[HECnet] Out of action more or less until the 25th...

[Gregg Levine]

On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote:
The last hotel had like 14-20 mbps, I think they must've had fibre or
something. Who the fuck buys a T1 anyway?
Get some DSL lines, a load balancing router and bob = uncle. This is not
rocket surgery.
Anyway, I think what largely happened in the US-sucks-at-internet case is
the first-to-move-inertia: "OK, we got something new a cool, look it works".
This was ok in 1996. Not so good now.
And don't give me the crap about geographical / demographics (like the
telcos do), I can get an ADSL2+ line (which depending on length of copper
can drop to like 2 megs, but should be at least 4)   in Lapland, 100 megs in
the major towns. And 7 meg 3G almost everywhere, including weird middle of
forest places in Finland.
Universal internet access has been declared a human right by the European
Parliament, so the telcos are getting a bit stressed....:)
The US govt method of dealing with telcos is wrong: you dont GIVE them money
to build shit, you threaten to pull their license if they dont do universal
service / build shit by date X. Of course, then the telco lobbyist would
give the money to someone else.*
Sampsa

* Don't get me started on how I think the lobbyist system is killing
democracy and the little guy. At least when I visit the Middle East, they're
honest about bribes - but there's no democracy and n one gives a shit about
the little guy.


On 19 Sep 2010, at 15:04, Jason Stevens wrote:

Welcome to America... And yes, our internet speeds are a joke.   I think we
are number 17 world wide and falling?
The telcos can give you a massive laundry list of excuses why they suck, but
they've all taken massive  amounts  of government money to fix it, and of
course like any good oligarchy they are not fixing anything, except prices.
I'm still blown away from a trip to Japan some FIVE years ago when I had to
download Visual Studio at the MSDN site, and it completed before I even had
time to get out of my chair for a coffee break....
Like a lot of things here, since the majority of people don't get any
international exposure, we don't know how badly we are being screwed when it
comes to just about everything...
Just look at all the HFCS in our "food", or hell go to McDonnalds and pick
up some chicken nuggets, and compare/contrast what the same company sells
here and in the UK.

I could go on and on, but nothing will change...

On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote:

I've been moved to a hotel with "high speed" internet access that is
slower than the pile of crap I used in Beirut.
Thus SSHng into my boxes is painful, but can be done if absolutely
necessary.
If you want to read more about these service provider clowns, go to:
http://sampsa.com/2010/09/19/guesttek-suck-avoid-hotels-that-use-them/


Hello!
No need to go on. Sampsa I stayed in a series of these crappy places
during a month of adventures posing as a vacation, about two years
ago.

Actually Jason we are now 16. The 17 pose went to the Russians. It
seems their telecom infrastructure is so bad, it doesn't creak but it
will behave strangely.

Incidentally all hotels in the DC area are stuck with that because the
Feds insist on abusing the networks where they are centrally located.
It gets better closer to NYC, by the time you're staying in a NJ hotel
you're getting closer to your home's settings.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."