Hmm... ISP free speed increase from 100Mbps to 200Mbps?

[Vavrik]

Wow man you had a chance to work with NSFNET ?

A lot of people used NSFNET, most didn't necessarily know they were using it. In the early days, if you were a university student, you just logged into a terminal at your school, usually connected to a UNIX, DEC, IBM, or CDC host owned by a corporation or university. If you were at home, you might have had a 150 or 300 baud acoustic coupler, or later a 1200 baud modem to connect to the host. All you ever saw was the logins for the various systems you had access to (meaning, you had the phone number for the modem pool.)

I worked for a time for a Canadian subsidiary of one of the partners in ANS CO+RE. You know them today as Verizon, to me they'll forever be MCI. (which to many of us stood for "Mismanaged Corporate Initiative", because from day to day they couldn't figure out what business they were in.)

 

[Xist]

Wow man you had a chance to work with NSFNET ?

Nope, I started in early Internet days with a 2400 modem lol. Man, was that painful.

 

[Montoya]

Nope, I started in early Internet days with a 2400 modem lol. Man, was that painful.

2400's were the best... over the phone.

Xist's Mom: "XIST! GET OFF THE PHONE I NEED TO MAKE A CALL!"
Xist: "BUT MOM! IM PLAYING DOOM WITH A FRIEND! NO! I CANT PAUSE THE GAME!"

 

[Bruce]

A lot of people used NSFNET, most didn't necessarily know they were using it.

that's why I asked about "work" and not about "use" :)

 

[Bruce]

Nope, I started in early Internet days with a 2400 modem lol. Man, was that painful.

I started with some advanced zyxel, but can't hold it for long (it was too expensive equipment), and stuff I continued with was a courier 2400 with nice hardware implementation of mnp4, so I guess I could say "me too"

 

[Vavrik]

Nope, I started in early Internet days with a 2400 modem lol. Man, was that painful.

Heh, it was. Did you ever download a Linux distribution from back then? 13-16 floopy disks. It took hours just to download, then you had this cryptic installation process. You either had a dead system, with a potentially smoked CRT if you tried to install X-Windows with the wrong drivers, or it worked like a champ for the next decade.

Compared to: The last time I downloaded Ubuntu, it took 4 minutes.:stuck_out_tongue: and automagically installed from the USB drive I stored the ISO image on in about 10 more minutes. 15 minutes after beginning the installation, you can see the cool orange login screen... I have to remind myself sometimes why I use Windows so much.

 

[Xist]

2400's were the best... over the phone.

Xist's Mom: "XIST! GET OFF THE PHONE I NEED TO MAKE A CALL!"
Xist: "BUT MOM! IM PLAYING DOOM WITH A FRIEND! NO! I CANT PAUSE THE GAME!"

That lasted about 2 months until my parents made me pay for a second phone line. Then I was using the modem on a dedicated line which was really nice, but I had to pay for it which wasn't that nice... Then again I started my first internet company using that setup so it was a good experience in the end. :)

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

That lasted about 2 months until my parents made me pay for a second phone line. Then I was using the modem on a dedicated line which was really nice, but I had to pay for it which wasn't that nice... Then again I started my first internet company using that setup so it was a good experience in the end. :slight_smile:

This is cool, thanks for sharing your experiences Xist :)

 

[FZD]

Some of my oldest memories are with a dial-up modem on the background with... let's just call it "audible sound verification interface". That brave little box sitting on top of your tower going "Bu bu bu bu bu-bu bu. Kzzzt. beeeeeeeeeeeeep. BADING BADING BADING. Bzzzzzzz." with all it's might to tell you exactly what it's doing when it's doing it, and doing it's best to describe what a handshake sounds like.

 

[Wolfy]

The same thing just happened to me...

 

[Wolfy]

Some of my oldest memories are with a dial-up modem on the background with... let's just call it "audible sound verification interface". That brave little box sitting on top of your tower going "Bu bu bu bu bu-bu bu. Kzzzt. beeeeeeeeeeeeep. BADING BADING BADING. Bzzzzzzz." with all it's might to tell you exactly what it's doing when it's doing it, and doing it's best to describe what a handshake sounds like.

Interestingly enough the only modem I have left is in my work laptop. Good ole Panasonic CF-31

 

[Bambooza]

I've been an expert for more than 25 years. I operate one of the largest private bandwidth providers on the west coast US. You?

This provides your credentials but it doesn't answer my question. As it seems we are coming at the question from different places and so I asked for your understanding so that we can find a common reference point. But your still illusive as to your reasons while clearly offended that I suggest you can control the inter web by controlling the middle.

So I ask you why are you saying control the small pipe endpoints if you want to control the internet?

 

[Thalstan]

. . You end up with a infrastructure like our power grid that is dilapidated because there is no incentive beyond government grands to do anything about it.

Out of curiosity, why do you call the power grid “dilapidated”?

On average and excluding major events, the average customer had just over one outage lasting under 100 minutes per year. When you add in major events, you get 1.3 outages per customer with an average of around 200 minutes.

Yes, it can always be better. That said, are you the customer willing to pay for it? For instance, Japan has one of the best outage rates, yet they pay over twice what the average US customer pays. ($.26/kw/h vs $.12/kw/h)

Finally, many outages are on the distribution system, often caused by tree contacts/vegetation/etc. Yet when the utilities try to trim those trees, they are yelled at by the property owner. So why not run cables underground?

Here is something regarding a 345 kv line “
An underground 345 kV line costs 10 to 15 times the cost of an overhead line due to time, materials, process, the need to include transition substations and the use of specialized labor. The proposed overhead 345 kV line would cost approximately $1 million per mile. Part of the added costs to bury lines may include routing and boring to avoid other underground installations, such as water, natural gas and sewer lines.
An overhead line often can be routed around or over these difficult areas.”

https://www.xcelenergy.com/staticfiles/xe/Corporate/Corporate PDFs/OverheadVsUnderground_FactSheet.pdf

Ok, what about distribution lines then. Yep, they are more reliable, but when they do fail, they take about 10x longer to fix
https://www.puc.nh.gov/2008IceStorm/ST&E Presentations/NEI Underground Presentation 06-09-09.pdf

so, how much are you willing to pay for reliability? If you live on a coast in the hurricane zones, you should expect that when a hurricane hits, you will be without power for a while until the utility can return service. If it hits an area not used to hurricanes, you might even see longer outages, but even then they have gotten power back on fairly quickly. If you want to see a real dilapidated power grid, go to Puerto Rico where between the government being corrupt and not investing in the utility, and the people stealing power without paying for it, you have a grid that had serious problems before a major hurricane hit. After it hit, it needs almost a complete rebuild.

 

[Bambooza]

Out of curiosity, why do you call the power grid “dilapidated”?

The issue is the power grid like the highway systems is that it has not been maintained nor expanded upon to increase capacity and redundancy.
And while you are correct it is very expensive to put the wires underground, the issue is more one of upkeep.

https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/energy/
http://theconversation.com/the-old-dirty-creaky-us-electric-grid-would-cost-5-trillion-to-replace-where-should-infrastructure-spending-go-68290
https://www.saveonenergy.com/energy-news/understand-the-energy-infrastructure-in-the-u-s-376/
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/01/16/us-power-grid-has-issues-with-reliability

 

[Bruce]

the issue is more one of upkeep.

Anything underground is tremendously more expensive to fix, check etc, than anything above ground ... with electricity it also means hilariously expensive insulation of all kinds that has to be maintained at all length of the cables (as opposed to be given for free (by air) most of the time :)

 

[Bambooza]

I meant the issue was not with it being above ground or below ground, the issue with the power grid is one of upkeep not being done. Insulators and transformers have an engineered lifespan at which point its suggested they are replaced.

As for undeground utilities being tremendously more expensive I agree, as it was a great summer job to pay for school.

 

[Montoya]

Dang, this conversation is still going strong!

Im glad to see its mostly civil, this is why TEST is so amazing!

"You are all idiots" - Dr Smart.

 

[Bambooza]

Im glad to see its mostly civil, this is why TEST is so amazing!

Wish I could buy @Xist a beer while discussing how best to control the internet.

 

[Bruce]

Wish I could buy @Xist a beer while discussing how best to control the internet.

hey hey hey ... BEER you say ? Hell I have an idea as well. Your point was - "big" backbone guys could restrict it ... Xist's idea was - "big" backbone guys alone can't free it up, as "small" guys could restrict it as well ... you both were on the same page the whole time. Reality is - you need to have all levels of providers agreeing on proper traffic rules, and sticking to this agreement, to make INTERNET more or less free, and with net neutrality dead I have no clue when and what will be the next chance.

 

[Bambooza]

Our current hope is to continue to support groups that adhere to our common interest in keeping the internet open, while petitioning our local senators about creating a federal law. After all the FTC and FCC can only do so much and the courts can only rule on laws passed. Its really up to us to make sure future generations get the same privileges to watch porn and cat videos.