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The Internet

Sacrificial Broadband? 78

Posted by Cliff from the who-needs-lent? dept.
BitGuy asks: "SBC's VP of Network Engineering reckons that 78% of broadband users would give up their daily newspaper instead of living without their broadband connection (hmm, being a broadband user, I don't need a newspaper), and 63% said they'd give up their morning coffee (the freaks!). Personally I'd rather give up watching TV - what would the rest of Slashdot give up to keep your real sweet net access?"
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Sacrificial Broadband? More

Sacrificial Broadband?

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  • My girlfriend ... whoops.

    My ocean view ... whoops.

    My crime-free neighborhood ... whoops.

    Well, I might give up TV for broadband. But not coffee.


  • Don't need to give up anything... In Portland, Oregon, DSL by Hevanet is wonderful.
  • Oh, wait...
  • oops. That was pretty stupid.

  • My TV is the closet. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by km790816 ( 78280 ) <wqhq3gx02@@@sneakemail...com> on Wednesday September 18, 2002 @03:48AM (#4279796)
    I second giving up TV. Smartest thing I did when I moved was not getting cable.

    Splurge and get the extra 256k download and you'll still be money a head.

    I have a lot of friends that say "Yeah, but there are great shows on." True, but for every 1 good show I watch 3 horrible ones. It's too damn easy to come home and hit the power button. You just sit and watch and suddenly 2 hours is wasted out of an already short day. After 3 months, I'm over $100 richer and I've read more than I have in the past year. I go to my friends place on Monday for the important shows on Fox. It's amazing how annoying commercials are after not seeing them.

    Try it for a few months! If you need an entertainment fix, listen to radio streaming off the net.

    • True, but for every 1 good show I watch 3 horrible ones.

      Then you are the problem, not television. You see, that remote control is for changing the channel when the show sucks. Better yet, record what you like, and watch it at your leisure. I never have to worry about watching commercials on a premiere night for a show I like when I can just start 15 minutes late and skip the commercials.

      • Its not just him. A remote control that can select from 1000 channels of canned and rehashed content of baby food that are offered by a close group of vendors cannot be compared to the openness of two way communication provided by the internet.

        If a person cannot adapt to the communications possibilities provided by this network, then perhaps television is their vice.

    • Me Too (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Yohahn ( 8680 )
      I cannot say enough about how nice life is without TV and only a net connection and radio.

      I still get current news and the like, but when people are complaining about getting inundated with stuff (christmas ads, particular news stories) I'm perfectly happy.

      Try this just for a month and you'll see what I mean.
    • I have ReplayTV, and it has totally changed how I watch TV. I don't sit down and surf to whatever is on; I sit down and watch something that I already decided I was interested in. And I agree, commercials are so much more annoying now that I don't see them at home.

    • Re:My TV is the closet. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Quinn ( 4474 )
      After no TV for months, I watched the tomb opening on FOX and was disgusted at the quick-cut hip-hop in-your-face commercials and the robotically insincere "we care" talking heads on the local news!

      Before the special started, I was telling my wife I'd like to get cable at the new house, just for TLC, Discovery, and the other "edutainment" channels, but after that barrage of primetime pablum, I'd changed my mind.

      Sure, one can always turn the channel, but why? Why force yourself to find something else to /watch/, when there are other things to /do/?

      I still miss classic movies on AMC and TMC, but beyond that, I can get all the entertainment I need from broadband and DVD.

      Oh, and the wife, of course. :)
    • When we moved, we got cable. But we also got a Tivo. You don't want one. I watch too much TV now, but at least it's 'good' TV (The West Wing, Simpsons, various outdoors programs).
  • I wouldn't mind sacrificing a few trolls or Bill Gates or Louis Gerstner in the name of broadband. Hell, I'd sacrifice them for no good reason at all.
  • I'd give up 10 euros a month for a 100 MBit connection to the internet.
    That's actually what I'm paying now. :^)
    Ok, maybe I'd pay 15 euros.
    • I'ld really like to know how you are getting 100Mbit at such a low price. I know you don't have an OC-3 for that price. Are you sure that's not 512k? The speed of your LAN doesn't count. It's the speed from your provider. For 99% of the sites out there, you can only get 1.5Mbit (and that's perfect conditions).
      • He is probably living on a Dutch campus.

        I know someone who has a setup like that, I verified the speed and its good.

        Ofcourse you arent having the 100 mbit all to yourself there :)
        • Well, that might explain it. But I personally don't think an on campus network counts. First thing is, I don't know of many ppl that get a newspaper in their dorm :) Second, you should only be there for ~4 years (6 for a masters). This is not a long term solution. The chances are that there are probably multiple T-1s in use at the college and you are only getting 100Mbit in the school network. I'ld also be interested in finding out if you get 100Mbit across campus, or only 10Mbit. Chances are that 100Mbit only works for his floor/building. Granted, that's nice...you can play network games, share files, etc over the network, but it's hardly the whole internet :)

          Plus, as you say, that's shared...and if it's in a dorm, it's heavily shared...100 rooms on a 1.5Mbit T-1 is going to quickly saturate the line...I'ld be impressed if you were getting a sustained 128k at night under those conditions.
          • As a matter of fact, we do have a newspaper and a coffee shop 100 metres away. I also have a small beach and a big garden. Too bad I'll probably have left in a year. I'm sure I'll never be able to adjust anywhere else.
            The housing is not really like a campus, since it's independent from the university. So you can keep on living there after you finish you education.

            Since Wageningen Univerisity can offer such a good connection to the internet, I don't see why the commercial providers can't. It must be due to their monopoly position on the last mile.

            • Oh I forgot to mention, since I'm living outside Wageningen, the city doesn't think it's viable to give us cable, so while we have this fast internet connection, we can only receive 3 television stations with our antenna.

              And for the Dutch readers: yes this is the place Volkert vd G used to live. I didn't know him, and he left long before the fast network came, so its is not bad for your mental health.
      • Well, I can transfer a full Linux kernel tree from Utrecht to Wageningen (approx. 60 km) in 3 seconds. So the speed is not really 100MBit, but I'll settle for it. 7 Mb/sec is acceptable. :^)

        In Wageningen all people who rent at the social housing receive this network connectivity. I live in a small house with 6 people. We actually have a glass fibre running into our house.

  • Newspapers aren't much... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OneFix ( 18661 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2002 @03:58AM (#4279828)
    At least here, all of our major newspapers are online. All of their articles are online and all of the classifieds are online. The only things you don't get are coupons, comics and "fillers" (like the political cartoons). But you can get most those in other places. The other advantage of online news is you get the exact amount of coverage you want for what you want, and in many cases quicker than even the 24/7 TV networks can get it.

    For TV...I'ld give it a few years and we'll probably be getting all of our TV over a broadband connection. For those that don't know, there are already services that deliver pre-recorded international television (Japan, India, UK, etc) over the internet. All of the major US TV shows (i.e. Enterprise) are already being posted to usenet the same day they are shown.

    You can also get phone service online. And for many with Cell Phone service, they have already dropped their land line.

    I think there are quite a few things that you can give up to keep a broadband connection if you think about it.
  • Not _my_ kidney of course. I'm not an idiot..

    nzelnick(tm)
    I just bought the original painting
    "Andalusian Dogs Playing Poker" on e-bay
    Look upon my works and despair

  • conventional media (Score:3, Insightful)

    by adolf ( 21054 ) <flodadolf@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 18, 2002 @04:34AM (#4279924) Journal
    In the breakroom at work, the TV continually blasts CNN and there are at least two different newspapers scattered around the tables.

    I read the newspapers - usually, all of them. I stare blindly at Connie Chung as she goes on another heart-felt tirade against x with a sorry, pathetic half-smile on her face.

    But that's really just to kill time while smoking a cigarette and downing a Dew during a union break. Given the choice, I'd rather be reading Salon [salon.com].

    I never feel like I learn anything from the AP stories carried in the paper. They're continually filled with strange, misleading errors and missing information, or (perhaps worse) dumbed-down numbers.

    I never feel like I get anything from CNN these days, as they nowseem to carry everything but news. I find myself squinting at the ticker at the bottom of the screen, trying to decipher from their broken half-sentance synopsis whether or not anything important is happening in the world, and usually failing.

    At home, the only thing I ever watch is the History Channel, TLC, and Discovery. The latter two have seen better days, much as CNN and MTV (I do remember, long ago, that MTV did play music), while the history channel remains largely OK with the exception of their exceptionally inane game shows.

    I do like auto racing, but I can't get Speed from Time Warner without paying a king's ransom on top of the already high bill for a digital box and a new service tier.

    Of course, these somewhat desirous networks all kick over to informercials during my prime viewing hours, which greatly inhibits my ability to watch them.

    That all said, were it not for my 2-year-old's healthy addiction to Spongebob, I'd have dropped cable TV a long time ago. I still may - I've been considering programming the TiVo at my parents' house to keep a few fresh episodes of her favorite shows, and dumping them to VHS on an as-needed asis.

    As far as the newspaper, I don't care much about it. The local news rag carries all of their own stories on-line for free, in a much easier-to-follow format. For other stuff, there's Salon[1].

    1: Slashdot omitted due to lack of news, and a dearth of stuff that matters.

  • I've chosen to live without ANY connection. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by arcade ( 16638 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2002 @04:52AM (#4279989) Homepage
    After having some way or another to connect myself first to BBS'es, and then to the Internet since December'94 - i finally got disconnected in July this year (2002). And a wonderful thing it has been.

    I'm still connected to the internet from the university or from my workplaces - but after work/study hours, I'm free.

    I've actually started reading books again! Yay! I've started walking in the the woods again! Even started watching a tiny little bit of TV (Less than 3 hours a week I would guess). I've started working out again. I've started to hack on my laptop again, instead of wasting time on IRC. I've started watching movies with friends again.

    Hell I enjoy beeing disconnected at home. I'm NOT planning on getting an Internet connection at home any time soon. _Maybe_ I'll set up a radio network with friends - but there is just NO WAY i'm gonna get connected 24/7 again. Or have any way of using dialup. :)

    So, what would I give up to keep my broadband connection? Nothing! I've given it up without having to. I don't miss it. I don't want it back.

    • The only difficulty is that i find it too damn usefull for answering those odd questions tha pop into my head. Whats the flying speed of an english sparrow? What time was that movie again? WHy are we invading Iraq again?
    • I just got my broadband connection a month ago, but in conjunction with that I got two roommates as well.

      Two roommates, who are not geeks. This, has greatly improved my social life and happiness. And we don't even have cable.

      Admittedly, I drink much more, but that's probably a topic best left for another day.

    • I've twice taken breaks from home connectivity, about 6-9 months each time, roughly same time frame as the above poster (net since around 94, BBSes before that). I didn't do any excersizing or woods-walking, but I do get a lot more productive on my home computers. I would work on real code a lot more often, instead of getting sucked into mindless browsing and slashdotting. If I needed some faqs, manuals, source code, etc from the web, I'd just sneaker-net home whatever I needed on an LS-120 floppy from work, or from the free net access at the community college down the street from my apartment.
  • I pay nothing to get my daily newspaper (called "20 minutes", or "Metro"), it is free. I can take it at the train/metro station every morning.

    I wish I'd pay the same for my internet connection !


  • -Female company
    -Contact to the world
    -Discussions that can go on for more than 2 minutes without differential equations being drawn in.

    That's life at engineering school, but I have access to that sweet, sweet 100mbit university network and 24 way Sun E10K's.

    Bo
  • Who needs a girlfriend when you can have high-speed porn?
  • Archeologists belive the Aztecs commited ritual human sacrice to postpone the end of the world.

    Maybe if we take all the worthless people (McDonalds Managers, all the Democrats, every Republican over the age of twenty-five, pedophiles and those guys who host religous programming on public access) and commit ritual human sacrifice for ping times.

    As proof of concept that Human Sacrifice works I would like to point out that the world hasn't ended yet.
  • I subscribed for the major newspaper in my region (western Sweden) and decided to drop my subscription after three months due to two problems: 1) I have to carry my paper recycling to the recycle station once a week instead of once every other month, 2) I had to get up 30 minutes earlier than usual each morning because I browsed the articles and always found something interesting.
    Now I read the same articles on quiets moments from work, where I also do my bigger downloads and burn them out on a CDRW and bring them home. At home I have a 56k modem which is good enough for mail and /. on the weekends and the odd app that needs registration.
    As for giving up TV, yes, it is a good idea. I think that I will miss the local news though, as they are difficult to find on the net.
  • I have broadband, and occasionally think about going back to dialup. The Terms Of Service are absolutely ludicrous. "No servers of any kind," give me a break. Many things run poorly without at least a dummy (or tcp rst) Ident, and tcp/ip is just plain broken without some amount of ICMP. "Only one PC connection," I have a firewall and one desktop back of it, so they get no more traffic than if the firewall weren't there - less, because I proxy/cache on that machine, too.

    I stick by the spirit of my original TOS, and run a few highly restricted services for my own use, only. The speed is nice, but if they ever started cracking down and *really* enforcing the rules, I'd probably have to go back to dialup. I just wish I were close enough for DSL.

  • Gave up TV and a funny story (Score:4, Funny)

    by mfos.org ( 471768 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2002 @08:24AM (#4280481)
    Since I'm a poor college student I had to choose between cable TV and broadband. Easiest choice I ever made.

    On a related note, someone I know went to get cable internet but not cable TV. So the cable TV people sent a salesperson over (who, ironically arrived a day before the internet installer) who tried to push cable and premium channels, about how they had a great deal going for $50 bucks a month and how you got some nice premium channels with that as well.

    This guy told her, "Why should I spend and extra $50 bucks a month, when I can download most of those movies over *your* cable internet connection"
  • sex

    oh wait... I am married
  • ... the C programming language.
  • For those who say they'd give up their TV's.... you probably don't have a TiVo, do you?

    I would probably pick broadband over TV, but consider this: If someone asked me to choose between the TiVo on a 2" black and white TV or the 42" color TV without a TiVo, I'd choose the 2" black and white TV. Yep, it makes *that* much of a difference.

    ~GoRK
    • I'd choose neither of the above. There's probably some useful hardware I could strip out of the TiVo before tossing the chassis, isn't there? There are useful electronic parts in a Television set that can similarly be recovered for productive use.
  • I'd rather lick all the fur off my cat when she's shedding than go without broadband.

  • Jack up the rates. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Verence ( 145084 )
    This type of question, as humorous as it may be, is exactly what the carriers love. Ask the people who complain the most about the prices of their broadband connection ' What would you give up most?' and you find out exactly how much more theyr'e willing to pay. I am personally tired of seeing the rates increase about what seems like once a month.

  • i would gladly give up my (offline) life for broadband - seems i already have...
  • Seems like this should have been a poll:

    What would you give up to keep your broadband connection:
    - coffee
    - chocolate
    - David Letterman
    - baseball
    - foosball
    - Cowboy Neil's kidney
  • I'd give up slashdot in a second.
  • I can confidently say that inorder to keep my 1.5MB cable line...
    I would do with out:
    1. Repairing a non-performance affecting electrical problem with my car.
    2. Pay channels on my cable
    3. ST:TNG Season 4 DVD's
    4. Warcraft 3
    5. 2 magazine subscriptions
    6. cut the cost of lunch from $7+ to $5.00

  • I'd give up $19.95 a month.
  • What would I give up to KEEP my broadband? Hell, where do I GET my broadband in the first place??

  • Man, google would've given you this answer in a second!! God I'm sick of these obvious ask slashdot questions...

    http://www.google.com/search?q=%22what+would+dave+ give+up+to+keep+his+broadband%22 [google.com]

  • I'd give up my computer to keep high speed access.
  • I'd give up paying for it

  • I'd giv up th lttr 'e' (Score:3, Funny)

    by jayayeem ( 247877 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2002 @02:09PM (#4282898)
    n fct 'd gv p ll th vwls
  • Actually, I watch TV only when I feel like it. I don't have cable, so I we get only TWO channels, and only one of these has anything good on. My mother tapes a few programs I watch, and once in a while I watch an entire season in a row.
    I only watch live TV when there's important news (and as I live in Israel, it's more often than most places).

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