Broadband

[The PIT]

Nothing more irrating than a web site with a long flash. Loads of flashing banners. Very annoying when you're looking for one small item.
Sites should be small easy to navigate and not overload the poor user which flashy looking rubbish.

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by GT98

It all boils down to if there's big enough demand for it, the demand will be satisfied by someone. Simple Economics, why cater to the crowd that doesn't put any money in your pocket (i.e. Third world on Dial-up or what not) and focus your efforts on the ones that do...that have broadband etc...

Broadband is a luxury not a necessity.

It does not matter whether the demand is big or not. If there is a telecoms monopoly, especially for the last km, you have no choice whatsoever. Where I live, ther are over 250 potential users. My daughter, who lives in Switzerland, cannot have broadband, either, yet she lives in the outskirts of Lausanne and within a 100 m of the largest industrial estate of the region, who are condemned to 64 kbit/s ISDN as the fastest option. Yet Switzerland has a higher per capita GDP than where you live. I also have a colleague in the UK who is an IT pro whose enterprise is within 50 km of the centre of London, admittedly somewhat in the country. He has been told that there are no plans for DSL where he is and there is certainly no cable there.

I'm sorry, you are getting deeper into it by your increasing "holier-than-thou" attitude. I believe I know personally at least 50 persons in developed countries who would subscribe to ADSL today if it were offered to them.

[lecter]

I hate it when web-designers use Flash for the entire website, it slows everything to a crawl and while appreciating a good-looking page I could certainly do without whatever freaky animations they thought of. I have a 512/128 connection at my university, but some pages still take ages to load. Flash is great when used as an accesory to your main design, but basing the whole damn site on it can cause major annoyances for quite a few people.

[Marshmallowman]

yeah I hate flash as well... So I don't have it installed, if a site depends on it then it will be a site I will not visit.

you would be suprised how much faster pages load and look better without all the crappy gimicks...

[The PIT]

In the UK BT have a trigger level for each exchange. Looking at these show that it takes a long time for the massive interest to be registered.
Brian it does matter whether demand is high or not as upgrading costs money. It costs loads of dosh just to lay cables and you ain't going to do this for one or two people.
I think you're being rather hard on GT98 is not his fault so don't take your frustrations out on him.

[GT98]

Originally posted by Brian Ellis
I'm sorry, you are getting deeper into it by your increasing "holier-than-thou" attitude. I believe I know personally at least 50 persons in developed countries who would subscribe to ADSL today if it were offered to them.

I'm not saying I'm holier-than-thou, just that it goes back to this:

Broadband is a Luxury!

Its pretty stupid for a company not to offer a service to its people that it could make more money off them with....

[az]

... yes, and it's equally stupid for a company to have a website that's not properly accessible for people without that luxury. It#s like having a mall where you may only buy if you drive a Mercedes.

AZ

[Brian Ellis]

Pit

I agree that cable laying is expensive. In my case, the nearest node is ~1500 m distance and is fed from optic fibre, so that is not the reason. As I understand the "reasoning" behind Cytanet's decision, it is because they probably have only team of installers for the hardware, who work on the "avrio" system (= mañana system in hispanophone countries), radiating out of the 4 main cities -- and the village I live in is exactly 1/2 way between Larnaca and Nicosia. IOW, it is purely geographical and bears no relation to demand.

I don't know the real reason for my daughter's case, except that Swisscom sent a circular letter saying they were not able to supply ADSL in the region as the nearest node was too distant. They did not say why they could not install a closer node.

IMHO, to say broadband is a luxury is like telling a bicycle owner who commutes 50 km that a car is a luxury. It may be a luxury if used just for leisure purposes, but IT professionals need it and it is frustrating when they cannot get it. I write Internet columns for three technical journals, as a freelance. Believe me, it is hell waiting for downloads when you wish to review 12 to 20 sites and I waste hours doing so. In fact, it often take longer than writing the actual articles.

[gt40]

I agree, Brian
broadband WAS a luxury 5 years ago, but nowadays when you are downloading driver updates and software in the 20 - 50 meg range it is a neccesity. Even xferring files to home and back for work would be impossible without it.
If you are just surfing the web or on the chat lines then a 56k modem may suffice.

[The PIT]

You've got to think what you have got here.

Many People that browse Murc will be less firghtened of their machines. They won't see anything frightening about driver downloads or configuring your machine to use Broadband.

Other users are afraid. They don't do driver downloads or security updates. They just want there email and view an odd page. They're happy if it doesn't load they move on. These people probably took years to configure dialup.

You know it takes a year almost for interested parties to reach most trigger levels for exchanges. I looked at few earlier. The trigger level just 400 people. Doesn't show a massive interest.

Brian your daughters sit will most likely to be cost.

There are also other technoligies coming available.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by gt40
I agree, Brian
broadband WAS a luxury 5 years ago, but nowadays when you are downloading driver updates and software in the 20 - 50 meg range it is a neccesity. Even xferring files to home and back for work would be impossible without it.
If you are just surfing the web or on the chat lines then a 56k modem may suffice.

Before I got broadband I just used usb storage to transfer data from work to home. They're cheap to buy and very portable.

[gt40]

yeh, used to use zip disks,
but now I can work at home and just send the info to the machine operators at work via email.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by The PIT
Nothing more irrating than a web site with a long flash. Loads of flashing banners. Very annoying when you're looking for one small item.
Sites should be small easy to navigate and not overload the poor user which flashy looking rubbish.

Another reason to run Mozilla. I've got the Flash blocker installed. Flash shows up as a grey box "Flash - click here to play"

[The PIT]

Yeh I just tried this with Opera on one site and you ned the flash to enter the site. Still it could be Opera bugging up.

[efty]

Brian don't be so anxious to get adsl from Cytanet, it sucks and not because of the ISP but because of their alcatel routers. It seems Cyta is more concerned at the moment to gain as much market share as possible in the high density population areas and then move on at the rural areas later on at their own pace. They are launching a new service(mivision) now that will broadcast an mpeg2 stream and a webcast over the same adsl line. Who cares about the 250 interested customers in your area when there are 100,000 only in nicosia ready to get mivision and pay more . I suggest you visit www.thunderworx.com and have a look at their wifi project.