[GRLUG] Google and Kansas City

Rob Steenwyk rsteenwyk at gmail.com
Thu Mar 31 00:35:22 EDT 2011


Chase, have you looked into wireless ISPs like Michwave or Azulstar? My
parents use Michwave and it has been a very solid service.
On Mar 30, 2011 11:08 PM, "Chase Bolen" <chase.bolen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm one of those people who live in the boonies.  We're maybe twenty
> minutes from downtown GR.  When we moved here, we were under the
> impression that there WERE faster wires here, but it turned out that
> "here" according to the ISPs was "in our zipcode".
>
> We have satellite internet, and it's NOT a broadband replacement.  Three
> to six second round-trip packet times make anything media related either
> unusable or nearly so (youtube, pandora, hulu).  Sites using ajax barely
> work, and often time out.  Anything real time is pretty much out of the
> question (Skype, online gaming).  Even if those DID work, though, the
> bandwidth caps would get hit pretty quickly.  On top of this, the
> service is way more expensive than most other "broadband" choices, and
> wouldn't be an option for a lot of people.
>
> I just heard a story about local governments posting notices on the web
> instead of in newspapers, and I don't think this trend is going to slow
> down in the near future.  Commercial ISPs aren't going to willingly lose
> money to wire sparsely populated rural areas.  Just like electrification
> in the 20th century, real broadband isn't going to reach the rest of us
> without government intervention.
>
> On Wed, 2011-03-30 at 21:54 -0400, Bob Kline wrote:
> > That's basically it.  More performance,
> > in the most general sense, will cost more,
> > but it's up to the individual to decide what
> > they want to spend their money on.  It's
> > no different than how people decide what
> > kind of car to drive, or how big a TV they
> > have to have.
> >
> >
> > For those in the boonies, some chose to
> > live where it's not economic to run the
> > faster wires.  But there's still HughesNet.
> >
> >
> >    -- Bob
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 9:32 PM, Joseph McLaughlin <jwm8351 at yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> >         Are you advocating Government involvement?
> >         Should the market place relegate this fair city to the bottom
> >         of the heap?
> >         And why do cows need high speed Internet?
> >
> >         There is still a bug in the program must use RAID!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >         ______________________________________________________________
> >         From: Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com>
> >         To: "Mailing List for LUG in greater Grand Rapids, MI area."
> >         <grlug at grlug.org>
> >         Sent: Wed, March 30, 2011 9:10:56 PM
> >         Subject: Re: [GRLUG] Google and Kansas City
> >
> >
> >         I have a real, genuine fear that we're going about this with a
> >         *severe* case of myopia.
> >
> >         I had difficulty navigating the web in 2007 on dial-up, with
> >         image
> >         bugs, large banner ads, huge JavaScript loads, large CSS
> >         loads,
> >         fifteen 5k or so avatar images whenever you visit a forum
> >         thread--even
> >         auto-play video video advertisements...Imagine how bad it is
> >         now.
> >         There are places within twenty miles of here which can't get
> >         cable,
> >         DSL, or even a reliable cell signal.
> >
> >         Those involved in designing web services purchase very
> >         high-end
> >         network connections, get accustomed to those connections, and
> >         then
> >         *design* for those connections. It's a really bad
> >         self-reinforcing
> >         loop. Much like how software got slower as computers got
> >         faster, but
> >         it's much harder to raise the median Internet connection speed
> >         than it
> >         is to raise the median computer speed.
> >
> >         There is a not-insignificant fraction of the population in
> >         America
> >         itself which is still going to be completely out of reach of
> >         even
> >         10Mb/s Internet commercial services in ten years, and people
> >         gripe
> >         that our municipality isn't acting like those which take out a
> >         25-year
> >         mortgage on their own essential services infrastructure to
> >         "give" us
> >         access to gigabit broadband connections below cost.
> >
> >         I can't be the only one who's noticing this. In order for a
> >         bound-to-the-Internet economy to be sustainable, Internet
> >         services
> >         need to be virtually ubiquitous, and essential activities need
> >         to be
> >         manageable on lower-end Internet connections.
> >
> >         On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 9:46 PM, Bob Kline
> >         <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> >         >
> >         >
> >
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/google-bestows-1gbps-fiber-network-on-kansas-city-kansas.ars
> >         > This gives a good summary about
> >         > why Google is doing this.  It thinks
> >         > it needs higher speeds to support
> >         > future projects.  And it clearly sees
> >         > that the existing big providers are
> >         > digging in, not providing higher speeds,
> >         > and not above not letting others do
> >         > it either.
> >         > It will be interesting to see how this
> >         > plays out.  Chattanooga, TN, already
> >         > has a 1Gbps system.
> >         >    -- Bob
> >         > --
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> >
> >
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