"-=jd=-" wrote in message
3...
Dateline "rec.radio.shortwave", Tue, 30 Sep 2003 17:43:12 GMT: As it
appeared in message-ID#
,
"Frank Dresser" appears to have written
the following...


"David" wrote in message
...
FCC COMMISSIONER KATHLEEN Q. ABERNATHY SEES BROADBAND-OVER-
POWERLINE TECHNOLOGY AS A COMPONENT OF "BROADBAND NIRVANA"


On September 22, 2003, FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy
delivered a speech to the United PowerLine Council's Annual
Conference in which she heavily promoted broadband-over-powerline
("BPL") technology. Rarely has an FCC Commissioner presented
such a one-sided address, not mentioning the likelihood that BPL
will cause massive interference to licensed radio services.
Ms. Abernathy's entire speech (as prepared for delivery) and a
summary of the response of one organization are posted at:


http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...C-239079A1.doc
and
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/09/25/100/?nc=1


[snip]

Is broadband itself worth gushing over? Around here, broadband is
supposed to be 10 times faster at maybe twice the price. On paper,
broadband looks like a pretty good deal compared to two line setup in
which one line is used mostly for dial-up. Still, dial-up is doing
quite well. Dial-up suits me fine, at least for now.

So, just what is broadband nirvana?

Frank Dresser

Being able to telecommute from home without your connection to a
development server or database timing-out. I actually require it in
order to do what I need to do.

I get cable broadband access for $20/month. Normally, it's $25, but I
have my own cable modem and don't pay the monthly rental fee. Last time
I had dialup, $20/month would have been a competitive rate - I'm not
sure what the average dial-up rate is today.

I would also feel quite safe in guessing that, for the vast majority of
people, dial-up would suffice if you were talking about the minimum
bandwidth needed to perform the task (email, web-surfing, etc). The
problem is "impatience" on the part of he general public (they want that
page to open NOW!) and the desire for a more "content rich" internet
experience from those pushing content as well as those pulling content.
You could most likely define "content rich" as one or more of the
following:
- MP3 Sharing
- Multimedia
- Bigger/Better/Badder Ads
- Porn

Speaking of which, wasn't Porn attributed to having a large influence on
the success of VHS over Beta?

There's some interesting things that *could* be done with a decent
broadband connection (like smooth, undistorted voice and video "phone
calls" to family) except that broadband is never all it's cracked up to
be. It does no good to have a gigabit fiber-to-the-desktop connection if
somewhere between your PC and the other end is a 300 baud phone
coupler...

There's good and bad in most things...

-=jd=-
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