Posts by Rich of Observationz
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So basically, what we are looking at is that the price of ADSL2 (and basic telephony) service from Telecom and its resellers will increase in order to make the expensive fibre more attractive. It's pretty much taxing those who don't want fibre in order to subsidize it into the home.
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assuming they're not telling fibs, their margins are around $60 per customer and year currently. Out of that comes international bandwidth, helpdesk and more.
Because they're providing a thin layer with negligible added value and scope for innovation. All things being equal, the larger providers are going to have lower operating costs on operations, call-centre and bandwidth than their competitors. The only way the small ISP can compete is to reduce service.
Really, much as people want to deal with locally owned small businesses, they can't compete in this market. It's a natural monopoly, and prices need to regulated.
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It's hard to see how this is going to work. Basically (assuming no government or inter-customer subsidy) FTTH is going to be substantially more expensive than ADSL2 + broadcasting + video stores, which is the incumbent delivery channel.
It's not clear how many customers are going to be convinced to pay the extra. For one thing, there isn't that much content out there - production of such content is pretty marginal commercially, hence the failure of several such services recently. (Alt TV, etc).
An ideal solution would be for wealthy corporations to build the network, be bankrupted in the process, and have it acquired from the receiver for a song, allowing the service to be sold cheaply (effectively, subsidising it with the money of mug investors). This worked well with the US fibre bubble.
Failing that, the only options would be to either pour large amounts of taxpayer dollars into subsidising the service, force cross-subsidy from ADSL and POTS customers, or force existing ADSL/POTS/broadcast users to upgrade to fiber, whether they want to or not.
It's a question of whether fibre is such a shiny must have that we have to conscript the majority into financing it?
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to richard,
Do you think they have Godwin's law on soc.history.war.world-war-ii ?
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the quote at the top of the redbaiter blog is from George Orwell
Well, after 1984 and Orwell's untimely death, he was packaged as an anti-communist proto-cold warrior. Which he of course never was. He was anti-Stalinist, but from a firmly socialist position with Trotskyist/Anarchist components.
But you wouldn't expect a retard like Redbaiter to get that.
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his loathing of the nanny state was incompatible with his passionate love affair with the state of Singapore
That's easy. In imaginary-propertarian world, the rich (as happens in reality) get away with everything by virtue of their wealth. The proles get thrown in jail, as they deserve.
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. Isn’t the entire point of universities that they are first and foremost institutions of higher learning, and not training providers?
As currently constituted, they are both. You can do an MA in Philosophy, or a highly career specific course such as engineering.
If you want to make a career in many areas, you *have* to do a degree - there is no other option. Even if a poly education is theoretically possible, your career prospects will suffer as a result.
So anyone wanting a career at a level above technician in most areas has to attend university. Should they also have to study subjects not directly required for their planned profession?
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
I actually think expecting companies or shareholders to have any sort of morals is naive and wrong - even when those companies are seen as "nice" (Google? Apple? Body Shop?) any positive motivation is likely to be transient.
In the case of Mediaworks, they are owned by an Australian private equity business that also invests in oil drilling, private healthcare and waste disposal. It's likely that any broader view of the business includes the promotion of unfettered free-market capitalism. (How does bigotry and racism help with that? By making the downtrodden think that they are better than and at the same time threatened by the Other. Henry's attitude is all about promoting that idea).
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sell Artificial Intelligence solutions to farmers
Is that the system that bangs out Federated Farmers pronouncements on why they should be free to abuse livestock and pollute waterways?
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Free education would be an ideal, but not one we have here.
Why aren’t our buses full of people poring over those things, then just slipping in to ace the exams at the end?
There are people whose learning styles would allow them to do that (in law at any rate, possibly not medicine as you need live victims to practice on).
But the universities put up barriers to this in order to retain a monopoly on recognition of learning.