Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 20 November 2002

Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

From: Chris O'Connell
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Don't confuse DSL with real broadband!

Gidday,
While I agree with most of your comments, the truth is that
real broadband (I have a 100Mb/s CityLink connection) is
really useful and does allow for real "Digital" commerce to
occur (ie trade in digital work, be it video, multimedia or
medical imaging not "e" which is usually trading in
information about real things!)
We need a real definition for broadband (like the EU one
2Mb/s synchronous!) so that people don't mistake a flawed
interim technology for the real thing!
The other thing people need to do is stop relying on the
Telco's and realise that there are alternatives (Check out
whats happening in places like Nelso, or Westport with high
speed public wireless) or see what happens in Southland with
the Walker Wireless / Vodafone JV to deliver rural broadband!
There is some really interesting thinking out from people
like David Isenberg who reckon the time for the Stupid
Network has arrived (check out www.isen.com)
My reality check is that I live in rural Marlborough (on a
dial feeding a wireless AP so I have slow "always on"
network!) and I'm looking at how we can get an alternative
up and running there!




From: Peter
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Dial-up vs DSL

At home I used dial up for years, mostly for email and
newsgroups with some surfing and downloading software.  It
worked ok but increasingly clashed with use of the phone.
So we got ADSL instead of a second phone line, on Jetstream
Starter to get away from the MB cap.
Only 128kbps, but it's great, especially for downloading
software (Linux distros and updates - sorry, no p2p, music
or porn).
A levy on bandwidth or on blank CDs would be really unfair.
 I just finished off a container of 100 blank CDs.  These
were used for GPL software (= Linux) and backups of my data.
 I also put my genealogy research on CD (data, old
documents, family photos, etc) to send to other family
members.  Why should I have to pay a levy to music
corporations for material that I produced?

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