The end of the Internet as we know it?

[ink]

whats your solution ink? free cable for all? free electric?
Try China ...

have been in the industry for almost 30 years, you?

I don't install it either

not free cable no, but much more reasonable prices.

but i most certainly think that, electricity should have a certain amount that is allotted to each house enough to run your fridge, after a certain amount is used then the billing comes into play.
 

[Vulcan]

not free cable no, but much more reasonable prices.

but i most certainly think that, electricity should have a certain amount that is allotted to each house enough to run your fridge, after a certain amount is used then the billing comes into play.
 

ink please answer this, do you have any concept of the infrastructure costs and maintainence required, or do you believe things just tick along merrily by themselves?

[DES]

Infrastructure cost aside when your price gets to the point where people think it's not worth buying your in trouble and I think I've reached that point.

[ink]

Infrastructure cost aside when your price gets to the point where people think it's not worth buying your in trouble and I think I've reached that point.

far beyond that point

[Vulcan]

Answer the question.

[ink]

ink please answer this, do you have any concept of the infrastructure costs and maintainence required, or do you believe things just tick along merrily by themselves?

it does not matter

you can not tell me they are not making huge profits,not just the cable companies, im talking about all major corporations,(and many smaller ones) they are making major profits off of our blood and most people are okay with this or they are just to blind or unwilling to see the truth,     

how about a senator, or congressman, they make over 150 k a year, but yet only work around 90 days of that year, the entire system, is screwed not just America but the whole world.

it is only a short time away from them putting chips in every ones body, but they are going to make it seem like its for "your own good", after a few years  they will force it upon you,and your children and label you a negligent parent if you don't follow along.

they distort and twist the truth, giving us little  tiny bits of it, and then filling it over with lies.

we have entered the end of days  look around you, open your eyes,  those spiritual eyes in your heart.

see the world for what it is...a place that loves evil   we(humans) have turned away from our creator, and are turning to satan as god, i do not include myself in that "we" because i know who my father is he is Yahaveh.

  he is going to let us destroy what he has given us, freely we will destroy it. and than he will change it, restore it and those that followed satan will be gone, our souls cannot die they will live forever, ether in peace or torment, forever...

[Slash27]

[Ghastly]

<Uhmm, clears throat, puts away his copy of George Orwell's 1984....>

Yes, well. 

I have 2 major concerns with regards to this.  I think most of us would agree that a 250 GB cap is not an overly draconian limit - most of us would have to work diligently for an entire month trying to exceed such a limit to even come remotely close.   

But one of the more obvious areas of concern is - or should be - that the party setting such limits is in fact the party that has a near monopoly on the infrastructure where they are imposing the limits, that they are doing so arbitrarily based solely upon their own criteria.  And what will be case when other's begin to follow suit?  What if Charter decides that the "free" tier should be 25 GB per month? Or RCN decides it should be 2.5 GB?  (Just to use some examples of other providers in the areas surrounding where I live.) The average person has little or no idea and no real way to tell how much bandwidth they are using ... and with a near monopoly on service in many areas, much of their customer base has little real choice but to accept whatever is forced upon them willynilly, regardless of how liberal or draconian it might be.

The other concern is much more subtle - but probably of much greater importance - and is incorporated into 715's response although he may not realize it.  What's more "natural" than excluding your own content from any such imposed limits as a part of the service to your customers?  Does it bode well for the consumer when they might have to pay the cable company a surcharge for the bandwidth used to download a movie from a competitor rather than from the cable company?  Is it purely a coincidence that this is coming about at just about the same point in time as Internet delivery of movie content is starting to become more wide stream?  I don't really think so... do you?

Just like the issue of arbitrarily prioritizing certain traffic based upon subscription levels, what I see again is a way for the provider to exploit their near monopoly of the infrastructure in increasingly technical ways that will take our technologically unsavvy governments years to respond to (and when they finally do so, it's often in a manner that often fails to address the underlying issue at all.)

This is what I was alluding to... And try as I might, I'm still not quite sure how it ties in with microchipping peoples brains. {grin}

[BaldEagl]

Yikes!  I only said I didn't like my bill going up every couple of months.   

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Depending on the result of the LHC we either get very fast internet or very fast out of existence. 

[Denholm]

Yikes!  I only said I didn't like my bill going up every couple of months.   

It's happened to me too.

[Vulcan]

it does not matter

And basically this is what it all boils down to. You are clueless about business and expect the things you want the most in life to be free.

[715]

Again... he didn't say free.  Why do you keep saying that?

A bit of trivia:  the CEO of Comcast made $27.8 million in 2006 and the company cleared $25 billion in revenue.  I think if I made that much I'd probably be happy... and definitely fat

[goober69]

if you think thats bad man the ceo of wal-mart inc made about 85 million in 2007 probably more.

whereas most of the store's millions of employees average out at 7-8 dollars an hour. or 20-30k a year.

and dont even ask about wal-mart's stores overseas and factories in india where they can make 4-10 dollars a day and its considered a great job. right up there with all our telemarketing work they are getting lol

this world is insane when one man can make that much money and then the company says hey well we dont want obama in office he wants us to get unions. cause we REALLY cant afford to give every employe a minor raise of a 1$

what other MULTIBILLION $ company do you know that pays as little as minnimum wage to a vast majority of their employees?  (and yes i actauly heard in a meeting store managers explaining why we should not vote for obama, talk about socialisim at its worst)

maybe a fast food place like mcdonalds could come close but they did not show over 500 million in PROFIT last year.

[Vulcan]

Again... he didn't say free.  Why do you keep saying that?

A bit of trivia:  the CEO of Comcast made $27.8 million in 2006 and the company cleared $25 billion in revenue.  I think if I made that much I'd probably be happy... and definitely fat

Because he expects improved services at the same or lesser cost. IE, more, for free.

I had a quick look at comcasts profits, looks to me like they come in at around 10-13% net profit on turnover (feel free to correct this as I'm not really interested in spending oodles of time on it). That doesn't sound to outrageous to me.  Whereas Cisco did roughly the same turnover ($24 billion) with a gross margin of 65% and a net margin of 25%.

Get angry and wave your arms around all you like. You don't understand the business these companies do, the costs involved, and you seem willing to ignore their responsibilities to shareholders in order to moan and whinge about how you'd like to pay less for their services.