[GRLUG] Linux desktop marketshare

[Michael Mol]

On Dec 11, 2007 4:30 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 11, 2007 12:48 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Dec 11, 2007 12:34 PM, Don Wood <dond at standalelumber.com> wrote:
> > > http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS2414535067.html
> > >
> > > I believe most of this.
> >
> > This line got me to lose interest:
> >
> > "While all this has been going on, broadband Internet connectivity has
> > become almost as easily available as cell phone coverage."
> >
> > Grade A bull.  Much of Muskegon county doesn't even have DSL, and
> > there are no estimates for when it might be rolled out.  When I lived
> > in Muskegon, I used 56k dial-up.  I know lots of people *in Grand
> > Rapids* who can barely afford dial-up, much less broadband.  Should my
> > living arrangements change, I'll likely be dropping back to dial-up
> > myself.
> >
> > All the buzz is about Verizon's 20Mb/s FIOS, or Comcast's demoing
> > 150Mb/s connectivity.  The controversy over how the FCC measures
> > broadband coverage seems like a distant memory.  Read/Write Web
> > recently had an article talking about the coming Internet slow-down,
> > saying "It will be like the bad old days of dial-up."
> >
> > It's amazing how many people fail to realize those "bad old days" are
> > still here for a huge demographic.  It brings to mind people's wonder
> > at the beginning of the Atomic Age.  Nothing really changed (Where are
> > all the nuke plants now?  Why are we having a debate over coal plants
> > in Kansas?), people just thought everything was different, somehow.
> >
> > If you really wanted, I bet you could make a killing with webservices
> > catering to low-bandwidth customers.  Ditch flash, video and large
> > images, and focus on text content.  There's a huge peasant class on
> > the Internet right now that nobody seems to remember.
> >
> >
>
>
> Any number of these points would make
> for a fine discussion.  e.g.,  you can't site
> a power plant or a transmission line in most
> areas today.  "Not in my backyard,"  and
> the lawsuits that go with them.  So MI and
> other states are down to single digit generating
> reserves.  But wait until the lights start to flicker...
>
> Anyway,  satellite Internet connectivity is
> available anywhere satellite TV is.  Not cheap,
> at about $62 a month,  it is now about 1.5Mbps
> down and 128 Kbps up.  I suspect there are
> byte quotas for each day.
>
> But it is the case that bandwidth in general is
> getting scarce now.  Most of the fiber laid in
> the heady dot-com 1990s was never activated.
> There's a lot of potential capacity out there in
> the form of fiber backbone,  but rather less
> actual capacity.
>
> I suspect one can indeed watch for ever
> greater bandwidth congestion now for a
> while until someone figures there is a profit
> reason to expand the capacity.  Data traffic
> is almost pure profit for outfits like Comcast,
> so they will let us suffer slowdowns until
> some other company gets on with it and then
> start advertising wonderful new capacity...  :-(

Thinking of which...Any word on when FiOS might hit Grand Rapids?

-- 
:wq