcast last month. They now display a Usage Meter in my account information on their website. Currently, they claim I've used 7 out of 250 GBbytes so far this month. As you note, they're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they're threatened by legal action. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Tue, April 6, 2010 11:45 pm, Greg Rundlett (freephile) wrote: You still have the power to protect the public interest. Please stand with us and keep the Internet in the hands of the people whose own prosperity depends on it every day. While I -- with the side-issue of s/Linux/*nix/; aside -- largely agree, it seems to me a letter that's a call-to-arms is best done with either an illustration of *what* can be done, or a link to a site describing same. While it may be in one of the three links in the original e-mail, most people won't wade through just looking. Clear and direct suggestions (e.g., signatory to a petition to the FCC) would be best, IMHO. $.02, -Ken -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On 04/07/2010 12:14 AM, Ric Werme wrote: From: Greg Rundlett (freephile) g...@freephile.com I hope this message is considered on topic because a) the Internet was/is built on Linux You just lost all of us who worked on ARPAnet. Of course, there aren't that many of us, so maybe it doesn't matter. The follow on to the ARPAnet, the Internet, started around 1980 with the publishing of the core Internet protocols and porting classics like the new (1973) FTP and Telnet protocols and new ones like NFS and the rest of ONC-RPC. Linux didn't appear until 1991 or so. I was off net in 1980, but I think BSD Unix is to the Internet as TENEX and PDP-10s were to the ARPAnet. Linux and Windows came along later. In V2, you might try dropping the was. Sorry, I guess that wasn't the point you were making Gee, I thought the ARPANET was built on CP-M :-) -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
Thanks Ric, You just made a FreeBSD user's morning. On Wed, 2010-04-07 at 00:14 -0400, Ric Werme wrote: From: Greg Rundlett (freephile) g...@freephile.com I hope this message is considered on topic because a) the Internet was/is built on Linux You just lost all of us who worked on ARPAnet. Of course, there aren't that many of us, so maybe it doesn't matter. The follow on to the ARPAnet, the Internet, started around 1980 with the publishing of the core Internet protocols and porting classics like the new (1973) FTP and Telnet protocols and new ones like NFS and the rest of ONC-RPC. Linux didn't appear until 1991 or so. I was off net in 1980, but I think BSD Unix is to the Internet as TENEX and PDP-10s were to the ARPAnet. Linux and Windows came along later. In V2, you might try dropping the was. Sorry, I guess that wasn't the point you were making -Ric ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:54 AM, Edward Ned Harvey b...@nedharvey.comwrote: Are you referencing something that happened today? Yes he was. Court Backs Comcast Over *FCC* on '*Net Neutrality*'http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303411604575167782845712768.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read - 44 minutes ago ** http://www.google.com/search?q=fcc+net+neutrality -- Bill n1...@arrl.net bill.n1...@gmail.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
Try http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html Written by the awesome Declan McCullagh, who is not only a good reporter, but a techy who understands the issues, and writes followups (6 as I type this). Net Neutrality will only give the government more control over the net. Sorry, but that's a bad thing, in my book. Please name one instance where the government getting involved has truly made things faster, cheaper and/or better. (pick 2.. they often try do one at the expense of the other 2) The net, from the very start, treats censorship (which is the major complaint Net Neutralists tout - slower access is just a subtle form of censorship), as damage and routes around it. If we have companies, like Comcast, who abuse their providerships, we route around them, sooner or later. Seth On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Bill Ricker bill.n1...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:54 AM, Edward Ned Harvey b...@nedharvey.com wrote: Are you referencing something that happened today? Yes he was. Court Backs Comcast Over FCC on 'Net Neutrality' - 44 minutes ago http://www.google.com/search?q=fcc+net+neutrality -- Bill n1...@arrl.net bill.n1...@gmail.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 11:45 PM, Greg Rundlett (freephile) g...@freephile.com wrote: The Net Neutrality fight goes on ... I hate Net Neutrality, simply because it means something different to everyone who talks about it. It's like natural as applied to food products. Please explain whatever it is you actually want. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
{grumbles and withholds yet another rant about the default value of Reply on
the mailing list}
--
-Tom
http://www.tarogue.net/~tom/
--- On Wed, 4/7/10, TARogue taro...@yahoo.com wrote:
From: TARogue taro...@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: We need a better Internet in America
To: Seth Cohn sethc...@gnuhampshire.org
Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 9:42 AM
--- On Wed, 4/7/10, Seth Cohn sethc...@gnuhampshire.org
wrote:
Try http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html
Written by the awesome Declan McCullagh, who is not
only a
good reporter, but a techy who understands the issues,
and
writes followups (6 as I type this).
Net Neutrality will only give the government more
control
over the net. Sorry, but that's a bad thing, in my
book.
Please name one instance where the government getting
involved has truly
made things faster, cheaper and/or better. (pick 2..
they often try do
one at the expense of the other 2)
Libraries, USPS, Medicare, Military ...
The net, from the very start, treats censorship (which
is
the major complaint Net Neutralists tout - slower
access is just a
subtle form of censorship), as damage and routes
around it. If we
have companies, like Comcast, who abuse their
providerships, we route
around them, sooner or later.
Nice theory, but not actually true in practice. A friend
and I were in a chat program, and she directed me to a web
page. She was in Ohio, I in NH, the site in California. She
got to it fine, and since I could get to her (via chat) it
would follow that I should get to the site. But no, there
was a break between me and the site and rather than go
around, the packets just kept hitting the wall. The routers
on the net send you in specific directions based on previous
'good' paths and won't change the route until some specific
event triggers a change. And without some impetus to make
that change you're stuck. And good luck finding more than
one broadband provider in the woods of NH. My choice is
Metrocast, or Metrocast.
Seth
--
-Tom
http://www.tarogue.net/~tom/
___
gnhlug-discuss mailing list
gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org
http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
Please name one instance where the government getting involved has truly made things faster, cheaper and/or better. (pick 2.. they often try do one at the expense of the other 2) Libraries, USPS, Medicare, Military ... Libraries started off as _private_, please review your history of libraries. Just because some are government funded, that doesn't have to be true. In fact, witnessing the current debacle of Concord's library funding problems, perhaps they shouldn't be. USPS is a disaster too. When you really want a package delivered cheap and fast and accurate, you go FedEx or UPS. The only reason they don't do 'normal' mail is because they aren't to, by law. Let them, and the USPS wouldn't be in business for long. And as for Medicare and Military, those are so off topic for this list, let's not go there. Suffice to say, I wouldn't point to them as successful. Nice theory, but not actually true in practice. A friend and I were in a chat program, and she directed me to a web page. She was in Ohio, I in NH, the site in California. She got to it fine, and since I could get to her (via chat) it would follow that I should get to the site. But no, there was a break between me and the site and rather than go around, the packets just kept hitting the wall. The routers on the net send you in specific directions based on previous 'good' paths and won't change the route until some specific event triggers a change. And without some impetus to make that change you're stuck. And good luck finding more than one broadband provider in the woods of NH. My choice is Metrocast, or Metrocast. Having just dealt with a similar problem (A site I host was unreachable by Comcast users here in NH, and it turns out to be Comcast's own New England DNS server was broken and not grabbing the right IP, every other DNS server they had, save one, were correct. But of course, for a local NH site, this was a disaster.), I sympathize, but that's the fault of bad server software, not the fault of intentional blockages which is the point of pro-Net Neutrality folks. And the only reason you don't have a choice is that cable franchises are government controlled monopolies. I'd love to have Metrocast as an option, but my only choice is Comcast, and guess what, they refuse to run cable to my road. So I'm stuck with Fairpoint DSL until Comcast decides they want to service my road. If Metrocast (or other providers) were given equal access (ie remove the monopoly), Comcast would have better service too, or lose my business to one of the others. Monopolies (ie government control) are the problem, NOT the solution. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
REMINDER DISCLAIMER: As always, unless explicitly stated otherwise, I speak only for myself, and my messages contain only my personal opinions. Oh, and people might want to review this discussion from the last time we had it: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.linux.gnhlug/5496 Started by same OP, with the same rhetoric, and with the same complete lack of anything resembling a specific problem statement or a proposed solution. Four years later and still all people do is jump up on a soap box and shout The Internet wants to be free! Get in line next to the guy with the sign about the end of the world being near. Just to be clear: I'm somewhat concerned about various issues, including the fact that consumer telecommunications are mostly provided by a small number of large companies. But calling for regulation with no clear statement on what the problem is (let alone the solution) is a really bad idea. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Ric Werme ewe...@comcast.net wrote: From: Greg Rundlett (freephile) g...@freephile.com I hope this message is considered on topic because a) the Internet was/is built on Linux You just lost all of us who worked on ARPAnet. Of course, there aren't that many of us, so maybe it doesn't matter. The follow on to the ARPAnet, the Internet, started around 1980 with the publishing of the core Internet protocols and porting classics like the new (1973) FTP and Telnet protocols and new ones like NFS and the rest of ONC-RPC. Linux didn't appear until 1991 or so. I was off net in 1980, but I think BSD Unix is to the Internet as TENEX and PDP-10s were to the ARPAnet. Linux and Windows came along later. In V2, you might try dropping the was. BSD created the standard TCP/IP stack used in Unix, Windows and just about everything else. My start with Internet in 1987 was on BITNET with usenet news on a gould unix system. I had ftp to simtel20 (running tenex / 36 bit). Vaxen were common, probably running BSD 4.2. IBM didn't do Unix. No http - the NeXT systems it was created on hadn't been built. In 1992 I had SunOS and Mosaic. Windows 3.1 and NT 3.5 didn't do TCP except with a 3rd party stack (trumpet winsock was one) and custom apps written to the stack. MacOS 7 got Mosaic about this time. NCSA http was the server everyone used. Apache hadn't started up. Apache == A Patchy web server because it was patching the NCSA server. I had Linux 0.93. TCP/IP was in development. Sound, network, CD-ROM drives were all add ons to a PC. No way would anyone do a web server on it beyond hey look! Cool!. I had my X server (XFree 2.x) crash the kernel often. I don't think FreeBSD existed yet, but BSDi was selling a BSD for PCs. Home users couldn't get internet. AOL was still a walled garden without outside connections. Dialup cost $$/minute. I can't imagine Linux being a viable web server until after 1996. It was mostly SunOS then. Solaris 2.3 was out, but it wasn't as good as SunOS until 2.4. AIX had emerged. Also, buy that time, Netscape emerged and I think MS had IIS. IE became available as a seperate download for Windows 95. Yahoo was starting as an index of the web. -- If it's fixed, don't break it ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
[OT] Re: We need a better Internet in America
Born on a mountain top in Tennesee, Greenest state in the land of the free, Invented the Internet when he was three, Made the first computer in nineteen-eighty. Al, Al Gore, Leader of the twi-ttter-verse! On 04/07/2010 07:28 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: On 04/07/2010 12:14 AM, Ric Werme wrote: From: Greg Rundlett (freephile)g...@freephile.com I hope this message is considered on topic because a) the Internet was/is built on Linux You just lost all of us who worked on ARPAnet. Of course, there aren't that many of us, so maybe it doesn't matter. The follow on to the ARPAnet, the Internet, started around 1980 with the publishing of the core Internet protocols and porting classics like the new (1973) FTP and Telnet protocols and new ones like NFS and the rest of ONC-RPC. Linux didn't appear until 1991 or so. I was off net in 1980, but I think BSD Unix is to the Internet as TENEX and PDP-10s were to the ARPAnet. Linux and Windows came along later. In V2, you might try dropping the was. Sorry, I guess that wasn't the point you were making Gee, I thought the ARPANET was built on CP-M :-) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Seth Cohn sethc...@gnuhampshire.org wrote: And the only reason you don't have a choice is that cable franchises are government controlled monopolies. That's certainly the biggest reason, but not the only one. In many rural areas, there is little to no profit incentive to run new telecom infrastructure (be it better copper pair, coax, fiber, whatever). Quite often, the only way a town can even get a coax system (cable TV) at all is by promising the provider exclusive rights for X number of years. In some jurisdictions, the incumbent coax operator is *not* granted a monopoly by the town -- other companies are welcome to come in and run their own lines. But this effectively *never* happens, because there's no money in trying to win business away from the incumbent. Facilities costs will be about the same for all companies, so they either have to sell at a huge loss indefinitely (and thus go out of business), or the customers don't see a reason to switch. Competing coax plants are probabbly feasible in dense population areas (big cities), but we don't have many/any of those in NH. Look at FiOS. Verizon got the hell out of NH because there's no money in ut. FairPoint apparently can't afford to keep the copper maintained, let alone build out fiber. It's a hard problem to solve. One idea I've heard that seems like it might be good is structural separation. One company runs the lines, but doesn't offer service over them. Other companies offer service over the common lines. Lines could be privately owned, or owned by the town and run by contract, like roads. I've read it's been done successfully in some smaller European countries. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
On 04/07/2010 08:59 AM, Seth Cohn wrote: Please name one instance where the government getting involved has truly made things faster, cheaper and/or better. (1) The Internet. Without the government (ARPANet NSFNet) we may not have had the Internet. (2) Healthcare. Without healthcare, you NMH guys would have some kind of caw disease :-) -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
Long distance companies are a model to look toward: You pay based on the company you use, and can and do switch based on the best choices/prices for your usages. As we all know, packet traffic is trackable, especially at the more local routers. It would be very easy to bill based on bandwidth usages at the local routers, if those local neighborhood nodes are 'shared' infrastructural costs among 2 or more companies. Heck, we KNOW they do it now, at the higher levels... companies share network resources at major routers, and pay for bulk usage. Look at FiOS. Verizon got the hell out of NH because there's no money in ut. FairPoint apparently can't afford to keep the copper maintained, let alone build out fiber. Both of which point to that a shared infrastructure would help solve lowering the overall cost, and increasing competition would cause companies to embrace that option, as opposed to only one company getting the monopoly and having no reason to share. It's a hard problem to solve. It's not that hard. We have lots of existing models to look at, and see what works. One idea I've heard that seems like it might be good is structural separation. One company runs the lines, but doesn't offer service over them. Other companies offer service over the common lines. Lines could be privately owned, or owned by the town and run by contract, like roads. I've read it's been done successfully in some smaller European countries. Exactly. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: Libraries have been public in the US primarily since the late 1700s. There is an ongoing debate as to which is the first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_library The library in the New Hampshire town of Peterborough claims to be the first publicly-funded library; it opened in 1833. There is a big difference between public and publicly _funded_. Most of the libraries you cite as being 'public' in the 1700s were 'private' in most every sense you'd recognize today, despite being open to the 'public' But this list isn't for debating library history. My overall point was that looking toward governmental regulation of the net, even for 'good reasons', as with all 'governmental regulation' in general is a mistaken approach to whatever problems you might want to solve. There are _always_ better answers. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Seth Cohn sethc...@gnuhampshire.org wrote: It's a hard problem to solve. It's not that hard. So go fix it then. Let me know when you're done, will ya? :) -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America
I'm sorry, but I'd like to know the better alternative to government regulations that prohibit the marketing and sale of elixers such as the following (ca. 1915): http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/quackcures/standradiumsolution.htm Sure, today we all are taught that radiation is bad today, and so we all know it is. However, how much of this knowledge is due to government regulation via the FDA, etc... and public standards of education? What alternative to these institutions has a track record of providing sufficient confidence in our consumables marketplace? -- Coleman Kane On Wed, 2010-04-07 at 14:23 -0500, Seth Cohn wrote: On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: Libraries have been public in the US primarily since the late 1700s. There is an ongoing debate as to which is the first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_library The library in the New Hampshire town of Peterborough claims to be the first publicly-funded library; it opened in 1833. There is a big difference between public and publicly _funded_. Most of the libraries you cite as being 'public' in the 1700s were 'private' in most every sense you'd recognize today, despite being open to the 'public' But this list isn't for debating library history. My overall point was that looking toward governmental regulation of the net, even for 'good reasons', as with all 'governmental regulation' in general is a mistaken approach to whatever problems you might want to solve. There are _always_ better answers. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: We need a better Internet in America
Seth Cohn sethc...@gnuhampshire.org writes: [...] But this list isn't for debating library history. My overall point was that looking toward governmental regulation of the net, even for 'good reasons', as with all 'governmental regulation' in general is a mistaken approach to whatever problems you might want to solve. There are _always_ better answers. Regardless of whether the FCC regulating `the Internet' (actually Comcast) is a good or a bad idea, wasn't the gist of the ruling the other day that..., contrary to Greg's assertion, the FCC actually *doesn't* have the power? Greg actually seems to be the one poster conspicuously missing from this thread that he started :) Maybe he can clarify what he meant. Or maybe this is actually a job for He-Man ;) -- Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
We need a better Internet in America
From: Greg Rundlett (freephile) g...@freephile.com I hope this message is considered on topic because a) the Internet was/is built on Linux You just lost all of us who worked on ARPAnet. Of course, there aren't that many of us, so maybe it doesn't matter. The follow on to the ARPAnet, the Internet, started around 1980 with the publishing of the core Internet protocols and porting classics like the new (1973) FTP and Telnet protocols and new ones like NFS and the rest of ONC-RPC. Linux didn't appear until 1991 or so. I was off net in 1980, but I think BSD Unix is to the Internet as TENEX and PDP-10s were to the ARPAnet. Linux and Windows came along later. In V2, you might try dropping the was. Sorry, I guess that wasn't the point you were making -Ric ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
