Geeklawyer spotted this news story about Comcast throttling bittorrent traffic. Geeklawyer does, on occasion, ‘steal’ films using bittorrent. Really, it’s not like anyone suffers (please, spare me the crap about ‘he would have bought it if it hadn’t been available on p2p’) and he certainly isn’t the only IP/IT lawyer to do so.While many would like to ascribe this to the MPAA-RIAA acting behind the scenes Geeklawyer thinks that this story has the flavour of truth. It is certainly the case that ISPs are flattened by the demands of p2p traffic; some say 80% of Internet traffic is torrent.
It may be that the shortage is ISPs capacity problems and probably it is. So then, just widen the pipes? But like road building where the more motorways one builds the more people use them until capacity usage is 101% would this solve the problem? Geeklawyer suspect the answer is no, but also that the motorway analogy is flawed. Like motorways, network backbones cost real big bucks to build & particularly over the last mile. The scalability of the problem is not equally comparable however. Even copper, let alone fibre, is capable of vast capability once exchanges are updated. And if one looks at wireless technologies such as wiMax then the capability of 100Mbytes+ over the last mile look easily plausible.
All of this requires huge funding. And if the Internet age is to realise its potential then consumers such as you and Geeklawyer should expect to have to dig into their pockets. Geeklawyer is willing to do so so long as it goes to infrastructure improvement. He imagines most consumers feel likewise. Furthermore like Victorian water mains there is a good argument that National Government should stump up some massive investment to aid this. Yes of course government providing services for the public good is a quaint concept: everything is about profit rather than the public good, but here the two are not incompatible.
Update: Comcast deny throttling Bittorrent. Though some say that they are lying.
Published on
3 April 2007 in
Geek and toys.
Tags: broadband, GPS, hiking, HSDPA, Internet, Internet Tablet, Maps, MDA, modem, mp3, N800, Nokia, Nokia N95, OSx, phones, video, wi-fi, wireless.
(This post has been authorised by Ruthie)
Geeklawyer is not one to bear a grudge. Honest. It’s true that he has had an unfortunate experience with the Nokia N800 Internet tablet. They show signs of making up for it with a great new toy: the Nokia N95 smartphone.
Geeklawyer has been sticking with a functional but dull Nokia 6230 awaiting the arrival of the N95. And he been doing so since September of last year.
The wait is over and, damn, it was worth it. It works seamlessly with Mac OSx unlike the crappy MDA Pro (Ruthie has just acquired an O2 XDA — the same inadequate model Geeklawyer has joyfully ditched). It has a 5 megapixel camera, high definition video, email, an FM radio, MP3 player and photo and video gallery. It has a proper sized earphone jack so one can use decent headphones and not the silly ‘phone only’ specials other phones have. It has a MicroSD slot with cards available up to 2Gigs. A fast USB2 connector allows for proper synchronization with a PC and one can synchronize over bluetooth or wireless.
Best of all it has an inbuilt GPS receiver. This takes some time to start up and hunt satellites, and this caused Geeklawyer some concern, but when it does start it is reasonably accurate for a GPS unit of this type and one can pay for download-able maps. Geeklawyer bought the UK maps. This functionality was given a brief test and it worked well but Geeklawyer intends to take it hiking for a serious test.
On the connectivity front it has all bases covered: it has bluetooth and, wonderfully, Wi-Fi it is also HSDPA capable, one of only a handful of phones with it. HSDPA can give near broadband speeds when there is decent coverage: pages downloaded in a flash and it’s capabilities as a Mac Powerbook modem lead Geeklawyer to regard this as the best breed of smartphone available so far: the MDA Pro has a better size of screen but the N95 has a superior browser: Opera.
This is a truly excellent phone and well worth the wait. Provided it doesn’t screw up in the next few weeks Geeklawyer may be prepared to forgive the N800 fiasco.
Published on
20 November 2006 in
toys.
Tags: apple, hype, ipod, iRiver, mp3, OSx, radio, recorder, RIAA-MPAA, voice, wireless, zune.
Geeklawyer cannot find a decent mp3 player. He currently has a Creative Zen Vision:M but frankly, it’s a dogs dinner. The software is crap, there’s no Apple Mac OSx software (except some ropey Opensource stuff) you can’t use it as a portable hard drive and the FM radio broke within 2 months. The Apple iPod is a superbly thought out device but it is overhyped overpriced and underspecified: to get anything decent like a radio, or even something so basic as a voice recorder, requires a dongle which is expensive and pointless — except that the 3d party ecosystem is intended to milk you the punter of the maximum amount of cash possible. Fair enough Geeklawyer says, business is business, but Steve: don’t tell me you love me as you rifle though my wallet. Continue reading ‘MP3 players’
Published on
31 August 2006 in
crime.
Tags: anonymity, bedroom, email, hacker, kiddy porn, laptop, music, neighbour, paranoia, password, Police, wi-fi, wireless.
Geeklawyer uses WiFi at home: its pretty useful to be able to wander around with a laptop from lounge to kitchen to bedroom and still browse the web and do email. However no-one has yet invented electromagnetic waves that stop at ones front door and this can result in unforeseen circumstances like ones neighbours using ones WiFi connection to do their Internet browsing.
Continue reading ‘WiFi freeloading’
Published on
5 April 2006 in
toys.
Tags: 3G, drunk, geek toys, geeklawyer, MI5, phones, privacy, pub, t-mobile, virgin, vodaphone, wireless.
geeklawyer, despite being a geek and technology buff doesn’t always appreciate the total wizziness of progress until he experiences it rather than merely reading about it in reports. A moment of clarity descended today. Continue reading ‘whooooo… toyz’
Geeklawyer still can’t get decent Internet access and is reduced to the miserable circumstance of sitting in pubs with wireless access in order to pick up emails and make blog submissions. Thanks heavens for WiFi. Continue reading ‘Geeklawyer is still having ISP problems.’
I’ve just written an article on whether using an open wireless access point is criminal. Continue reading ‘Wireless access criminal?’
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