DaZZa wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, Roland Turner wrote:
>
> > > The difference between ADSL and HFC systems is that HFC system uses a
> > > _shared_ carrier - it's more of a broadcast system - and ADSL is a
> > > _direct_ connection - you get your 1.5 meg ALL the time - not just when
> > > none of your neighbours are using the net as well as you.
> >
> > That's a little bit like looking at the 10Mbps Ethernet between your PC
> > and your ADSL device and saying "Gee Whiz! I have a 10Mbps _direct_
> > connection to the Internet!"
>
> This is getting personal - so I won't go on at too great a length. Suffice
I responded to a ridiculous assertion by ridiculing it publically. This
may not have been appropriate. My apologies.
> to say that I've a tad more savvy than you grant me.
I judge you by the content of your posts. If you are holding out here,
then by all means, educate me.
> I'll also go out of
> my way to ignore most of your comments which I find personally insulting,
> which I wouldn't usually do, but hey, the Olympics are almost here.
>
> > The local cable loop _can_ be a bottleneck, but the pressures that bring
> > this about are commercial, not technical. Likely circumstances include:
>
> [snipt]
>
> > The (easy) trap to fall into when looking at cable is to assume that, as
> > usage grows, the provider cannot respond. Indeed, ADSL providers look on
> > with glee at the hypnotic fascination that this shared vs. private
> > furphy (misleading image) holds for people like yourself.
>
> There's a vast difference between being _technically_ capable to split
> segments, and being _commercially_ willing to do so. By your own
> statements above - commercial realities rule business - even {or
> especially?} Telstra's business.
Of course. An organisation so far gone that it couldn't grow its cable
network to meet growing demand (and thus sales) would also be unable to
grow its upstream links to meet the growing demand and sales, whether
for cable or ADSL. Once again, you are arguing that commercially
imcompetent organisations will give poor service, regardless of the
technology in use.
> > Videotron (Canadian cable provider with, amongst other things, a
> > monopoly in Montreal) routinely splits segments where there are lots of
> > paying customers using cable modems. It is a fact of life that it costs
> > money to provide stuff that people will pay for, expanding the cable
> > network capacity is just another part of that exercise.
>
> I just love people like you who compare Australia's market with some part
> of the continental US's market. You talk about commercial reality - run
> this through your reality metre.
>
> Effectively the same landmass - but more than 10 times the population.
You appear to be comparing continental USA and Australia. I was
comparing Canada and Australia. Canada has about 25% more landmass and
80% more population, however Australia's population is more concentrated
than Canada's. (This is explained in part by the fact that, in both
countries, there are enormous tracts of unpopulated land, but that
Canada has fertile land throughout.)
Videotron is not a US company. It lives or dies on how profitably it
runs its Canadian cable TV and Internet operations, and it is by no
means a monopoly, even in Canada.
> Does this hint anything do you about economies of scale, or relative costs
> to provide the services, or such like?
>
> You can NOT compare Australia and the USA in this fashion. It just doesn;t
> work. They have morepaying customers to distribute the cost of
> infrastructure over, and more income to justify performing actions like
> splitting segments.
Agreed. If I was comparing Australia to the USA, my comparison would at
least be suspect. Instead I am comparing Sydney with Montreal (half
Sydney's population, but still one of Canada's largest). Your argument
points out that, in Sydney and Melbourne, cable companies have it easier
than they do in Canadian cities. In Canadian cities, cable splitting is
a routine, profitable operation. So it is here.
> > > So you're lucky - you don't have many users in your local cable segment -
> > > the same as I am with Optus. But I know people who are on _busy_ bigpuddle
> > > cable segments - and the service is terrible. ADSL will make them much
> > > happier.
> >
> > You further reinforce the argument: Telstra has a commercial interest in
> > marginalising cable in Australia and in pushing its cable users to ADSL.
> > Anywhere that it is able to offer both services, it will _not_ spend on
> > upgrading that cable service when neccessary, instead it will encourage
> > its users to move across to ADSL and it will spend its upgrade money
> > there.
>
> And this contradicts my stance exactly how?
Your stance, for some time, has been that cable is, for technical
reasons (shared media design) an inferior choice for someone wanting a
broadband connection. Here, I'll quote you:
+> HFC is an inferior solution to ADSL - simply because of the shared
+> bandwidth.
Perhaps you were implying that it was an inferior solution to some other
problem than getting a broadband connection?
> My area has Telstra cable, Optus cable, and according to the latest from
> Telstra, ADSL from around September.
>
> By the way, assuming I'll be connecting to Telstra for ADSL is pretty dumb
This is too ironic. Are you saying that assuming that it was dumb to
assume that you were telling the truth when you said (continuing the
above quote):
+>If I can get ADSL to my place, I'm going for it.
or were you referring to the existence of other ADSL providers (who, for
a little while yet, will be reselling Telstra's ADSL in most areas)? If
the latter, what does this change?
> - because I may not. There _are_ other options, despite your obvious
> ignorance of them.
Feel free to educate me. Avoiding rebuttal by alluding to what you mean,
rather than saying it, merely indicates a lack of confidence in your own
beliefs, or perhaps an unwillingness to have them change.
> [...rest deleted...]
>
> Yes, I've ignored the rest, because I'm not going to add fuel to the
> fires of religious fervour burning in your eyes.
<blink>
What are you talking about? Apart from the bits that I've requoted above
with +>, you appeared to be excusing a Telstra (your own religious
fervour perhaps?) mail service outage and I pointed out that, IMO, the
particular failure that you referred to was inexcusable. Do you feel
otherwise? Do you suggest that it's reasonable for Telstra to not bother
exercising best practice in managing Internet services and connectivity?
What religious fervour?
- Raz
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