OT: Even More Proof That PC's Are Dying

[Renegade 13]

I can't disagree with any particular point you make this time

dogscoff said:
Eventually, there will be either a huge leap forward in wireless that will allow fast access absolutely everywhere, or the first world will have to pull its finger out of it collective arse and actually start digging holes and laying down some fricking fibre optics.

The only thing holding it back is state-owned and state-sanctioned monopolies on the various national telecoms networks. The UK and US are particularly badly pwned in this respect. As long as BT and AT&T don't have to face any actual competition, they will continue to charge more for crappier services on crumbling copper networks built by public money and handed over to them by corrupt politicians. Give it another decade and maybe we will wake up to the fact that people in Korea have 100meg broadband at home (yes, I said 100meg, right now, today) and that the global digital marketplace is all happening in Asia and the rapidly-developping "third world". Maybe then public and business and industry will demand that something be done. The public engineering projects to create the new digital infrastructure will be on a scale not seen since the late 1800s, when train networks and sewage networks and water networks and the like were being built on a scale and that proabably dwarfs any investment before or since. This boom will drive down the costs of laying fibre to such an extent that even remote farmouses in the arse end of Alaskan nowhere will get direct cable to their living room.

You can add Canada to the list along with the US and UK of nations where telecom companies hold absolute monopolies, and thus have no incentive or competition to compel them to upgrade infrastructure that's existed for the past century. This is a particular point that really makes me angry; I'm sitting here connected on a bloody ancient dial-up line connected at 28.8kbps...yep, we can't even get 56k internet here because the profiteering monopolizing provincial telecom company can't get off it's lazy *** and upgrade the infrastructure to something remotely modern. After all, there's no competition to lose business to!

I long for the day when they're either required to by government or competition forces them to upgrade. After all, it's unlikely they'll do it on their own; oh no, that'd cut into their massive profit margins

/endrant

[Combat Wombat]

All this shows is that PC use is dropping in Japan. Also computers have hit the point where theres just no reason to get new ones as often they are just so much faster than 99.9% of software comes even close to using.

[Will]

Phoenix-D said:
I'm trying to figure out why someone would willingly use a cell phone as their primary internet device.

I'm, uh, not getting very far. Either the Japanese have really nice cell phones or really tiny hands and good eyes..

Correct on all three counts.

[frightlever]

Apart from the good eyes bit.

http://www.agingeye.net/myopia/3.1.php

[capnq]

Phoenix-D said: I'm trying to figure out why someone would willingly use a cell phone as their primary internet device.

For much the same reason that they send text messages rather than talking on the phone, because (they think) it's the cool thing to do.

Efficiency and ease of use are so yesterday.

[Santiago]

Phoenix-D said:
I'm trying to figure out why someone would willingly use a cell phone as their primary internet device.

A couple of reasons:

1. More people have cell phones than PC's. How many access the internet at work but don't have a pc at home?

2. Cell phone service is eminetly more widespread than wireless pc just about everywhere in the US and probably the world. Sure wireless pc is generally available in most major cities and airports, but not in smaller cities to such an extent, or towns and outlying areas. Cell phone coverage is. This may very well change.

3. Accessing the internet just walking down the street, on a bus or in a friend's car is much easier on a cell phone than a laptop. You have instant access everywhere you go, but the tradeoff is a small screen.

I don't have cell phone internet but I can see the advantages. It's the future whether we like it or not.

[Desdinova]

In the US you may actually see more fiber being put in due to the (i dislike this next word) convergence of telephone, tv and internet. ATT and Verizon are currently in the process of providing tv and internet to its subscribers if you live in certain areas of the US. Verizons is by running fiber all the way to the premise (only bad thing about this is the connection is powered by your homes power so if you lose power you have lost your phone as well). ATT is of course using the current copper cables running to your house and as has been mentioned the copper is getting old. It is however a start, unfortunately the rural areas are going to be the last to benefit from this. There are two main reasons the rural areas are the last to get anything the first is the fact that they are opereated not by "THE BIG MONPOLIES" but by one of the thousands of smaller telcos that in some cases are literaly mom and pop operations (though more and more are merging into/being bought out by larger companies (but not by "THE BIG MONOPOLIES" as they are selling off non/low profit areas). The second is of course the fact they more profit can be made by upgrading in the major metropolitan areas than the rural ones, so unless some something forces the telcos to upgrade then its not going to happen soon in the rural areas.

The other countries that have better facilities than we do have the benefit of the past 100 years of trial and error that have gone on here in the US. They have been able to skip several generations of equipment and of course several million if not a couple of billion of (insert choice of money here) to upgrade facilities. just like all those people that are just now buying computers and getting far more than they need while the rest of us have put out money year after year on upgrades to our computers. You are looking at a couple hundred thousand dollars to upgrade a single piece of equipment, in most cases the equipment is so old you have to replace with new equipment. The telcos are upgrading, however at this time the upgrades are to the backbone network and not the end facilities going to most residential and business locations. So it will happen but not as quickly as we would like it to.

The concept of competition in the telephone portion is dead as there is no longer any real profit there, its going to be the multimedia that you are going to see competition and the cable companies are doing their best to keep everyone else out. Wireless has potential but again there it will be driven by multimedia and not telephone usage. The laying of additional fiber is also hampered by the fact that it cannot be putdown using the existing right of ways as easily as the original copper facilities were since there is much more traffic (cars, buses, trains, etc) where those right of ways are.