[HECnet] Out of action more or less until the 25th...

The last hotel had like 14-20 mbps, I think they must've had fibre or something. Who the fuck buys a T1 anyway? Get some DSL lines, a load balancing router and bob = uncle. This is not rocket surgery. Anyway, I think what largely happened in the US-sucks-at-internet case is the first-to-move-inertia: "OK, we got something new a cool, look it works". This was ok in 1996. Not so good now. And don't give me the crap about geographical / demographics (like the telcos do), I can get an ADSL2+ line (which depending on length of copper can drop to like 2 megs, but should be at least 4) in Lapland, 100 megs in the major towns. And 7 meg 3G almost everywhere, including weird middle of forest places in Finland. Universal internet access has been declared a human right by the European Parliament, so the telcos are getting a bit stressed....:) The US govt method of dealing with telcos is wrong: you dont GIVE them money to build shit, you threaten to pull their license if they dont do universal service / build shit by date X. Of course, then the telco lobbyist would give the money to someone else.* Sampsa * Don't get me started on how I think the lobbyist system is killing democracy and the little guy. At least when I visit the Middle East, they're honest about bribes - but there's no democracy and n one gives a shit about the little guy. On 19 Sep 2010, at 15:04, Jason Stevens wrote: Welcome to America... And yes, our internet speeds are a joke. I think we are number 17 world wide and falling? The telcos can give you a massive laundry list of excuses why they suck, but they've all taken massive amounts of government money to fix it, and of course like any good oligarchy they are not fixing anything, except prices. I'm still blown away from a trip to Japan some FIVE years ago when I had to download Visual Studio at the MSDN site, and it completed before I even had time to get out of my chair for a coffee break.... Like a lot of things here, since the majority of people don't get any international exposure, we don't know how badly we are being screwed when it comes to just about everything... Just look at all the HFCS in our "food", or hell go to McDonnalds and pick up some chicken nuggets, and compare/contrast what the same company sells here and in the UK. I could go on and on, but nothing will change... On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote: I've been moved to a hotel with "high speed" internet access that is slower than the pile of crap I used in Beirut. Thus SSHng into my boxes is painful, but can be done if absolutely necessary. If you want to read more about these service provider clowns, go to: http://sampsa.com/2010/09/19/guesttek-suck-avoid-hotels-that-use-them/