Physical Medium Viability

memebag

Top Brass, ADVP
Oct 11, 2008
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Lake Huntzing
I hate the net neutrality debate with a passion. I understand that we need to keep the ISPs from going to a old school AT&T like system where they own everything and tell you what you can do with it, but at the same time some of the network neutrality supporters are way out in left field.

Such as?

I remember reading an article about a week ago where apparently, because phone through the cable company runs on its own separate internal network, it gives the cable phone service an unfair advantage over services like Vonage. It's by design that it has to work like that, not by malicious intent.

Yeah, right.

The ISPs do have their problems, but call them out on the big stuff, not the small things. Small time BitTorrent throttling and phone service QoS are small things. Now, if a cable company tries saying that you have to pay them $10 bucks a month for the right to watch your instant movies on NetFlix, THAT'S a big thing.

Net neutrality is the big stuff. Think about it like this: What if Wal-mart owned the roads, or had a sweetheart deal with a company that owned the roads? Every time you left your driveway, they got to ask if you were headed to Wal-mart or Target. If you were headed to Wal-mart, you got to use the fast lane. If you were headed to Target, you had to use the slow lane, or maybe just stay home today. That's what net neutrality is about. It isn't just bittorrent throttling; it's Time Warner shutting down access to Netflix to promote their own video service.

ISPs have always held themselves up as "common carriers" when it comes to the legal liabilities of what flows through their wires. Comcast distributes kiddie porn, but they aren't going to jail for it because they're a "common carrier". They can't maintain that status and simultaneously look inside your packets and give special treatment to the ones that profit them. They own the roads. They have to let you drive wherever you want.
 

snakester

Member
Oct 29, 2008
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Lovely Seacost NH
Video and VOIP communications require a QoS that BitTorrent doesn't.

Exactly my point. The companies should be able to prioritize traffic that NEEDS it. The net neutrality don't like that idea. More and more they're making themselves look like a bunch of crybabies. As long as the ISP doesn't degrade services to the point of being unusable (BitTorrent was usable with the way Comcast was throttling it) or start charging people to prioritize certain types of traffic, I see no problem with network management. Network engineers know better how to make their network efficient than the FCC does, and upstream BitTorrent traffic can kill a close to overloaded cable node.
 

memebag

Top Brass, ADVP
Oct 11, 2008
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Lake Huntzing
Exactly my point. The companies should be able to prioritize traffic that NEEDS it. The net neutrality don't like that idea. More and more they're making themselves look like a bunch of crybabies. As long as the ISP doesn't degrade services to the point of being unusable (BitTorrent was usable with the way Comcast was throttling it) or start charging people to prioritize certain types of traffic, I see no problem with network management. Network engineers know better how to make their network efficient than the FCC does, and upstream BitTorrent traffic can kill a close to overloaded cable node.

By engineers, do you mean those crybabies at the Internet Architecture Board?

Network engineers know that over-provisioning with edge bandwidth control is the least complicated, most cost effective and least hackable solution.

Bittorrent traffic can't kill anything unless the ISP lets it.
 

HecticArt

Administrator
Oct 19, 2008
49,827
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Toledo, Ohio
Funny thing is, I was pondering the whole DVD thing when I replaced my TV and discovered that 3D TV's aren't being made anymore. They still make the 3D blue ray players, and I still think the format is convenient. I'm expecting they will be around for quite a while before they disappear though.
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
27,227
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Toronto, ON
Funny thing is, I was pondering the whole DVD thing when I replaced my TV and discovered that 3D TV's aren't being made anymore. They still make the 3D blue ray players, and I still think the format is convenient. I'm expecting they will be around for quite a while before they disappear though.
Are you telling me 3D TVs were just a fad? Who could have predicted that?
 
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scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
23,405
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Vacationland
My panasonic plasma is 3-d capable. There used to be a couple of cable channels that showed 3-d movies, but I never paid the $300 or so for 2 sets of glasses.
 

Kryptonite

Well-Known Member
Oct 21, 2008
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Ask Memebag.

When this thread started, I don't think the cloud existed.

Some form of a "cloud" has existed since the dawn of web-based email back in....well, I remember Yahoo mail in 1999.

In 2008, I worked for an office where we had computers...you could log in to any terminal and have your stuff right there. They also had the ability to refresh the desktops to say the client's name when they did tours.

The "cloud" has definitely existed for longer than we think.
 

Kryptonite

Well-Known Member
Oct 21, 2008
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My panasonic plasma is 3-d capable. There used to be a couple of cable channels that showed 3-d movies, but I never paid the $300 or so for 2 sets of glasses.

At one point, I could have paid for ESPN3D and (I think) Starz 3D.

Well, the 3D-ready TV I had suffered from Sony's "green blob" issue....go ahead, look it up...they offered me a sweet deal on a flat-panel 1080p TV.

The 3D one was where the lightbulb would eventually need replaced. I don't believe it ever was replaced before the green blob appeared.
 

scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
23,405
18,654
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Vacationland
At one point, I could have paid for ESPN3D and (I think) Starz 3D.

Well, the 3D-ready TV I had suffered from Sony's "green blob" issue....go ahead, look it up...they offered me a sweet deal on a flat-panel 1080p TV.

The 3D one was where the lightbulb would eventually need replaced. I don't believe it ever was replaced before the green blob appeared.
Ah, the good old rear projection TV. Never had one. I went right from a Sony Wega XBR HD tube TV right to a Panasonic Plasma.
 

scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
23,405
18,654
168
Vacationland
Some form of a "cloud" has existed since the dawn of web-based email back in....well, I remember Yahoo mail in 1999.

The "cloud" has definitely existed for longer than we think.
I guess that's true. I've had the same AOL email since '96. All of our emails are in a cloud.

I was specifically referring to the option of electing to have your media in the cloud, instead of on a physical device. That wasn't much of a consideration until the 2000s.