Fired SBC and DIrect TV
I fired SBC yesterday, I simple was not getting nearly enough throughput and they seemed to keep raising the prices every month by a few bucks.
So now we have Comcast again. They are claiming 6mb dl and 768k ul, will see but right now I’m sustaining 800-900kb on 256meg file from file planet. This is a lot better then I was getting from SBC (lucky to see 240kb).
None of it is enough though. I can’t believe I live in sunnyvale CA and nobody can drag fiber to my door step for next gen speeds. It’s simple a sad commentary on the American tech industry and the government (FCC in particular) that we allow this duopoly to continually hold true by directional high speed connectivity to all of our homes.
I also fired DIrect TV. I have been down on their politics and business philosophy for years but the service was ok. They wanted to charge me $300 for second HD Tivo. Comcast offered me 2 of (their admittedly less capable) Motorola boxes and a package that is about the same as the direct tv one with HD for a couple bucks less a month. I figured what the heck it’s worth trying out. Maybe when DTV gets their new MPEG4 HD DVR boxes deployed (they have none until some time next year) I will talk to them again, but the upfront costs they try and stick you with are pretty nutty.
Really though I hate all this. I want to be able to bring all this stuff into one big ass computer in the garage and have it send the HD and what not to all my other silent boxes through out the house. As well as serve all my other content like divx and mp3 etc.
None of the fatass incumbents are offering anything like this. Maybe we will get some of this with Vista MCE and cable cards late next year but that does nothing for me in the interim.
I’m actually going to try and get my MCE (might setup myth again, don’t know) box working with a HD OTA card. If I can get that working right and get good single from all the main networks, I might just fire comcast too. The Motorola boxes fail to impress, and I was pretty tired of Tivo’s awful UI and calculation performance (as well direct TV blocking all tivo enhancements to their customers).
All these things are symptoms of powerful monopoly’s colluding with IP owners to give us as little as possible while keeping as much control as possible for themselves over our content on our property. Sad.
Anyway, some good some bad and not yearly enough for all the trouble but Charise won’t let me cut all the cords so I have to eek what amusement out of the process that I can.
Oh yeah I canceled Akimbo before the trial expired. Nice ideas, but no content and the piece meal pay system is a joke IMO.