The end of the United States as we know it: Supreme Court makes worst decision of the past century!

January 21, 2010 at 1:55 pm · Filed under Editorial, Opinion, business ethics, corporation, government, litigation

I have long argued that corporations should not be treated as persons under the law, for the simple reason that corporations have no souls.  They can therefore do evil with impunity. Even if they are convicted of a crime — which, because they can afford high-paid lawyers, is far less likely to occur than if you or I were to perform some evil act — in most cases the only penalty that can be imposed is a financial one.  After all, you can’t pick up the corporate headquarters and put it in a jail cell, or anything like that.  And of course, any financial penalty is often simply passed on to customers in the form of increased costs, so the corporation really doesn’t suffer at all (and worse yet, the CEO’s still get their perks and golden parachutes).

So, to give a corporation all the rights of a person, when they effectively cannot be penalized as a person might when they choose to do wrong (and it seems like they make that choice a lot these days) is just insane.  And that’s why today’s Supreme Court decision makes no sense. By a 5-4 vote, the court said that corporations can spend as much money as they want to influence elections.  In effect, they can drown out an opposition view, and in many cases put their own hand-picked candidates in office. Read the Associated Press story for more details.

In my opinion, this marks the beginning of a major change in the way that the United States is governed. We won’t really start to see the full effect until the next election cycle, but in five or ten years the USA could be a totally different country than the one we know today (and, I might add, nothing at all like the founding fathers envisioned, not that most people seem to care what they thought anymore).

Just as one example, if corporations can seriously influence elections, do you really think they are going to allow legislators that are pro-consumer to get into office?  Think about the recent credit card reforms – now, if the banking industry had been able to buy elections in key districts, do you think there’s any hope those reforms would have passed? How much chance do you think we will ever have of getting true health care reform if big pharma and the big medical corporations can influence elections?  Yes, I know that to some degree this has already happened (and I think that’s just plain evil when it does) but now the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates, and from now on there will be almost no limit on how much corporations can control the government.

It’s not like some of the science fiction films over the last few decades haven’t warned us that corporations might someday run the country, but we never took them seriously – it was just entertainment, right? Maybe not so much.

One of the biggest flaws in the American system is that nine people in robes (used to be nine old men in robes, but now there are women among the ranks) can make horrible decisions that will adversely affect this country for decades.  But honestly, I don’t think the Supreme Court has made this bad a decision since Dred Scott. I honestly feel that today’s decision marks the beginning of the end of the United States as we know it, and I for one don’t think I’m going to much like what come out of today’s decision.  As always, in situations like this, I really hope I’m wrong, but somehow I doubt it.

Edit: Apparently it’s not just me that sees this ruling as disastrous — see the New York Times editorial, The Court’s Blow to Democracy.

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Some notes on creating a home theater PC using the Acer Aspire Revo

January 1, 2010 at 11:30 am · Filed under Boxee, Digital Television, HTPC, Home Theater, Home Theatre, Linux, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, XBMC, hardware, video ·Tagged

I was placed into a position of trying to help a family member create a home theater system using an Acer Aspire Revo computer. The reason for using this particular computer is that it is very small, very Green (low power consumption), and a lot more capable than some of the standalone devices that are starting to come out. That said, it’s NOT a full power PC. Anyway, I only had the computer for a few days, and it’s no longer in my possession. Nevertheless, I’d like to share a few things I learned that may help others. This article may be fleshed out as time goes by, particularly if I remember any more details.

The genesis of this installation was an article at the Lifehacker site entitled Build a Silent, Standalone XBMC Media Center On the Cheap. You should read that first, then come back here.

The first thing you need to know is that there are several different models of the Acer Aspire Revo out there.  I think that when the article was written, the model AR1600-U910 was pretty much at the top of the heap, but there are actually models with much better specs out there – faster CPU, more memory, larger hard drive.  Do yourself a favor and do an eBay search for “Acer Aspire Revo” and note the varying specs (for example, look for the model AR3610-U9012 if you don’t immediately see it).  You want the highest powered model you can get, and the most memory and highest number of processors.  Even the high-end one is very reasonable if you shop around.  Note that you CAN buy an Acer Aspire Revo with some version of Windows installed, but it will cost you more and (especially in the higher end models) there aren’t that many places that sell them (Newegg used to, but discontinued that model for some odd reason).

You’ll need a wireless or USB keyboard and mouse during the setup phase.  Some sellers include a wireless keyboard and mouse, while others don’t, so just be aware of that when ordering. Read specifications VERY carefully and know what you are buying!

Also, the Lifehacker article wants you to install the operating system from a thumb drive.  If you have an external CD or DVD drive (that connects using a USB port) do yourself a favor and use that (just install from the distribution CD).

The other important thing in that article is the BIOS tweaks.  If you take my advice and get the higher end unit, set the iGPU Frame Buffer Size to 512MB, not the 256MB that the article suggests for the low-end units.

Now, they want you to install XBMC Live.  If you have time to play around a bit, go ahead and do it and get a feel of how things work.  The reason I suggest this is because you might actually prefer it.  It’s a very quick install and it works just as your expect, smooth as silk in my experience.  Don’t invest a lot of time in it (because if you’re like us you’ll wipe it out and start over) but it can give you a feel of how XBMC is supposed to work, so you’ll know if it’s not working right when you finish the install.  The particular thing to note is that you almost never see “jerkiness”, nor strange flashes on the screen, in a video you are playing.

The reason I say you’ll probably want to wipe that out and start over is because of one thing: Boxee.  The newest beta of Boxee just blows away XBMC (in everything but resource usage, and that’s not something to overlook).  And, you might also want to try to run Hulu Desktop, but if you do I hope you have better luck than we did (more on that in a second).

So we decided to install a standard Linux distribution and then install BOTH XBMC and Boxee, so that the user could switch between the two.  So the next thing was, which distribution to install? And this is where we burned a LOT of time. Ultimately we settled on the 64-bit version of Linux Mint – don’t run away because we said the “L” word!  Seriously, if your previous experiences with Linux were an exercise in frustration, you owe it to yourself to at least give Linux Mint a try.  It could not possibly be simpler to install.  The hardest question they ask during the install is how you want to partition the drive, and you just tell it to use the entire drive (erasing any previous operating system).  Yes, you will lose anything you have saved (unless you copy it to another drive or network share first), which is why I said not to invest much time in XBMC live. We chose Linux Mint because the interface just looks really nice, we liked the desktop layout better, and (most important) it seemed a little “snappier” than Ubuntu 9.10 (Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but adds a lot of nice extras).  Did I mention that we used the 64 bit version?

Edit (January 16): After further attempts to install this on another Revo, we finally came to the conclusion that sometimes, installing the 32 bit version of Ubuntu might be better. The problem arises when you try to install the latest beta version of Adobe Flash – it seems to coexist best in the 32 bit version of Ubuntu, although even there it’s not entirely without issues. And Mint stores files in slightly different places than Ubuntu, which means that when you try to follow software installation directions from another site (which are almost always written for Ubuntu), there’s a chance they just won’t work under Mint. We used the Ubuntu Minimal CD Image for the install, to save time downloading a huge CD image that is mostly replaced during the software update process. If you go that route, be sure to read the instructions on that page carefully, or you’ll be scratching your head wondering why it’s not working!

Note: Although I normally welcome comments, I will not allow anyone trying to fan the flames over a particular distribution. Fights over Linux distributions can become like religious wars, and if you want to start one, do it on some other site.  If you want to say you like some other distribution better that’s okay, but NO derogatory comments about anyone’s choice of distribution. Also, note that from here on my notes are a bit sketchy – I assume you’ve at least dabbled with Ubuntu or Linux Mint at some point and know how to use a few basic tools, like a terminal window and the Synaptic file manager (not that it should take anyone long to figure these out).

After installing Linux Mint and running the software updater from the Control Center (or whatever they call it, I don’t member offhand) the next task is to install the NVidia drivers.  The system will offer to install some (or you can go to Hardware Drivers in the control panel) but at this writing they are older ones that don’t work as well as they should. So open a terminal window and do this:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nvidia-vdpau/ppa

Then open the Synaptic file manager, let it update its sources, then search on nvidia, install nvidia-glx-195 and dependencies (do this first as a separate action), then look for any other nvidia 195 package still not installed except the one with -dev in its name and install it (195 was current at this writing; if you see a higher number you may want to try that instead).  You don’t need the -dev package, and it had a conflict with some other package when we tried to install it. After you do this, go to the Hardware Drivers panel and activate the NVidia driver.

While you are in Synaptic, install mc (Midnight Commander) if you wish – I wouldn’t have a Linux box without it, but that’s just me.

If you want to be able to access your HTPC from other computers on your local network using SSH, while in Synaptic install openssh and (optionally) sshguard.  Then edit edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and change the PermitRootLogin value from “yes” to “no” (for the sake of system security).

You will want to install Adobe Flash.  Do this BEFORE you try to run a flash enabled site any web browser, otherwise it will prompt you to install a Flash plugin and (unless you are reading this months after I wrote it) it will probably install an old, inefficient one that doesn’t work well with the Ion processor.  So, do this first:

If you are using a 32-bit version of Ubuntu Karmic, see How-To: Install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. One thing to note: There may be additional copies of the libflashplayer.so file hidden on the system, that can be written back over your fresh install! So look in the ~/.mozilla/plugins and /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/ directories and make sure that if libflashplayer.so exists in those places, it is the new one from the beta install. Check this again after each software install (especially Hulu Desktop), BEFORE you run the software for the first time. We found that Hulu Desktop in particular may install the older Flash Player over your new installation if you are not careful, and if it does you’ll get a lot more flicker/jitter in your video playback.

If you are using Linux Mint 64-bit, open Firefox (it comes with Linux Mint) and browse to http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/
Download the Adobe Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux prerelease
The archive will contain a libflashplayer.so file which you copy to /opt/mint-flashplugin-x64/ – there is already a file there with the same name so rename that one first (add a .bu extension or something, but keep it in the same directory), then copy the new one in, then fix the permissions and ownership to match the original file (I use Midnight Commander’s “Advanced Chown” feature from the “File” menu to examine and change permissions on a file – I just like GUI’s!).

If you have any problems with installing Flash you might try posting a message in this forum.

Now, here is how you install XBMC from the terminal window (for some reason Synaptic wouldn’t find the xbmc program for us, but the following worked):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc
sudo apt-get update

If you want to TRY Hulu Desktop (it was waaay too jerky to be watchable for us), go to the web page for the Hulu desktop install and click the Ubuntu 64-bit or 32-bit download link, depending on your version of Linux. Firefox will offer to open it with the GDebi installer, so let it do that.  Remember to check to see if it brought in its own version of libflashplayer.so and if it did, kill that sucker and replace it with the one from the beta before you run the software!

As for the Boxee beta, follow the instructions in your invitation e-mail or just go to Boxee’s web site and be sure you get the correct version (I had better notes on this but I think Apple’s Mail program ate the note I had made to myself on this.  Maybe I will be able to better fill this in after the public release of the beta). Note the current Boxee beta seems VERY stable, so don’t let the fact that it’s a beta scare you. When you see it for the first time, it’s a bit jaw-dropping in its awesomeness, however I wish it were a bit lighter on system resources.  What we’ve discovered is that when both XBMC and Boxee coexist, XBMC seems to play certain video streams a bit smother (no missed frames or jumpiness) whereas Boxee may, in some cases, give the exact same stream a “jerkier” feel – you might have to pay close attention to notice (and I’m sure that with some streams you won’t notice a difference) but there really is a difference.  On the flip side , Boxee will play a Hulu stream (that it knows about) MUCH smoother than the awful Hulu Desktop software. and fremember, this version of Boxee IS still a beta!

If you have an infrared remote control and infrared receiver (these generally come together as part of a package; check the XBMC and/or Boxee forums to see which are recommended), open Synaptic and install the lirc and irexec packages (irexec might be already installed). Note: I suggest you do not install lirc until you have run XBMC at least once – I think it creates a configuration file for a remote that makes it work in a logical manner, but it won’t overwrite an existing one (this is pure speculation on my part, based on observation).  So if you run XBMC at least once before you install lirc, you get the “good” remote configuration.  Anyway, that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it!

You will likely want to be able to launch either Boxee or XBMC using the remote.  As a PRELIMINARY way to accomplish this, we opened or created (can’t recall which) a file called .lircrc (note the leading dot character) in the user home directory and put the following lines in:

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = red
 config = /opt/boxee/run-boxee-desktop
 repeat = 0
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = blue
 config = xbmc
 repeat = 0
end

This starts Boxee if you push the red button on the remote, or XBMC if you push the blue button.  Note that this is just to get you started – properly it should check first to see if the other program is running and close it (or at least refuse to run the selected program if the other is still opened).  But by this point we were really up against the wall for time, so we just told the user not to open one program while the other is still running.

By the way, the irexec program must be running for the above to work, so you can use the Ununtu/Mint startup manager (or whatever they call it – this is hard to document when I don’t have it to look at anymore) to make it run at startup. You should run it with the -d option, e.g. irexec -d in order to make it run as a background process.

EDIT: One added note: If you are trying to use the HDMI output for sound, and you are having no luck getting it to work, try this: From a terminal window enter:

alsamixer

Then use the tab key to tab over to

iec958 1

and make sure it is unmuted. Press the “M” key to change the muting status, if necessary, then hit the Esc key to quit. You might want to call up alsamixer one more time to make sure that the change has “stuck.” An alternate method that is supposed to work is to enter the following from a terminal window command prompt:

amixer -c 1 sset 'IEC958' unmute

Whichever method you use, you should now be able to select HDMI audio output. Also, make sure the volume is turned up and not muted in XBMC and Boxee!

Things I would have liked to have done, but didn’t have time:

Either make a better .lircrc file or find a GUI application launcher that’s IR-remote aware (I couldn’t find one, and we looked – I really wanted to put one of these on).

Find a way to shutdown the computer (or put it to sleep) using the remote (strangely, you CAN do this in XBMC Live – don’t know what they do differently. If you do try XBMC Live, I’d love to see how they are doing their remote button definitions, but I wasn’t about to install it again to find out!)

Find (if such a thing exists) an on-screen keyboard that is controlled by the IR remote, that could be used to enter keystrokes into a program in a pinch (both Boxee and XBMC have such a thing, so it’s no big deal within those applications, but I’d like one that works with all applications).

Find out why VNC screen sharing doesn’t seem to work (when you try to get into the system using VNC, you get an initial screen that may display some or all of what’s actually on the desktop – that is, not all open windows may be shown – and the display never changes after that, although moving the mouse works. It’s still semi-useful if you can watch the main screen while using the mouse and keyboard on another computer in the room, but I was hoping to use VNC to work around the overscan problem, and for that it’s not so usable since the display never changes on the “remote” machine. EDIT: Found the answer to this one – first you have to check the box to allow sharing in Remote Desktop Preferences, then go to System | Preferences | Appearance, and in the Appearance Preferences panel, “Visual effects” tab, select None. Apparently, the use of any visual effects screws up VNC.

A couple other things I have forgotten right now, but will probably remember sooner or later.

Also, I discovered that Linux Mint seems to have a bug where the Applications menu disappears for no reason.  Here’s how to fix that if it happens to you:

  1. Right click on Menu button and click on “Reload plugins”
  2. If that doesn’t help, open a Terminal window and proceed to step 3
  3. Right click on Menu button and click on “Remove from Panel”
  4. In the Terminal window enter: mintmenu clean
  5. Right click on a blank space on the bottom bar, select “Add to Panel”
  6. Right click on the new Menu icon, select Move, and move it to the correct location.

One other issue you may encounter when using a HDTV as the output device is something called “overscan” – that means the desktop is actually larger than the area shown by the HDTV display, meaning you can’t actually see your bottom menu bar, etc.  While both Boxee and XBMC have ways to correct for overscan within their respective applications, I have not figured out how to do it in Linux Mint itself.  This tends to happen AFTER you install the NVidia drivers, but if you don’t install the drivers you will quickly lean that things just don’t work right (mouse cursor moves at snail’s pace in some applications, etc.).  True Linux geeks probably know how to fix this but I don’t.  We were testing this on a Sharp LC-42SB45U TV so if anyone ever figures out the fix for this, I’d love to hear it (since we wasted a lot of time trying to fix this, and all for nothing). In the meantime you may want to use this little workaround to make the overscan less annoying.

It would probably also be a good idea to follow the instructions in this post: HOW-TO setup XBMC and Linux with correct resolution (xorg.conf) — in that article they tell you to modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add a couple of lines. I’d suggest a couple of additional modification there — under Section “Device” add one or both of these lines

Option "HWCursor" "false"
Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"

The first of those lines is a “blinking cursor fix” and should probably only be used if you are running XBMC Live – it’s supposed to help if you find an unwanted blinking cursor you can’t get rid of (I haven’t encountered that particular problem yet). The second line enables 1080p 24Hz mode for smoother playback of certain videos (probably most of them, actually). That line can actually go in either “Device” or “Screen” section – I added it to both just to be safe, but that’s probably overkill. Also, at the bottom of the xorg.conf file, add this:

Section "Extensions"
     Option         "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

That’s supposed to provide better H264 acceleration.

If you added the “DynamicTwinView” “false” option as shown above, and you know for a fact that your monitor supports 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz (you should be able to determine that if you followed the instructions in the aforementioned post) then that mode should become available in XBMC — in the XBMC GUI, go to Settings | System | Video Output to select your desired output mode, and see if that mode is available. If, for some reason it is still not available, you might be able to force the issue – in order to do that, open a terminal window and do this:

cd /etc/X11/Xsession.d
sudo touch 45custom_xrandr-settings
sudo nano 45custom_xrandr-settings

Paste into this file the following lines, but take the parameters for the first line from the Modeline you created in the previous step, except use “1920×1080_60.00″ instead of “1920×1080″.  The first line below is an example (do not copy it verbatim, use the settings from your Modeline) but the second and third can be copied and used as is:

xrandr --newmode "1920x1080_60.00" 173.00 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode default 1920x1080_60.00
xrandr --output default --mode 1920x1080_60.00

If you have installed the Boxee beta and find you cannot access “mature” Hulu content, see HOW TO: Access mature Hulu content on Boxee Beta (Mac+Windows+Linux) (or this summary on the Lifehacker site).

If you have installed just the XBMC Live package and want to install Firefox, see HOW-TO Install Firefox in an XBMC Live setup — also, in XBMC Live, there’s no GUI that allows you to set up “shared” folders, in part because a Samba server is not installed by default. So if you need to set up a shared folder that’s visible to anyone over your local network, you can do this: Exit to a command prompt or ssh in from another system on your local network and do this:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install samba

(…follow the prompts to intall Samba, then…)

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Scroll down to the end of the smb.conf file and add sections like this – don’t just copy these verbatim; make sure they make sense for your installation, and don’t include the comments (the semicolons and whatever follows). Substitute your user name in place of “myusername” (if you didn’t set one, it may be “xbmc”):

[global]
netbios name = my xbmc server     ;whatever server name you want to appear
                                  ;on the network, 15 characters or less

[home]
comment = Primary User Home Share
path = /home/myusername
force user = myusername
inherit permissions = yes
read only = No
guest ok = Yes
allow hosts = 192.168.0.     ;use first three octets of your local network address

[xbmc system]
comment = XBMC System Share
path = /home/myusername/.xbmc
force user = myusername
inherit permissions = yes
read only = No
guest ok = Yes
allow hosts = 192.168.0.     ;use first three octets of your local network address

After you have made these changes and have saved the file and exited nano, you can then do this to restart the Samba server, in order to make your changes take effect:

sudo service samba restart

Note the only security here it to restrict access to hosts on your local network. There are ways to make Samba more secure, and if there are other users on your network that you don’t fully trust to not mess up your system, then you may want to implement additional security, but that’s beyond the scope of this document (suggestions are welcome in the comments). Also note, if you don’t plan to attach a printer, you may want to comment out the lines in smb.conf having to do with printers – they caused problems for me, but may not for you. And note that you should only do the above if you are using XBMC Live – if you have installed a full Ubuntu desktop then use the networking support built into it, and don’t manually edit smb.conf (which may not work anyway).

Another, perhaps easier way to configure Samba (once you have installed it) is to install Webmin (which you might want to do anyway, especially if running XBMC Live) — see these installation instructions for Webmin.

If you need to (re)format a hard drive to use with your system, and you don’t want any wasted space on the drive, be sure to read this: Free Disk Space by Reducing Reserved Blocks

If you hate typing in a password each time you ssh into your Revo, see Stop entering passwords: How to set up ssh public/private key authentication for connections to a remote server — but note that in a couple of cases that article instructs you to do a command of the form ssh username@remote ‘some commands’ and for whatever reason, the version of Ubuntu used in XBMC Live doesn’t seem to want to accept these. So I had to actually ssh into the Revo (using a password) and enter the required commands (the part between the single quotes) direct from the command prompt (the commands that create the .ssh directory, change its permissions, etc.).

If you do a system upgrade (for example, on XBMC Live you do a sudo apt-get update followed by a sudo apt-get upgrade), you may find that the next time you reboot XBMC won’t come up, but instead displays a message that stats with the words, “XBMC needs hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering.” Don’t panic, just follow andyblac’s advice in this thread:

Quit the box on the screen and make sure you don’t have any other instances of X running (if you ssh in from another box on your network, that normally does not start an instance of X, unless you specifically add options to do that, so you can do the following from another box using ssh if you prefer, but you must first quit the box that appears on-screen that displays the error message – that is running under an instance of X).

Login as xbmc (or whatever user name you used when you set up the system) and enter your password.  Then, at the Linux command prompt type:
sudo nvidia-installer –update
Enter your password again, then answer yes to all the questions. The latest driver will be redownloaded and rebuilt for you. If you have modified your x.org configuration file, check to see if it was overwritten — if so, it should have been backed up, so you should be able to merge the two files (add any important missing lines to the new file).  When I did this it didn’t touch my x.org, but that may be because I’d previously generated a new one prior to making modifications.

A similar document to this one, that may also prove helpful although intended for a different Ion-based system than the Acer Aspire Revo (so be careful) is this: XBMC Live + Asrock Ion 330 Setup Guide. There’s also a message thread on the XBMC site for those that want something like XBMC Live, but perhaps a bit more configurable: [LINUX] XBMC Setup Script – Automatic installation of XBMC for Linux.

I hope this helps someone.  And don’t get me wrong – once you have both Boxee and XBMC installed, this is a VERY nice little system. But as I say, the new Boxee beta seems to blow the mind of everyone who has seen it (however, for actual usability, XBMC still has a slight edge, IMHO. Glitz isn’t everything!).

As for the standalone Hulu Desktop software – I give the current version a five turd rating. :) In my opinion, the video is so jerky as to be unwatchable (unless you like watching your programs as a fast slide show) and the IR remote control isn’t recognized. I hope they will get an Acer Aspire Revo (or other device that uses the Ion processor) and install Linux (either Linux Mint or Ubuntu) and make it work.  Of course, there are other sources for the programs that are on Hulu, but Hulu doesn’t make money from the commercials when you go around them like that, so we are supposed to pretend those don’t exist.  The comment I’ve read in many forums is along the lines of “we’d be happy to watch the commercials if only they’d give us a watchable picture.” Anyway, there is PLENTY to watch in Boxee and XBMC!

The brother of the family member that bought this unit was so impressed that he ordered one for himself, so I may be helping build another of these soon (although, he’s more computer-savvy, so he may do it himself).  So if anyone has any hints or fixes for any of the issues I have mentioned here, please leave a comment (just no Linux distro bashing, PLEASE!).

http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/stop-entering-passwords-how-to-set-up-ssh-publicprivate-key-authentication-for-connections-to-a-remote-server/

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Is Michigan going to get screwed on broadband mapping? (UPDATE 3)

December 24, 2009 at 3:00 am · Filed under AT&T, Broadband, Editorial, Internet, Michigan, Opinion, Telephone, business ethics, consumer, corporation, issues

Crain’s Detroit Business reports today that Michigan is going to get $1.8 million from the feds “to launch an initiative to map and plan broadband service.” Now, you should be wondering about the timing of this announcement: December 23, just before most reporters take a long weekend. When news like this is released on a day like today, my first thought is, “Why do they want to bury this?”

The answer is in the last sentence of the article:

“Michigan is working on the project with Washington-based Connected Nation, a national non-profit organization that does broadband mapping.”

What’s wrong with that? I refer you to this article from DSLreports: One Last Warning Before America Screws Up Broadband Mapping.

EDIT: Also see “Privatizing the Public Trust: A Critical Look At Connected Nation“, a report issued by Public Knowledge, Common Cause, The Media and Democracy Coalition, and Reclaim the Media.

EDIT: Somehow I missed today’s post on DSLreports: “Connected Nation Wins Huge Chunk Of Taxpayer Money – And will likely use that money to fight against your interests…“

Do your research on Connected Nation, folks. Google is your friend.

Is Michigan going to get screwed on broadband mapping? In my humble opinion, the odds are very high. I HOPE that the Michigan Public Service Commission is smart enough to know who they’re dealing with, but even if they know, will they have any authority to alter any results that might be misleading?

Happy holidays. By the time the “watchdog media” (more like a sleeping chihuahua) gets back from the holidays, they’ll probably consider this old news, and totally ignore it. If you don’t have broadband now in your area and you want it, maybe you should think about moving to another state!

EDIT: I posted the above at around 2:30 PM. I then had to leave for a couple of hours, and by the time I got back, I found the following in my e-mail:

[Begin quote:]

From: “Ditto, Jessica” [e-mail address redacted]
To: “michigantelephone…”
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:10:40 -0800
Subject: Michigan Broadband Mapping Project

To Whom It May Concern:

In regards to your post about Michigan’s broadband mapping project I would caution you not to believe everything you read on the Internet. The timing of the announcement is nothing but the result of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration having just released the awards for 14 states and 1 U.S. territory late yesterday – Michigan being one of them. This is exciting news for Michigan as the state works to create jobs and opportunity in a technology-based economy. The Connect Michigan program has been developed over the past few months in close collaboration with the Michigan Public Service Commission. These funds will allow the state to collect critical broadband data needed to identify the unserved and underserved areas of the state. Connected Nation is proud to be lending our experience and expertise to that effort. What you may not realize is that Connected Nation has mapped eight states prior to this grant program. No other organization in the country has mapped broadband on such a comprehensive scale. We do this because our mission is to promote digital inclusion by addressing both the supply and demand for high-speed Internet.

Your blog can be a positive voice in this effort by spreading the word about the need for broadband in Michigan’s unreached areas. I hope that you will afford me the opportunity to let you know more about who we are so that we can work with you in a constructive way going forward.

Regards,

Jessica Ditto
Communications Director
Connected Nation
877.846.7710 – Office
[Mobile telephone number redacted]
[e-mail address redacted]
www.connectednation.org

[End quote]

My response: Ms. Ditto, I would guess that you are probably paid by your employer to attempt to counteract negative publicity that appears in blogs such as mine, and I understand you are probably just trying to earn a living. However, the problem as I understand it is twofold. First, and feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong, I have read that your organization was created by, and/or receives significant funding from AT&T. If that is true, then it gives the appearance of conflict of interest. Also, I have read editorials and articles that indicate that there is a belief that in states where your organization has previously done mapping, it has overstated the actual availability of broadband.

I freely admit that I did not do the original research on this (which is why I referred my readers to an article at DSLreports.com) but over the past year or so, I have read more than just one or two articles that question the circumstances under which your organization was started (was it a creation of AT&T, or any third-party organization hired by AT&T, or did AT&T have any hand in it?) and its source of funding (in other words, does AT&T contribute directly or indirectly to your organization’s operating expenses?).

There is a large area of Michigan that does need broadband, but let’s make sure we define broadband properly. My question to you would be, what is the minimum upload and download speeds that fit your organization’s definition of broadband? AT&T and Verizon seem to think that customers should be happy with minimal DSL speeds (particularly when they are not close to the telephone central office). For many customers that’s not true today, and in the future it won’t be true for anyone. If you are defining anything over dial-up modem speed as “broadband”, then that will not present a true picture of where broadband is available in Michigan. Today and in the future, customers will expect to be able to upload and download high-definition video without having to wait forever. Does your organization have the ability to change your definition of broadband to keep pace with the times and with customer expectations, or do you have to use a definition that has been imposed on you by someone else, and if so, who might that someone else be?

I’m sorry, but I just can’t help but think the timing of today’s announcement was a bit suspicious. Maybe there was a valid reason for it, maybe not, but I’m quite aware of the fact that companies tend to issue press releases on Friday afternoons and before holiday weekends, when the hope is that they will not get much exposure or commentary. Maybe that was not the intent here and it was just unfortunate timing, but if so, it was indeed unfortunate.

If you would care to comment on the above, I will publish your response. I want to be fair to everyone, but at the same time, I’ve had a bad experience in the past with a public relations firm hired by a major telephone company, so I’m not going to just let statements slide by without asking some questions, where I feel it is appropriate.

Thank you for your response, and happy holidays to you!

EDIT 2: I received another e-mail reply from Ms. Ditto. Basically, it seems that for some reason she wants to engage me further on this topic at some point next week, after she returns from the Christmas weekend. The meaningful part of her response was this:

“I will tell you one thing :) I am not with a public relations firm, nor was I hired to counteract negative publicity, although obviously my job is easier when I confront things head-on. I began working for Connected Nation because I wanted to work for a nonprofit that was doing something meaningful for others. I personally saw the impact they had in Kentucky and am excited about the work we are going to do in Michigan.”

But I didn’t say she was with a public relations firm, just that I’d had a bad experience with one. And I didn’t say that she was hired to counteract negative publicity, but I’ll bet her employer pays her while she’s attempting to do so.

I’m not even going to comment on her statement about the reason she began working for Connected Nation. I don’t want to turn this into something personal. This is not about Ms. Ditto — my whole point there was that she’s just doing her job and at this time of year, I’m not inclined to say anything negative against anyone if I can help it. But at the same time, if she’s going to try to sell me with an “Oh, shucks, we’re just a nonprofit from Kentucky” routine, there’s no way I’m buying into that. After doing just a very shallow Google search, I found the link to “Privatizing the Public Trust: A Critical Look At Connected Nation“, a report issued by Public Knowledge, Common Cause, The Media and Democracy Coalition, and Reclaim the Media. So if Ms. Ditto wants to set the record straight, it appears she has a lot more formidable opponents than I to deal with. Oh, and I found something interesting on Connected Nation’s own web site: Connected Nation Submits No Bid Response for Kentucky Broadband Mapping RFP.

Really, the only response I am interested in receiving from Connected Nation is an honest answer to the questions I asked above. To put it crudely, I want to know if, and to what extent, they’re in bed with AT&T and/or any other telephone company that has a presence in the state of Michigan. I’m certainly not going to be their sunshine pumper in the state (as if I had that kind of influence), nor do I intend at this point to carry out ongoing tirades against them (unless I’m provoked to do so). The point of this post was to alert you to this news item, and to express my personal opinion on the matter. I had frankly hoped that some other blog or news site with a lot more exposure would pick up on this, but to be honest I didn’t expect it, for the very reason I stated above — after the reporters (and the professional bloggers that blog for a living) return from the holidays, this will probably be considered old news.

And by the way, this is one of those occasions where I honestly hope I’m wrong… nothing would make me happier than to see Connected Nation produce a fair and accurate broadband map of Michigan, that accurately shows the actual upload and download speeds that people can receive at any given location in our state. One major problem with phone companies is that they advertise broadband speeds using the weasel words “up to”, so when they don’t deliver the advertised speed they can say they only promised to deliver “up to” that speed (often still charging the end user as if they were receiving the advertised speed!). A broadband map that shows only the advertised speeds available at any particular spot on the map will not only be useless, but disingenuous. Anyway, it concerns me when these other organizations — those that have actual funding, and probably a research staff — publish articles that are critical of Connected Nation. I don’t have funding and I don’t have a research staff, so I cannot fully investigate the claims made by those organizations, nor those made by Connected Nation. But I do form opinions based on what I read, and in this country I’m allowed to share my opinions with you. If my opinions are in error, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Please allow me to make a couple of further points: According to the original article, the federal government is spending $1.8 million dollars on this project (and that’s just in Michigan — DSLreports adds that the feds also awarded Connected Nation grants to the tune of $1.8 million for mapping and planning in Tennessee, $1.7 million in North Carolina, $1.4 million in Nevada, and $1.7 million in Minnesota) — dollars that probably came from you and I in one way or another. And what is the point? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use that money to enhance competition by actually giving zero-interest loans to small broadband providers that promise to serve an unserved or underserved area? You may say, well, we need to know where the unserved or underserved areas are located, but then I ask whether it’s really important to pinpoint those areas to the tune of $1.8 million dollars, especially considering that the existing facilities-based broadband providers ought to be able to provide maps showing where they are able to provide service. We require wireline phone companies to produce tariff maps showing exactly where their service is available — shouldn’t broadband providers be able to provide the same information, without it costing $1.8 million?

Also, there is a part of me that wonders if such a map might serve the purpose of inhibiting competition (whether as an intended or unintentional consequence). The reason is that once you know where broadband service is available, even if it’s lousy service in some areas, that information could be used to deny loans or grants to companies that want to overbuild in those areas. In other words, even if a provider’s service in unreliable, even if contacting their customer service department is like entering a level of hell, even if their own customer services representatives don’t seem to realize they have service in the area (a not uncommon problem!), or even if the provider wants to impose ridiculously small usage caps on their customers, on the map it would still show that broadband is available. Maybe customers would really like good quality broadband service with no usage caps and at a fair price, from a company that treats them as though customers really are important, but if this map says that Crappy Broadband, Inc. already offers service in your area, then perhaps nobody else is going to get a grant or loan to provide the type of service customers will want and expect in the 21st century.

My suggestion would be that if we must go through with this project, then a truly useful map would also include independently collected customer satisfaction data – how many area residents attempted to obtain service and were told they could not, and how many think the service is vastly overpriced, and how many are so frustrated with their provider’s service, or the provider’s customer service reps, to nearly want to “go postal” on that company? For that matter, will this map even take into account the prices charged? If it doesn’t then they could justifiably claim that broadband service is available, right now, to 99%+ of Michigan residents, because just about anyone can get a commercial data line from the telephone company (a DS1 or similar data circuit). You might have to sell your firstborn to get it (okay, I exaggerate slightly), but you can get it. Therefore, a map that only shows where broadband is available, without taking the issues of prices charged and customer satisfaction into account, won’t give a complete picture of broadband availability in Michigan.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say on the subject for the moment. Hope all of you will have the happiest of holidays!

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Review of Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs 4.0 by Michael W. Picher (Packt Publishing)

December 21, 2009 at 6:52 am · Filed under Book, FreeSwitch, Internet, Review, Telephone, VOIP News, education, software

Cover of Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs 4.0

Cover of Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs 4.0

Regular readers of this blog may recall that I recently reviewed another Packt Publishing book, FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions by Alex Robar, and that my review was generally positive.  However, I have wondered for a while if there was going to be any serious competition for Asterisk and FreePBX that would also be open source, and freely available to anyone that cares to download it.  Well, this book discusses one contender – sipXecs by SIPfoundry.  You can look over their web site to get some idea of what sipXecs is, but in one respect it’s along the same lines as FreePBX, in that it provides a web-based GUI that allows you to do all the work of configuring your phone system from any web browser.  The book is called Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs 4.0 by Michael W. Picher.

I’ve never personally so much as laid eyes upon a working sipXecs installation, so this isn’t going to be a review of sipXecs per se.  But I suppose some are wondering what the difference is between sipXecs and FreePBX.  The impression I got from reading this book is that the two have some differences in features, and even where there is feature overlap, there are differences in the way those features are implemented.  If you are just counting features, FreePBX probably offers more, and many of those features have more configuration options.  FreePBX would probably work very well in a home or small office.  sipXecs, on the other hand, seems to have been designed by folks with experience in networking and larger business installations.  If you were trying to link several branches of a medium-sized to large corporation together, and it’s crucial to have 100% uptime (or as close to that figure as possible), sipXecs might be a better choice (at least until someone high in the corporate food chain demands a feature it doesn’t offer).  And if you’re a networking professional, you might find sipXecs more appealing.  This is definitely NOT to say that sipXecs could not be used in a home or small office setting, nor that FreePBX could not be used in a large corporation for that matter, just that each may fill a particular niche better than the other.

So I will concentrate on the book itself, and I’ll let the publisher have the first word.  Here is how they describe this book:

A clear and concise approach to building a communications system for any organization with the open source sipX Enterprise Communications Server

In Detail

Open source telephony systems are making big waves in the communications industry. Moving your organization from a lab environment to production system can seem like a daunting and inherently risky proposition. Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs delivers proven techniques for deploying reliable and robust communications systems.

Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs provides a guiding hand in planning, building and migrating a corporate communications system to the open source sipXecs SIP PBX platform. Following this step-by-step guide makes normally complex tasks, such as migrating your existing communication system to VOIP and deploying phones, easy. Imagine how good you’ll feel when you have a complete, enterprise ready telephony system at work in your business.

Planning a communications system for any size of network can seem an overwhelmingly complicated task. Deploying a robust and reliable communications system may seem even harder. This book will start by helping you understand the nuts and bolts of a Voice over IP Telephony system. The base knowledge gained is then built upon with system design and product selection. Soon you will be able to implement, utilize and maintain a communications system with sipXecs. Many screen-shots and diagrams help to illustrate and make simple what can otherwise be a complex undertaking. It’s easy to build an enterprise ready telephony system when you follow this helpful, straightforward guide.

What you will learn from this book

• Understand the complexities of an IP Telephony and Voice over IP network
• Build a clear process for migrating existing phone systems to an IP based system
• Deliver a solid foundation for any IP based phone system
• Quickly and easily get a sipXecs open source PBX running
• Deploy phones quickly and easily.
• Utilize Internet Telephony Service Providers to reduce monthly telephony bills
• Develop training materials to help successfully teach your users how to use the system
• Leverage sipXecs Automatic Call Distribution Queues to handle basic Call Center needs
• Operate and Maintain a reliable communications platform

Approach

This book was written to be a step by step approach to building a communications system for any organization. Care was taken to clearly illustrate with diagrams and screen shots all of the steps and concepts along the way. [Emphasis added - I'll have more to say on that point!]

Who this book is written for

This book is written for network engineers who have been asked to deploy and maintain communications systems for their organizations.

And here’s the chapter list:

Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction to Telephony Concepts and sipXecs
Chapter 2: System Planning and Equipment Selection
Chapter 3: Installing sipXecs
Chapter 4: Configuring Users
Chapter 5: Configuring Phones in sipXecs
Chapter 6: Connecting to the World with sipXecs
Chapter 7: Configuring sipXecs Server Features
Chapter 8: Using sipXecs—The User Perspective
Chapter 9: Configuring Advanced sipXecs Features
Chapter 10: Utilizing the sipXecs ACD Service
Chapter 11: Maintenance and Security
Appendix: Glossary
Index

See the Table of Contents page to get a more detailed chapter breakdown.

Now, when I review a book, the thing I am looking at is whether the author accomplishes what he or she set out to do.  In this case, the intent of the book is to instruct someone in how to set up a working sipXecs PBX.  So, I look at whether the author seems to have a good grasp of his subject matter, and whether he can communicate his knowledge to the reader in a clear and understandable manner.   A third consideration is whether the book is a good value for the money.   Technical books often aren’t inexpensive, so I tend to mark them down if I perceive that there’s a lot of “filler” material in the book.

It’s difficult for me to decide how to rate this book.  Does the author understand his subject matter?  Yes, it certainly appears that he does.  Does he effectively communicate it?  Yes, the book was an easy read — I really didn’t feel like I was in “over my head” at any point in the book.  Could you set up a working sipXecs phone system after reading this book?  I think I could, but I can’t speak for anyone else.  In fact, in many ways, this was one of the clearest and most understandable technical books I’ve read.

You sense a “but” coming, don’t you?

Well, there is, and it’s a big one.  Did you notice above where the publisher said that “Care was taken to clearly illustrate with diagrams and screen shots all of the steps and concepts along the way”?  Well, the book definitely contains screenshots — a LOT of screenshots.  And normally, that would be very good thing, because as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.  A screenshot would not add value to a book only in the case where it was useless “filler” material, and it’s pretty apparent that none of the screenshots in this book were intended to just be “filler.”

But, for a screenshot to be useful and not “filler”, it has to be readable.  And in that regard, this book has a serious problem.   If you buy the hardcopy edition of the book, I’d strongly urge you to also buy a good magnifying glass, because you’re going to need it to get anything out of those screenshots, unless perhaps you have perfect vision.   Apparently the author (or whoever took the screenshots) has a widescreen monitor, and was running their web browser in full screen (or at least full width) mode.   As a result, most of the text in the screenshots borders on microscopic, and some of the smaller print is unreadable (by me, anyway).   When you take those extra-wide screenshots and reduce them to about five inches in width on a printed page, you need very good eyes (or good glasses) to make out the text.  After trying to decipher the details in those screenshots for a while, I started to get a headache!

At first I thought maybe it was my eyes going bad — I am getting older, after all — but then I opened up some of the other books I have in my collection, including other Packt Publishing books, and none of them suffer from this problem.  Frankly, if I were the publisher I’d stop the presses on this book immediately, and not let another copy go out the door until all the screenshots were re-done, but then that’s just me.

Now, that said, the book is not totally without value.  I think that perhaps the author just might have realized he had a problem, because in many cases he repeats in the text most of what’s in the screenshot (at least the portion to which he’s calling your attention), so not being able to actually read the screenshot isn’t always such a loss — but unfortunately, it also relegates the screenshots more toward the category of “filler.”

So, would I recommend this book? Yes, for two classes of readers in particular:

  • Those thinking about setting up an Asterisk/FreePBX system that would like to know about available alternatives.  It may be that the particular combination of features that you deem essential can only be found in one of either sipXecs or FreePBX, and by reading this book and the aforementioned FreePBX book, you’d have a pretty good idea of the differences in capabilities between the two.
  • Those thinking of installing a VoIP PBX in a larger organization, where reliability and scalability are far more important than the actual feature set.   My impression from the book is that sipXecs is designed with larger businesses and higher call volumes in mind.   That’s no reason that someone with a small business should shy away from it, but if you are very concerned about reliability and high “uptime” then you probably should at least give sipXecs some consideration.  And if your organization is large enough to have people with degrees in computer networking in your employ, they might prefer working with sipXecs.  This is not to say you can’t do a large installation using Asterisk, but now you have another choice, and this book can help you decide which is best in your particular situation.

If it weren’t for the screenshot issue, I’d be giving this book very high marks.  The focus of the book is deployment in a business setting, and the author takes you through the steps for planning and implementing the system, whether you are replacing an existing PBX or starting from scratch.  Having some knowledge of computer networking would be helpful, but as I noted, I’m no networking expert and yet I didn’t feel totally lost.  In fact, if you know telephone systems but don’t know all that much about networking, you’ll find that just about everything you really need to know is explained, but without going into extraneous detail.  You get the information you need to get the job done, but if you want to become a networking guru, you’ll need some other book for that.

I’m just really sorry that the bad screenshots marred an otherwise fine book, but I have to call ‘em as I see ‘em, and in my opinion they really are that bad.  Whether that would matter to you is something only you can decide.  I should mention that I was provided a hardcopy edition of the book for review, but Packt also offers an e-book edition in Adobe PDF format on their web site, and if you are comfortable reading e-books, I’d definitely go that route with this book, because most PDF readers will let you magnify sections of a page.  So, the nearly unreadable screenshots might actually be very readable in the e-book edition. Also, if you do go the e-book route, be sure to scroll down the page and look for the offer, “Buy this eBook with FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions eBook and get 50% discount on both. Just enter sip40xecs in the ‘Promotion Code’.”  Seems like a good deal, especially if you’re wanting to compare FreePBX and sipXecs.

Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs 4.0 by Michael W. Picher (Packt Publishing link)

Disclosure: I have not been and will not be paid anything for writing this article, and I do not receive any commission or other compensation from sales of this book, and the links in this article are not affiliate links (that is, I do not get paid anything because you click on a link, even if the link goes to the publisher’s site). I did, however, receive a complementary (free) review copy of the book from the publisher, for which I am most grateful – but apparently the Federal Trade Commission considers that “compensation”, which bloggers are now required to disclose. I can only say that I would not write a good review of a sucky book just because I got a free copy (I can’t be bought in that manner, and even if I could, I wouldn’t sell myself out that cheaply!) but still, the FTC apparently wants you to know that I got “compensated” with a free book.

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A Tale of Two Links

December 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm · Filed under Editorial, Michigan, Opinion

This is the time of year when we celebrate… wait, what is it we celebrate again? Oh, perhaps this Christmas Carol will remind me:

That’s NOT one of the links, that’s just a bonus to get you in the proper spirit for Christmas in the USA.  Anyway, I came across these two links (probably via Twitter) within the last day or so, and thought they formed a rather weird juxtaposition:

Link #1: When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite – this is the sort of thing that the churches know about, but somehow (at least in the fundamentalist churches) never bother to mention to the folks warming the pews, so as to give you the idea that all Christians have always been of the same narrow frame of mind on the subject. Interesting, but hardly worth a mention here, until I saw this:

Link #2, from the Kalamazoo Gazette: Churches to leave homeless ministry over sexuality conflict – the first couple of paragraphs paints the picture:

KALAMAZOO — Theological disagreements over homosexuality are causing a divide within a downtown ministry that serves the poor, homeless and lonely.

Martha’s Table, through which eight churches have provided Sunday afternoon worship and meals for the needy at First Congregational Church, is losing three of the churches because of the issue of homosexuality, even though the ecumenical ministry takes no position on it, said the Rev. Matt Laney, pastor of First Congregational.

In other words, what these three churches are saying, in effect, is that the other churches had better become narrow-minded haters like them, or they will pick up their soup ladles and go home. And they pick the time of year when people of their faith are supposedly honoring the one who came to bring “Peace on Earth, good will toward men” to make this point.  Really classy, they are.

I don’t know what “heaven” the leaders of those three churches think they are going to, but I’d be surprised if Jesus spends much time there. Considering that when he was on Earth, he ministered to the rejects of society – and condemned the religious leaders using some very strong and colorful language (that I’m pretty sure has been watered down in translation, although “brood of vipers” still gets the point across) – I have a real hard time thinking he’d want anything to do with the fundamentalist churches that live in the realm of hate and legalism. You’d be more likely to find him down at that ministry, serving the homeless and the downtrodden.

I have a prediction: If we assume that the events described in the book of Revelation are still to come (and there is a wide variance of opinion on that), I predict that when the Antichrist comes the fundamentalist churches and the televangelists will welcome him with open arms, and do everything in their power to advance his agenda. Of course, they won’t know he’s the Antichrist, because he’ll be saying all the things they want to hear, and they’ll just love him to death until it’s too late and he turns on them. Meanwhile, many of the folks that the fundies despise will see right through him and will try to warn everyone, but they’ll disappear in the night (or simply be ignored by the major media), and the fundies will be happier than pigs in mud (for a while, anyway).

Jesus never taught any of his followers to hate anyone, and as I mentioned, the only people he ever said really bad words about were the religious leaders (oh, and the moneychangers in the temple). Paul was another matter altogether, and that’s why I have my doubts that Paul should have ever been considered akin to an apostle. Certainly he had a religious experience, but even non-Christians have those (I think he probably had a near-death experience when he fell off his horse). And certainly he was very influential in his time. But should his words be considered as coming from God’s mouth to his ear, and applicable for all time and in all cultural settings, or should we assume that he was not above presenting his own opinions and values (many of which were a direct result of his upbringing as a Jewish Pharisee) as though they came from God? I have to wonder, especially given the bitter fruit that is produced when churches concentrate on the writings of Paul and virtually ignore the teachings of Jesus.

I have a suggestion: If you really want to honor Jesus this Christmas, try to love everyone, and resolve not to hate anyone anymore, because as you do to others you do to yourself. And if your church preaches hate, stop going there, and for Jesus’ sake don’t take your kids there, so their minds can be poisoned. Then, just maybe, we’ll be a lot further along the path toward peace on earth, and good will toward everyone. I haven’t set foot in the door of a church (except to attend a wedding) in going on ten years now, and I can honestly say without hesitation that I am a much better person than I was when I attended church regularly (which may not be saying much – but still, I no longer hold any animosity toward the people that it was considered acceptable to hate, and that’s a really big thing as far as I’m concerned).

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A modest proposal to solve (some of) our broadband access and bandwidth problems

December 14, 2009 at 2:35 am · Filed under Broadband, DSL, Digital Television, Editorial, FCC, Internet, Opinion, Wireless, cable, invention, satellite television

I have a modest proposal for how to solve our broadband access and bandwidth problems.  Okay, maybe not all of them, but at least two:

  • The current inability of people in rural areas (with dialup access only) to download larger files in an efficient manner.
  • The virtually non-existent problem of “bandwidth hogs” that consume so much data that they cause congestion in the networks (in most cases this is pure nonsense, but since Big Cable and Big Telco want so badly to sell you this lie, let’s follow them into their fantasy world for the moment and respond with a solution that does NOT involve usage caps or metered service).

Okay, let’s suppose you have a fictitious company, we’ll call it Bingleulu (because no real company could call themselves that!).  And lets suppose this company could do two things:

  • Acquire the equivalent of (initially) 12 television channels worth of bandwidth on repurposed TV frequencies nationwide, and
  • Acquire the equivalent of (initially) 12 television channels worth of bandwidth on a communications satellite (either C or Ku band, but preferably Ku) that is visible from the entire United States (or at least most of it).

Now, this dozen-channel bandwidth would be used as one huge data pipe – let’s call it the Big Fat Pipe, or BFP for short.  If your dial-up modem is like a slow faucet drip, and your cable modem connection is like a low-flow shower head, the BFP would be like an open fire hydrant. Data would be sent up to the satellite in one fat stream, then down to either individual users (mostly those in rural areas not near a terrestrial transmitter) and to the ground station towers that would retransmit the signal over the former TV airwaves.  Why the dual coverage?  Well, satellite is great for use in rural areas and other places where people might have issues receiving the terrestrial signals reliably, whereas the terrestrial stations would require less expensive receiving equipment and would be more suitable for mobile use, and use in locations where satellites aren’t visible due to heavy tree cover.  Plus it gives you a bit of redundancy, since in time the terrestrial stations could be linked by a backup fiber optic link.

So now you have this giant firehose of data, as it were.  Now, let’s say you decide to watch a video.  You jump on your web browser, on your existing dial-up or broadband connection, or even your mobile phone (which would have a built in data receiver) and go to the Bingleulu site, and select your video.  On the pages there’s also a small setting dropdown that says something to the effect of “Number of seconds I’m willing to wait”, and it defaults to 60 seconds, but you can set it to something shorter or longer – even much longer if you’re selecting a large file that you won’t be able to watch until later.

Now, here’s the magic part.  The Bingleulu site looks at whether it has space available in the flood of data it’s sending out, and if possible it sends your file within your specified maximum wait time as part of the the big flood.  It uses a smart algorithm to figure this out, taking into account things like your connection speed and type (dial-up and mobile users might get some preference), whether you’re on an ISP that caps your data usage, and a bunch of other things.  One thing it takes into account is how likely it is that someone else will request the same file within your specified wait time, because one of the things this system attempts to do is send popular files (especially LARGE popular files) to many users at once.

So when you make the request, the video or file or whatever might come back to you the usual way, over your internet connection, and the smaller the file the more likely it is that it will come that way.  But if there is space available – and assuming you give it long enough, there will be – the file will come back to you via the satellite or terrestrial transmitter system.  In that case, your browser will be sent an ID tag of some kind (via your regular connection) and it will then know that it is to look for the data containing that tag on the satellite/terrestrial over-the-air system.  If it misses any packets, it can request retransmission of just those packets, so that the entire file doesn’t have to be resent (and again, these could be sent either the normal way, or over the BFP of data sent through the airwaves, depending on which makes the most sense).

During times of congestion in the BFP, priority would be given to large files, files that have been requested by many people (you would try to fill as many requests as possible using the same data stream), and live streams (such as live audio or video programming, especially streams that many people are wanting to access simultaneously).

What do we accomplish with this scheme?  Well, for one thing, we get a lot of the largest files off your ISP (so they have a lot more “breathing room” and don’t have to meter usage – and yes, I KNOW there’s no reason they have to do that anyway, but if they’re going to lie about it, this is one way to pull the rug out from under their lies).  And if you have a dial-up connection or mobile broadband connection, where either slow speeds or congestion might be actual issues, this scheme at least gets you access to the large files you may want at something other than a snail’s pace (though at some times of day you may have to wait a while for the download to start, but once it does start you’ll have it quickly!).

Now, who would pay for this bandwidth?  Well, in some countries they might choose to operate it as a public utility, but that likely wouldn’t fly given the political climate in the U.S. (by which I mean, those lousy obstructionist Republicans and “blue dog” Democrats that stand in the way of anything that might benefit the common person unless it gives one or more huge corporations a leg up… sorry, got carried away there). So that’s why I invented out mythical company, Bingleulu.  Just saying, there are several companies that face the problem of potentially having a real difficult time getting their content out to you if the big ISP’s start metering service, and those companies (any one of them individually, or a consortium of two or more) could come up with a solution.

What would you need to make this work?  Well, for starters, an extension to the HTML protocol, or some mechanism so that when you make a request, you will always get some response via your primary Internet connection, but if you have access to the BFP, the response might be, in effect, “get it off the BFP by looking for packets tagged with this ID”, followed by an ID string. In a well-designed system it would even send an estimated time to the start of the download, if there will be a significant delay.

Also, you’d need a receiver for the BFP – initially this could take the form of a card that would go into your computer, or (more likely) a USB-connected receiver, or possibly even a receiver that sits on your local network and can service several computers in your home or small business (something akin to a HDHomeRun® type device).  The receiver should have connections for both a satellite dish LNB, and a regular TV antenna. Note that initially, a company that wants to do this could implement half of this system (the satellite half) just by designing the system and then leasing bandwidth on a Ku-band satellite (Ku usually requires dishes of about two feet up to one meter in diameter for reliable reception, but I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of unused space on Ku-band satellites these days), then wait and see if the FCC will allow them to obtain the bandwidth in the broadcast spectrum.

Some additional things to consider:

First, it’s very likely that sooner or later there would be more than one BFP.  This might be because “spot beams” would be used to increase capacity, or simply because you’d need additional satellites to cover other parts of the world (such as Hawaii and Guam) if this catches on.  So when the system is designed, it need to have some way to know which satellite feed or terrestrial transmitter the receiver is receiving, and if there is more than one BFP, to return the requested data on the correct one.

Second, there may be special considerations for certain types of broadband connections.  For example, what if the requester is using another type of satellite provider (WildBlue, HughesNet, etc.)? Do you try to avoid sending the request back that way (because it might trip a usage cap) or do you treat it like a normal broadband connection (where smaller, less popular, and “immediate gratification wanted” files would sometimes be sent back through the normal connection)?

Third, once we get into the area of live streams, those can eat bandwidth quickly (particularly high-definition quality video streams!).  Unless you have a LOT of bandwidth, you can only carry a certain number of those in real time, so how do you decide which ones?  Do you compress them (and sacrifice quality) during times of congestion? One thing to note – unlike what happens with your cable company, if no one has requested a particular stream, it wouldn’t be sent.  EVERYTHING sent on the BFP is sent in response to an actual request by at least one user.

Fourth, let’s suppose several broadcasters jump on this as a delivery mechanism and now, suddenly, you don’t have enough capacity, but then your satellite provider and/or the FCC manages to find you more bandwidth – but now nobody has receivers that will tune the new bandwidth.  Should receivers be designed from the outset to be tunable over a much larger range than what’s actually used at the start of the service? Seems to me that any service like this should be designed from the get-go with the idea that more bandwidth will be needed, and possibly available, at some point in the future, and that receivers in particular should be electronically reconfigureable to tune any additional bandwidth that may become available. I might even suggest that it should be possible to connect a DiSEQc switch to the receiver, so that if the time ever comes that multiple satellites are used, it will be possible to switch between the satellites.

I’m just tossing this idea out there, to see if anyone else thinks it might be a good idea.  With the economy as it is, there are several of the older-style Ku-band communications satellites that have a fair chunk of unused spectrum space available, and I can tell you from personal experience that in most places a two-foot dish will get you a very adequate signal, and a three-foot dish will get you excellent reception (at least for Free-To-Air television reception). As long as people don’t let idiot installers mount the dish on their roof (making it nearly impossible to use a broom to clean off the snow in the winter), a delivery system that uses now-vacant bandwidth on Ku-band satellites should be quite workable, and even affordable.

If you stop and think about it, the most efficient use of spectrum space would be if the entire broadcast radio and TV spectrum, and all of the satellites, transmitted nothing but the BFP data stream.  Television networks and local stations would simply be data streams.  The BFP could even be smart enough to send you the network TV stream when you are watching a network program (and that network stream would only need to be transmitted once, as a single data stream) but when it comes time to show local commercials, there would be other streams for those, and the beauty is that everything could be configured to use a minimum of bandwidth (hopefully NOT by reducing the quality of the received signal, though) – for example, if Burger King buys the first local commercial spot in “Heroes” in 20 local TV markets, that commercial would only need to be streamed once and your receiver would be smart enough to know that you are supposed to get that commercial, even though people in other markets would be getting different streams. The advantage to viewers would be that you’d be getting the original data stream in full high definition direct from the network – no sub-optimal signals because your local station has crappy transmitting equipment, or is trying to cram three or four stations into one digital television signal.

Who would hate this idea?  The National Association of Buggywhip… er, I mean, the National Association of Broadcasters, who would be just fine with keeping the status quo (and in protecting local stations that in many cases don’t deserve it, particularly when they superimpose their damn useless weather radar graphics and similar useless crap over a network show!).  But if one of the big players really turned their most talented and creative people loose with this idea, it could totally change the way we distribute data in this country – and, as I say, pull the rug out from under those greedy bastards that want to start metering your data usage and charging you extra if they think you’re a “bandwidth hog” (here’s a great funny rebuttal to those morons, but don’t click there if you’re uptight about profanity).

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Why I support Michigan’s new workplace smoking ban

December 13, 2009 at 3:21 am · Filed under Editorial, Legislation, Michigan, Opinion, business ethics, government, issues

I need to tell you up front, there are really only three types of people that I usually take an instant dislike to.  The first are bigots.  If you think that certain people have less value, or are less worthy than you of living the American dream just because you were born with certain characteristics and they were born with different ones, you and I are not going to get along. I was having a conversation with a guy who lives near me one day and he started dropping the “N” word into his conversation.  I instinctively decided he had an I.Q. somewhere below that of a lump of coal, and have gone out of my way to avoid him ever since.

The second group I tend to dislike are the people who think that the only thing that matters in life is how much money you make.  I see money as a necessary evil, and I do mean evil – the love of money drives people to act in a very inhumane manner toward their fellow human beings.  I realize we are stuck in a world where money is a necessary evil (which is why I sometimes think we actually live in a reality as close to hell as most of us will ever see), but the type of person that really turns me off is the excessively greedy; the one that measures the worth of people solely by how much money they make, and of things by how much they cost.  One reason I don’t like large corporations is because by design, they are solely focused on making money, and therefore tend to have all the bad characteristics of the greediest people you’ll meet.

There are other people that I tend to dislike, but am willing to cut them a break to some degree.  For example, fundamentalist religious types — I think they are seriously deluded, but as they are, I once was (at least to some degree), so I can’t judge them too harshly.  I may avoid them, but only because I realize they are not yet at a point where they are willing to explore the problems in their beliefs, and until they reach that point, any debate on the subject would result in a lot of heat being generated, but not much light. Such people have a path to walk, and sometimes they just really need to see the logical outcomes of their beliefs (turning into a really mean, hateful, ugly person with a very black soul) before they begin to seek the true light.

But the people that I most immediately take an instant dislike to are smokers. With a bigot, they usually won’t let you know they are a bigot right up front (there are exceptions, of course, but I haven’t run into too many of those).  It’s the same with the money-grubbers — even clues such as how they dress or talk don’t always tell you what’s really in their heart; so it takes a while to figure them out. But with a smoker, you know the moment they pull out that cigarette and light it up.  What do you know about them?

Well, you know they don’t care about their own health, and you know they don’t care that those they love might have to watch them get sick and die from a totally preventative disease.  You know they don’t care that the medical bills associated with keeping them comfortable during the last days of said disease might drain their family’s savings, leaving them nearly destitute.  You know that they don’t care that the money they spend on cigarettes could be used in far better ways, for the care of themselves and/or their families. You know they don’t care that those they live with have to at very least smell the stench of nicotine on their clothes, and that anyone that kisses them will be kissing an ashtray. You also know that at least some of those folks are spending money on cigarettes even though their children are living below the poverty level (sorry, kids, you aren’t getting Christmas presents because mom and dad need their smokes) and you know that some of them smoke inside the house while their kids or pets are present, damaging their own kids’ lungs.

You know they don’t care about their own appearance – nothing can make a person start to look ugly like a few years of smoking. And if they smoke at home, you know they don’t care about their home’s appearance either – maybe they don’t notice the yellowed ceilings and walls, or that all their furniture stinks to high heaven, but non-smokers sure notice.

You know that most of them smoke inside of their vehicles, not caring that this lowers the resale value of the vehicle, and that at least some of them do that when their kids, or their non-smoking family or friends are inside the vehicle.  I have often said, and I firmly believe, that if a police officer sees an adult smoking in a car where children are present, they should have the authority to call child protective services and make sure those kids will never be put in that situation again, and the adult should be prosecuted for child abuse to the fullest extent of the law.  Okay, if you think that’s too harsh (and I really don’t, given what we now know about the dangers of secondhand smoke), then give the adult one shot at rehabilitation – mandatory smoking-cessation classes under a doctor’s supervision, for which they have to pay (if they can afford the smokes, they can afford the classes).  But if, after going through that program they are again caught smoking with a minor child in the car, they get mandatory prison time.

And when someone lights up in my presence, to me that is as personally offensive as if they’d walked up and urinated on my food.  It means they don’t give a damn about me as a person, that they don’t care that they are damaging my lungs, making my clothing smell bad, and generally making me nauseous.  I’d rather smell a skunk at moderately close range than a smoker (in fact, if there were such a thing as street justice, a fitting punishment for an unrepentant smoker might be to lock them in a room with an angry skunk, until the skunk does his thing.  Then make sure he know that this is exactly how some non-smokers feel when he smokes around them).

Now, I do realize that not all smokers are inconsiderate.  Some realize they are fighting a filthy habit.  They don’t smoke inside their home (unless they live alone, and are prepared to pay the cost of having a professional company try to clean up after their habit when they are ready to move), and they don’t smoke in their car if kids or non-smokers are riding along.  If they smoke at work, they do it outside (even if it is -30 degrees) and move far away from the doorways, so that others who need to enter and exit don’t have to breathe their smoke.  They try to be aware of which way the wind is blowing, and stand so that their smoke doesn’t drift toward others. If they are with a non-smoker, they don’t even ask if it’s okay to smoke (would you ask someone else if it’s okay to spit on them, or urinate on them?), they just don’t, unless they can get far away from (and downwind of) the non-smoker(s).  They don’t go into a public bathroom to sneak a smoke and then leave it reeking of smoke for the next user. That kind of unselfish smoker is unfortunately all too rare, in my experience, but to the extent they exist, I sincerely hope they can find effective help in kicking the habit.  I realize that such folks are the victims of the big tobacco marketing campaigns (and in some cases, cigarettes “spiked” with added nicotine to make them even more addictive), so for those folks I have some sympathy. For the selfish smokers that (at least in my experience) seem to comprise the majority, I have little sympathy — once you start inflicting your nasty habit on others, you are no better than a common thug that goes out and assaults people at random.

There’s one other point that needs to be made.  Some people, even some non-smokers, have somehow come to believe that this is a matter of personal freedom.  Well, as the old saying goes, your freedom ends where my nose begins (and not just my nose, but my clothes, and the interior of my car or my home as well). However, the argument is sometimes made that if the government gets away with restricting the “freedom” to smoke, they will feel emboldened to attempt to regulate other “unhealthy” activities. Of course, if you think about it for a couple of seconds, that ship has already sailed and is now ancient history.  Our government has deemed that many drugs, including those that are nothing more than the natural byproducts of plants that have been around for centuries, need to be regulated. Viewed that way, tobacco is just one more dangerous and addictive drug that should have been banned long ago, if there were any consistency in the law.

Still, I could have some sympathy for that argument — I happen to think that the government in the United States is very overbearing on the personal freedoms of Americans (and regularly treats our Constitution as something akin to toilet tissue in the process).  You know something’s wrong when wealthy Americans are, in increasing numbers (and especially when nearing retirement age), choosing to leave the United States and move to other parts of the world, where their freedoms are not so put upon — and many of those destination countries have anti-smoking laws as well, so that’s not the issue.  I don’t want my government to keep me absolutely safe — that should be my responsibility.  If, for example,  I want to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet (something I personally think would be a very stupid thing to do), that should be my choice, since I have long since passed the age of 21 and am past the years where peer pressure by my stupid teenage friends might unduly influence me to do stupid things. And I don’t like automobile seat belt laws for the same reason.

But the major difference is this:  If I choose to sit and gulp down spoonfuls of white sugar instead of eating healthy food, or eat nothing but artery-busting hamburgers with enough grease to saturate the bun, or do anything else that adversely affects my health, it mostly affects just ME.  Smoking is one of the few things I could do — deliberately exposing myself to an airborne disease and then coughing right in your face would be another — where my lack of care for my own health could directly affect your health negatively.  In that case, you have every right to hope and expect that the law will protect you from my attempts to ruin your health (and more so if I were a minor child in your care). Otherwise, it’s none of your business (or the government’s) what I choose to eat, or how I choose to protect myself.

I know someone’s going to bring up the argument about “yes, but if you get sick or hurt, others have to help pay.” Well, please remember that the next time YOU choose to engage in an activity that’s even the slightest bit hazardous.  If you can restrict others from eating “junk food”, maybe they will restrict you from swimming (people drown and nearly drown), boating (people fall overboard), fishing (people fall off piers, and there’s mercury in fish), any form of winter recreation (people fall and break bones on the ice, and while skiing, snowboarding, etc.), paragliding, parasailing, skydiving, mountain climbing (people fall from heights and get killed, or in the mountains they die of exposure), hiking in the woods (people get lost, run into bears and other dangerous wildlife), surfing (people drown, or get bitten by sharks and other nasty sea creatures), or even golfing (people get hit by golf balls and even falling tree limbs!).  I’m sure that some insurance companies would prefer you live in a rubber-lined room and eat nothing but bland, organic vegetables.  My point is that part of the human experience is doing things that aren’t completely safe — otherwise roller coasters wouldn’t exist — and that adults need the freedom to choose how much they wish to live life on the edge in order to gain experiences, whether that means occasionally eating unhealthy but tasty food, or engaging in an extreme sport such as auto racing.

So, I am definitely NOT for restricting personal freedoms as a general rule.  But smoking is the exception, precisely because when a smoker smokes, he pollutes the air (and sometimes the living space) of others. Viewed that way, smoking (as practiced by most smokers) is one of the ultimate acts of selfishness.  In my opinion, a nicotine addict should be viewed in much the same way as a sex addict – yes, it’s an addiction that needs treatment, but first and foremost, the addict needs to be stopped from hurting others.  And that is what this new Michigan law (along with similar laws in several other states) is intended to do – stop the nicotine addict from hurting others because of his addiction.

This new law could be better – I totally disagree with the exemption for the casinos, and I also think that a companion law should be passed that protects minor children from having to breathe secondhand smoke in all circumstances, but especially in vehicles (where the secondhand smoke is concentrated in a very small space). I’d like to see a vehicular smoking law, that states the following:

  • It’s a misdemeanor (first offense) or felony (subsequent offenses) to smoke in a vehicle where anyone under the age of 21 is present. First offense requires either jail time or completion of smoking cessation program. Second offense requires reporting to Child Protective Services to assess whether children’s health is being endangered by being confined in vehicle with smoking adults.
  • Assault charges can be brought against a driver or passenger who smokes in a vehicle after being requested not to by a non-smoker. Also the non-smoking passenger could sue the smoker in small claims court and receive $300 in statutory damages per incident ($5,000 per incident if required to ride in the vehicle as a condition of employment, and the employer could be held jointly responsible if there is no policy against smoking in vehicles during work-related trips).
  • Employers would be forbidden from firing or otherwise penalizing an employee who refuses to ride in a vehicle with smokers (it would be a criminal offense if the employee is under age 21).
  • Smokers would not be allowed to participate in publicly funded carpooling or ride-share programs, unless such programs do not place smokers and non-smokers in the same vehicle under any circumstances.
  • It would be an offense to use a carpooling lane while smoking (if we even have any of those in Michigan).
  • Smoking while driving would be considered a separate chargeable offense if it can be proved that smoking, or an activity related to smoking (such as searching for a lighter or matches) is a proximate or contributory cause of a traffic accident.
  • Any business that sells gasoline may not sell tobacco products (nor may a store that primarily sells tobacco products, such as a “smoke shop”, be opened within 250 feet of a gasoline pump, though existing businesses would be grandfathered in as long as they are not owned by the same company that owns the gas station). (And yes, I know what the chances are of getting that one passed, but it would remove a lot of temptation).
  • Used vehicles offered for sale by a dealer must be tested for nicotine buildup in the headliners and other fabric parts of the vehicle (such as seats).  If nicotine residue above a certain concentration is detected, that must be clearly disclosed at the time of the sale (it would be permissible to attempt to clean the residue and retest, or to replace contaminated surfaces, but prospective buyers must still be informed of the before- and after-cleaning test results).  Cars more than 15 years old would be exempt from this required testing, as would private vehicle sales or auto auction sales.

Note that nothing above would stop a person from smoking in their own car when there aren’t any children or non-smokers riding along. In an ideal world, tobacco would be treated as it really is, a far more addictive drug that other drugs that are now totally illegal to possess. For example, tobacco is more addictive than marijuana (especially when the tobacco companies “spike” the nicotine level), yet unless you have the clearance to smoke marijuana for medical reasons, they’ll throw you in jail for even possessing a little pot. That, to me, seems totally ridiculous – at least marijuana arguably has some medical uses (and I did vote to legalize it for medical purposes, in case you were wondering) but tobacco is only still legal because the big tobacco companies have had so much influence in government, even though we know how dangerous it is to both smokers and those that have been forced to inhale second-hand smoke, and has virtually no medical benefits (certainly none that outweigh the damage it does to the lungs and to other parts of the body).

Now, I know that some smokers that read this will think I am the world’s biggest ass for even daring to write this (even though I’m probably saying something a lot of your non-smoking associates would like to say), and if that’s how you really feel, then I assure you that if I ever met you the feeling would likely be mutual (I know this because I’ve run into your kind before).  On the other hand, many people who read this, smokers and non-smokers alike, will know exactly the type of smoker that causes non-smokers to react this way – the inconsiderate moron that doesn’t care how many non-smokers he offends with his habit, even if they are members of his own family. It’s similar to the guy who gets drunk and then says all sorts of nasty and offensive things to the people around him – even if he’s a nice guy when he’s sober, he’s still a jerk when he drinks.  The same is true of smokers – I don’t mean to categorize them all as evil people, but when they smoke, many of them seem to forget all about others and think only of themselves. I truly do have sympathy for those who are trying to quit and having a hard time, but if you have any love at all for those around you, don’t let the fact that quitting is hard stand in the way of doing it. Talk to your doctor, or to a hypnotherapist, or to the American Lung Association, or to someone else you think can help, but just do whatever it takes to quit.

And if you have kids, and if you love them, don’t let them ever start!  Check them for tobacco use the way you’d monitor them for illegal drug use.  Smell their clothes and the inside of their vehicle, if they have one.  If you find out that one of their friends smoke, react the same way you’d react if you found out that friend was using a dangerous drug. Make it very clear from the time they are about five years old that you have zero tolerance for smoking. Of course, if you smoke you’ll have no moral authority in the matter, so that’s another great reason to quit!

EDIT: It’s been less than 24 hours since I posted this and even though it’s a Sunday, it appears that someone who’s acting as a sock puppet for the tobacco industry found this post and attempted to leave a comment (which I rejected primarily because it had almost no original content, but included three links to pro-smoking propaganda sites!) .  So let me make it clear – if you want to attempt to refute anything in this post, please do not send links to propaganda pages (you will note all of the above is my original writing; there are no links to any other page in this article).  Instead, respond to the points I made in this post (not points that some “straw man” anti-smoking group supposedly made somewhere else – I didn’t quote them, and I’m on to that trick). I’m willing to discuss anything I’ve written, but I’m not willing to try to refute some ridiculous argument that some (possibly non-existent) anti-smoking group supposedly made – if you have an issue with someone else, take it up with them.

And just so you know, in order to refute this post, you’re going to have to prove that secondhand smoke isn’t harmful to others (and especially children, and especially when they’re riding in a vehicle with a smoker) — good luck with that — and you’re also going to have to prove that the stench of tobacco smoke isn’t repugnant to the majority of non-smokers, and the only way you could make that argument is if you’re totally oblivious to the reactions of non-smokers when you light up in their vicinity (particularly those that don’t have to try to get along with you for one reason or another) — or if you’re a shill for the tobacco industry!

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Great Lakes IT Report: Upstart Phone Companies Upset With New Telecom Tax

December 9, 2009 at 7:41 pm · Filed under AT&T, Broadband, Legislation, Michigan, Regulation, Telephone, consumer, government, issues, litigation

It appears some of Michigan’s smaller phone companies are upset about House Bill 4257, which has been passed by both the Michigan House and Senate, and is awaiting the Governor’s signature.  From the Great Lakes IT Report:

A group of small Michigan-based telecom providers is complaining that a bill passed by the House and Senate would create a new telecom tax and favor large companies such as AT&T and Verizon over Michigan-based companies.

Full article here.

Committee summary of the bill here.

Floor summary of the bill here.

In the latter document, you can see the fatal flaw in this legislation:

Require the restructuring mechanism to be supported by a mandatory monthly contribution by all providers of retail intrastate telecommunications services and commercial mobile service.

It’s not surprising at all to me that AT&T again gets what it wants from the Michigan legislature.  I certainly would not be opposed to seeing the terminating charge ripoff by some of the small independent phone companies (especially the ILECs) phased out, and at first glance it looks like that’s what the legislature is trying to accomplish.  Except, as you read further, it looks like they are simply trying to eliminate a very visible ripoff and substitute a different kind of ripoff, one that would pick the pockets of more companies (and, ultimately, their customers) in the end.

The interesting twist is that due to federal law and court ruling, the state cannot force VoIP providers to become unwilling contributors to this scam. And I doubt the other companies are just going to quietly accept this, any more than AT&T or Verizon would quietly accept new legislation that picks their pockets.  If the Governor signs this bill, it will wind up in the courts, and the state will be forced to spend tax money to attempt to defend this legislation — and my guess (I’m not a lawyer, so all I can do is guess) is that the state will probably lose, and the taxpayers will have to eat the legal bills.

The other possibility is that, as the CEO of ACD.net suggests, all the CLECs will suddenly become VoIP companies.  That’s not a farfetched notion – all they have to do is figure out some way to get broadband service to their customers, then put them on a VoIP switch.

If this bill does pass, I have a suggestion for the independent CLECs: Pool your resources and form a cooperative to build your own statewide fiber-optic broadband network, initially to reach your existing customers, but feel free to branch it out to the rest of us so we have another alternative to DSL and cable broadband. Then provision your customers using VoIP only. Maybe you could even get some of the smaller cell providers to participate with you in building this network.  Build it with plenty of capacity from the start, so you never have to ration (or meter) bandwidth, and don’t let an ILEC anywhere near it (unless they want to become a VoIP-only company, too).

Interesting side thought: I wonder how will this would impact a company like Allband Communications, which probably benefits greatly from rural subsidies and terminating charges (and is one of the few companies that might not be able to survive without them, given the sparse population of the area they serve), but delivers all their telephone service using what is essentially VoIP (if the cable companies can call their service VoIP, then so could Allband, since it’s totally delivered over fiber to the home!). Would they get the sweetest deal of all, being able to receive funds from the “restructured mechanism” but not having to pay into it? I don’t know the answer to that, but the thought crosses my mind that if this legislation passes, Michigan could potentially become the VoIP state, as every provider attempts (insofar as is possible) to avoid paying into this screwy scheme.

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Technology by the decade — how far have we come?

December 7, 2009 at 10:10 pm · Filed under Digital Television, Editorial, Internet, Opinion, Telephone, VoIP, consumer, electronics, history, invention, nostalgia, satellite television

Hard to believe we’re coming up on the turn of another decade. Although the technological revolution was well under way by the time I was born, it’s interesting to think about how different things are today from how they were way back then.  Here’s how I recall the decades (note I wasn’t born yet in 1950, but close enough that I can extrapolate):

1950: Black and White television was just starting to appear in the homes of those who were not extremely affluent (although a TV was still a major investment).  Sets were large and picture tubes were small (and round, though sometimes the top and bottom parts were masked).  Nationwide television broadcasting was still a year away – coaxial cable connections only extended between New York and the eastern half of the country until 1951, when it was extended to the west coast. Many network stations in smaller markets actually got their signal by putting up a tall antenna and picking it up from the nearest network owned and operated station, or another nearby affiliate (a practice that continued in some places until communications satellites came into being).  Local telephone calls in many areas had to placed through an operator, although some cities had rotary dial service.  Long distance calls were very expensive and usually had to be placed through multiple operators and toll switchboards, although operator dialing of distant numbers was starting to come into use. Many people only called relatives at Christmas or on a birthday, and were careful to keep the call length under three minutes (the initial charge was for the first three minutes).  Telegrams were just starting to decline in popularity, as long distance had become a bit less expensive after the war ended. As for computers, a basic pocket calculator today probably has more computing power than the largest computers of the 1950’s.

1960: Color TV’s were available, but they were big and heavy and definitely a luxury item.  TV picture tubes had started to take on a more rectangular shape, but still had rounded corners. The big story of the previous decade had been the development of transistors, and the transistor radio was just starting to be the hot item for teenagers to have.  “Direct Distance Dialing” (customer dialing of long distance calls within the U.S. and Canada) was being implemented, although in 1960 there were still many manual exchanges in rural areas, so not all points were dialable, and long distance calls were still expensive enough that you thought twice before making a long distance call, even though the phone companies did everything they could to encourage long distance usage. The first experimental satellite television signals were still two years away. Telegrams were for funerals and official business – people had found that it was cheaper to make a three-minute call than send an old-fashioned telegram. And even with transistor technology, computers still filled large rooms and weren’t as powerful (and almost certainly didn’t have as much memory or storage) as even a low-end notebook computer of today.

1970: All but the poorest people (and the cheapskates) had color TV (or would within a couple of years), and some TV’s had real remote controls (in many homes, the remote control was a parent hollering for one of the kids to come change the channel!).  TV’s has shrunk to a reasonable size, too – the large TV-as-a-piece-of-furniture was on its way out, and a smaller model (perhaps on a rollable stand) was in.  With the new mostly-transistorized sets, the TV repairman was no longer almost a part of the family, since transistors didn’t fail the way vacuum tubes did.  Commercial satellite television was now a reality, being used to relay news and programs from overseas, and to deliver network programming direct to TV stations, no matter how remote the location.  The receiving equipment was still very expensive, though. The hot new technology was the Integrated Circuit. Electronic switching had come into widespread use in telephone exchanges, and the days of the operator (for completing local calls) was gone. For most folks, regular telegrams were something only seen in old movies. There were mobile telephones (and marine telephones on boats) but they were very expensive and required bulky equipment, and in most areas only a handful of channels were available (and they were plain old analog radio channels, so anyone with a radio that tuned those bands could listen in!). Touch-Tone telephones were starting to become popular, replacing the old rotary dial phones. Computers had actually started to appear in many medium-sized and smaller businesses – the most compact models were about the size of a home furnace and used LARGE hard drive platters (16″ was a common size) with far less storage capacity than you’d get on a memory stick today. And electronic calculators were starting to be widely used in businesses, and even some homes.

1980: Your TV had integrated circuits and a remote control, and was priced so that even poor people could afford one. Only small specialty sets were black and white. Cable TV was becoming available in many parts of the country, though the selection of channels was fairly pitiful by today’s standards (it had actually been around for many years, but it was just starting to become a somewhat ubiquitous utility in populated areas).  News and programming from around the globe was commonplace, delivered via commercial satellite, and some people were installing large C-band dishes on their property to receive programming direct from the satellites. The Sony Walkman was the hot new thing, and it would forever change the way people listened to music.  And wonder of wonders, the personal computer had arrived – if you lived in a major city, you could actually go to a “computer store” (or a Radio Shack) and buy your very own home computer.  You’d store your data on cassette tapes, or perhaps a floppy disk if you could shell out few hundred dollars for a floppy disk drive (hard drives were in the four to five figure price range – a home computer might have one with 5 MB capacity). Oh, and your family and friends would look at you like you’d grown a third eyeball when you told them you had a computer at home! And there was this thing called the Internet that was being used to move data between large computers (mostly those owned by universities and the government) worldwide, but most home computer users had never heard of it – what was newly available in 1980 was commercial services such as Compuserve and Prodigy, if you had a 300 baud modem and were willing to pay by the minute for a service that displayed text at a rate much slower than most people’s reading speed.

1990: What a difference a decade makes.  By 1990 most of the original home computer manufacturers were long gone – the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, and Microsoft’s MS-DOS had radically altered the personal computer landscape. Apple and a few others were still in business, but most of the early PC makers either got out of the business or started selling PC “clones.” The hot new thing in 1990 was Windows 3.0, which many would argue was the first version of Windows that remotely resembled Windows as we know it today.  A typical computer hard drive would have capacity measured in megabytes, in most cases under 100 MB. And while computer users were starting to become vaguely aware that there was something called the Internet out there, many users were still using 2400 to 9600 bps modems and connecting to local BBS systems, many of which were interconnected through an ad-hoc network called Fidonet, run in some areas by tin-pot dictators who were more interested in enforcing rules than applying common sense (causing some sysops to incur hundreds of dollars in unnecessary phone charges, because they weren’t allowed to pick up feeds from the least expensive source).  I still have the deepest of contempt for one particular Fidonet “coordinator” who I’d swear was working for the phone company (since he was a direct cause of many sysops incurring excessive or unnecessary toll charges), except for the fact that he even caused problems FOR a phone company’s sponsored Fidonet BBS in one city. Many Fidonet users and sysops were looking for an alternative to Fidonet by 1990, and I think that in large part jump-started the interest in that “other” network, the Internet. In other news, Direct-To-Home satellite service was just getting started in Europe; it would be another year before Primestar would be available in the United States.  Cell phones were starting to be used by businesses, but the per-minute rates were prohibitive for most users.  At the same time, rates for calls to many overseas locations had started to fall to somewhat affordable levels. The big news in telephones had been the Bell System breakup of 1984, and by 1990 many customers had started buying their own telephones instead of paying the phone company approximately $5 a month for a rented phone (even more if you wanted a color other than black, or a long cord). Also, by 1990, competitive long distance companies such as MCI and Sprint were capturing a large percentage of long distance traffic that had formerly gone through AT&T.

2000: The home computer user was no longer considered a bit strange, thanks to the appearance of the commercial Internet (and the World Wide Web) starting in the early- to mid-90’s.  Suddenly the Internet was usable by the common person, and it was far less expensive that Compuserve or AOL, which were but a shadow of their former selves.  Fidonet only held onto a few hardcore sysops (though it has tenaciously refused to die completely). Windows 2000 was the new OS from Microsoft (some people are still using it!).  Writable CD’s were replacing the floppy drive, and hard drive storage was measured in the hundreds of megabytes; and those large drives were needed to store all those MP3 files that people were downloading courtesy of Napster and similar filesharing programs that had become the bane of the recording industry (since most users were still on dial-up Internet, using 56K modems, it wasn’t really feasible to download large video files yet).  Speaking of the MP3, personal MP3 players were only another year away – goodbye to our old friend, the Walkman.  Dish Network and DirecTV were competing for customers, finally giving TV viewers an alternative to cable television, which was increasingly becoming overpriced – the channel selection was increasing, but people were starting to find the offerings underwhelming, thus the lament of “500 channels and nothing’s on.” The long, slow changeover to HDTV had begun, though few stations broadcasted HDTV signals, and HDTV sets were very expensive (and about as easy to move around as a grand piano!). Cell phones were becoming a somewhat common item, at least among the well-heeled, and they were getting much smaller as well – gone were the “bag phones” that had been used in cars. And traditional telephone calling was getting much cheaper, due to the increased competition between both long distance companies and the new competitive local phone companies.  Unfortunately, the trend toward big mergers had begun; the “baby Bells” started putting themselves back together.

Going into 2010: The 2000’s brought us flat screen monitors and TV’s in sizes that we’d only imagined (just in time to help us baby boomers with failing eyesight).  HDTV sets are finally becoming somewhat affordable, though they have a way to go (I think HDTV is about where color sets were in 1970).  Cable and satellite TV services have gotten more expensive but not necessarily better, but today we have an alternative – sites like Hulu and YouTube.  However, another thing that happened during the 2000’s was that most of us started getting our Internet service from the cable company, in order to get away from slow dialup speeds, but in the process we have nearly eliminated the very competitive dialup ISP market and replaced it with a monopoly or duopoly provider situation when it comes to broadband.  And both the cable companies, and the phone companies that are starting to see the potential in offering their own cable TV equivalent, would like very much to kill the streaming video sites, by going to metered billing so that customers are afraid to use the bandwidth they’re paying for (bear in mind that NO provider wants to offer TRUE metered billing – they still want to charge you a monthly rate like they’ve been doing all along, but then start piling on charges if they think you’ve consumed too many bytes of data in a month). Computers have gotten much faster, and hard drives capacities are starting to be measured in terabytes. The floppy disk has gone the way of the dodo, and the CD probably would have if so many of us didn’t have drawers full of “free-after-rebate” blank CD’s that we bought to back up our hard drives, only to discover that it was more efficient to just buy another hard drive for backup purposes. The music and movie industries moved to impose Draconian punishments on those who share copyrighted files, arguably alienating many of their best customers in the process. Microsoft really dropped the ball with Windows Vista, giving Apple a leg up in the consumer computer market, and it remains to be seen if Windows 7 will reverse the trend. In telephony, the big story was VoIP, which drove down the cost of both domestic and international calling, to the point that traditional phone companies started doing something they probably never thought they’d have to do – offer affordable, flat-rate nationwide calling plans.  And even with that, people are abandoning the traditional landline in droves. As the telegram was in 1950, is perhaps what the traditional landline phone call is today.

2020:  Okay, my crystal ball (or third eye or whatever you want to call it) has never worked right – I keep hoping for that moment of enlightenment, but so far, no such luck.  So I’ll probably miss on some of these, but here’s what I suspect may happen by 2020.  With regard to TV’s: Bigger, thinner, cheaper, and the hot new thing may be 3D television.  With regard to telephones, the dangers of cell phone radiation will become more apparent as more heavy cell users start getting brain tumors, so the cell phone will be redesigned so there is no high power transmitter close to any body part (unless it’s shielded in some way).  This means that portable phones may only radiate to one side (away from the head/body), posing interesting challenges for cell site designers. Also, I suspect wideband voice will take hold – it is ridiculous to limit voice channels to sub-AM radio quality, a relic of available long distance circuit bandwidth from nearly a century ago. Traditional copper-pair based residential landline service will be all but dead, except for older people and some businesses. By 2020, phone companies will simply stop installing new copper (except perhaps for the last few- to few-hundred feet) and go to fiber almost exclusively. There will be a mad scramble by all traditional phone companies to try and sell off as much of their aging copper plant as possible.  After that, I think competition may arise in the broadband market – as existing phone/broadband companies find that they have saturated their existing service areas, they will look to grow by (finally) moving into the territories of other companies and overbuilding (this assumes that the cost of running fiber will get cheaper).  One wild card is that the government could still require divestiture of outside plant, spinning off the wires, cables and fiber to an entity that would not be allowed to be in the phone or broadband business, but would only be allowed to wholesale connectivity between homes and service providers. And I’m not sure what the hot new technology for the kids will be, but I’m betting it will involve some form of thought control (remember the line from Back to the Future II: “You mean you have to use your hands? That’s like a baby’s toy!” No, I don’t think we’ll have antigravity hoverboards, not because the technology won’t exist, but because it won’t have filtered down to commercial use yet). As for computers: Faster, MUCH smaller desktop models (think Mac Mini, but thinner), quieter, more use of solid state storage to replace hard drives, and built in HDMI ports will become commonplace.  I also expect you’ll see HDTV sets with a fully functional computer either built in, or offered as an accessory.  There will be a replacement for the computer mouse – it may involve thought control, or it may take the form of a camera smart enough to recognize gestures and hand movements in the air (privacy advocates and conspiracy theorists probably won’t like the camera idea much), but the mouse will be too inconvenient when you are sitting in your easy chair using a wireless keyboard and your HDTV screen!

Then, as I’ve mentioned before, there is the “X factor” — the technology that hardly anyone sees coming even a decade before.  We’ve had a lot of those in the past few decades: television in the home, transistors, the space program, integrated circuits, lasers, fiber optics, cell phones, the commercial Internet, the World Wide Web, commercial broadband to the home, VoIP. Some of these may have been anticipated in science fiction, but still they were often things that few had seriously dreamed of even ten years before. Let’s suppose for a moment that someone figures out the secret of anti-gravity and makes it widely available — can you imagine the changes that would bring to society?  Or, what about cold fusion (which some scientists think is still workable)? Okay, now suppose that you had some way to put a platform in the sky, in the upper atmosphere above the level of clouds and storms, and you have figured out how to oppose gravity (and have the nearly limitless energy supply to do it). Suddenly you have the perfect platform to spot-beam wireless Internet to entire counties or more, plus with clear line of site such platforms could network to each other. Unfortunately, far too often the governments of the industrialized countries choose to protect existing corporations rather than advance new technologies. We don’t even utilize the technologies we have available (case in point: Why do we not have computer controlled, “drive by wire” automobiles and trucks? You’d likely have to embed control wires in or near road surfaces, but once fully implemented, such a system could save both fuel and lives, particularly in the case of avoiding accidents caused by sleepy/distracted/aggressive/inexperienced/elderly/fleeing criminal drivers).

Well, I hope you have enjoyed this romp through the technological past and possible future. Did I miss anything important? Do you know of some up and coming technology that has the potential to change life as we know it? Feel free to leave a comment!

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DSLreports.com: Wisconsin Data Shows AT&T’s ‘Franchise Reform’ Was A Joke – Now consumers get higher prices AND no consumer protection laws…

December 3, 2009 at 3:40 pm · Filed under AT&T, DSL, Editorial, Legislation, Michigan, Opinion, Regulation, Telephone, cable, consumer, corporation, customer service, government, issues, video

A long time ago, this blog had a somewhat different direction than it does today.  Part of what I tried to do was expose the abusive practices of the large phone companies, and (among other things) try to stop them from basically writing the communications laws that were supposed to regulate them. One of the reasons I shifted directions was because, basically, we customers lost, and I don’t enjoy beating a dead horse.  And only now, it seems, is the reality of what happened finally dawning on state officials, as indicated in Karl Bode’s article on the BroadbandReports.com/DSLreports.com site:

Wisconsin Data Shows AT&T’s ‘Franchise Reform’ Was A Joke — Now consumers get higher prices AND no consumer protection laws…

We’ve discussed how a significant number of states passed new state level video franchise laws at the behest of phone company lobbyists, but didn’t really realize what they were signing up for. Bills that consumers were told would result in lower TV prices by making it easier for phone companies to jump into the TV business, in many cases were little more than phone company wish lists — aimed at legalizing the cherry picking of next-gen broadband deployment, eliminating local authority (even eminent domain rights) and in some cases eliminating tough consumer protection laws.

The one thing the laws were supposed to do — lower TV prices — never actually happened.

One of the worst of these bills approved by duped lawmakers was in Wisconsin, where AT&T both wrote and lobbied for a bill that essentially gutted all consumer protections in the state under the auspices of cheaper TV. State residents used to have the right to prompt repairs, saw ensured refunds for service outages, mandated notice of rate increases or service deletions, and carriers had to provide a written notice of disconnection. Not any more. Now a new Wisconsin state audit shows that basic TV prices continue to skyrocket:
…..

One Wisconsin legislator (Representative Gary Hebl of Sun Prairie) has introduced a new bill that, he says, “puts people first, not corporations.” Well, if that’s really true, it’s about damn time (pardon my expressiveness, but it is!). All laws ought to do that.  Our Constitution ought to do that. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Rep. Hebl’s bill ever gets passed into law.

Here in Michigan, our legislators have been sold a similar bill of goods. About the only thing that did not happen here is that we did not completely do away with quality-of-service requirements.  But our wonderful Michigan legislators did pretty much eliminate all other consumer protections. They turned the Michigan Public Service Commission from an agency that was able to help consumers solve most any communications-related issue, to an agency that’s pretty toothless with regard to anything telecommunications-related. Unless you are subscribing to one specific landline service that virtually no one has or wants (PBLES), you now have very little protection against abusive practices by the phone company, unless you want to take them to court or file a complaint with the state Attorney General’s office (actually, I think aggrieved customers ought to complain to their state legislators – they made this mess, let them clean it up!).

(Just so as not to mislead anyone, I will say that complaints to the MPSC sometimes do still bring results, but only because the MPSC knows how to reach the top executives at some of the phone companies.  The MPSC usually can’t force the phone companies to help you anymore, but sometimes they can present your case to a high enough official that you’ll still get the desired results.  And, if you actually do have a quality of service issue – your phone doesn’t work and they tell you they can’t fix it for another month – then the MPSC does still have some authority in that type of situation).

One other point:  For nearly two decades, the Michigan Telecommunications Act had a “sunset” provision, such that it automatically came up for a rewrite every four or five years.  The phone companies always saw this as a chance to re-craft the law to be even more to their liking, while consumer groups and legislators that felt they’d been “hoodwinked” the last time around saw it as a chance to restore some previously lost customer protections.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the latest rewrite – a couple of years ago, the Michigan legislature quietly killed the sunset provision, making the current Michigan Telecommunications Act the one we’ll probably be stuck with for decades to come.  This indicates to me that the phone companies got what they really wanted last time around, and had no intention of letting the applecart be upset by disgruntled consumers or legislators in 2009.

Of course, any one of our legislators could, on their own initiative, introduce legislation that would attempt to undo the damage that was done in the last Michigan Telecommunications Act rewrite.  But unless they receive enough complaints from affected citizens, I doubt they’ll want to poke that particular beehive (the bees being the big telco lobbyists and lawyers, which would probably come into the state in full fury if there were ever any serious attempt at reform).

One way consumers could make an effective statement is to “vote with their feet”, and refuse to purchase any service from a large company that abuses their customers (especially when there are any other viable options available). But most customers don’t have that kind of willpower – all the “evil corporation” has to do is dangle a shiny enough carrot off the stick (in the form of a great “limited time promotional offer”) and we, like a bunch of stupid jackasses, subscribe to their services.

Like I said, I’m not into beating dead horses – once they’ve been dead long enough, they really start to stink — kind of like our Michigan legislature (and, presumably, their brethren in Wisconsin) when the big corporate interests come around.

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Another proof that large corporations are evil

November 28, 2009 at 6:41 pm · Filed under Editorial, Legislation, Opinion, business ethics, consumer, corporation, customer service, government, issues, litigation

It has been my opinion for quite some time that there is no such thing as a “good” corporation. Some are less evil than others, and I might give a pass to the really small corporations that have incorporated only to get the same shield from legal liability that the larger corporations enjoy (although that legal shield itself is often misused for evil purposes).  It is my belief that no country will ever be truly great that treats corporations as we do under our legal system, giving them all of the rights of individuals (and more, because they can afford to hire a whole team of lawyers and you may not be able to afford even one), but virtually none of the responsibilities (EDIT: Other than taxation, of course. The government is more than happy to take their money, although the large corporations can afford to hire a whole team of accountants to make sure they don’t pay one red cent more than they are absolutely required to, and often they don’t even pay all of that).

Today’s example comes to us from The Consumerist.  In an article entitled Delta Airlines: You Need To Pay A Fee To Pay This Fee we are told the story of how an unaccompanied minor is allegedly kept off a flight (and away from Thanksgiving with her family) because a heartless, soulless corporation was apparently more interested in making sure that a certain fee had been paid than in making sure that a five year old child was home for Thanksgiving.

As it turns out, the fee had indeed been paid, but the agent at the counter couldn’t immediately discover that (and I suspect that there was a considerable level of incompetence at that point). And that brings us to the comment by Consumerist reader Chris V, who after reading the above article wrote this:

If a company provides a service and you don’t pay, that’s called theft of service. Companies will call the cops to haul you off to jail if you do that.

However, when you pay good money for a service and the company doesn’t provide it, that’s called tough luck. Just try calling the cops on a company. They’ll laugh in your face. Or, they’ll come and take YOU to jail for wasting their time.

Supposedly we’re all guaranteed equal protection under the law. If they can haul us off to jail for not paying, then we should be able to call the cops for companies not providing the paid service. Someone SHOULD be punished for taking their money and NOT providing the agreed-upon service. Anywhere else, that’d be called THEFT.

And that, folks, is exactly why corporations should not exist in their present form.  When you make a contract with a corporation, and you don’t uphold your end, you can go to jail, or they can ruin your credit. When they don’t uphold their end, the best you can usually hope for is that if you go to court, you might get a refund of what you paid. If they lose, the vast majority of the time no one will go to jail, and their credit rating won’t be touched.

That’s why I think it is so wrong, and inherently evil, to treat corporations as persons under the law.  They are not “persons”, they are “super-persons.” They have all the rights you do, but when they do wrong, they don’t get the same punishments that you would.  Even in the most extreme cases, where someone does go to jail, it’s often the wrong person – usually a lower level flunky (because they didn’t have sense enough to keep their mouth shut and not talk to the cops before consulting a lawyer – that’s a YouTube video link, here’s part 2) rather than the person(s) actually responsible for the evil.

One reason the United States is so screwed up right now is because so many big corporations are using their “super-voices” (lobbyists, sock puppets, astroturf groups, etc.) to drown out the voices of individuals.  Not only to the drown out your voice, but sometimes they even steal it, by setting up or co-opting organizations that purportedly speak for you, but say the opposite of what you might say if given the chance.

If I had the opportunity to write only one constitutional amendment and see it ratified, it would read something like this:

No corporation, organization, association, or other group of individuals shall be granted the legal status of personhood, nor shall it be automatically granted the protections or rights afforded to persons by this Constitution, except for such rights as may be specifically granted by other articles.

Short and to the point. Nothing saying that Congress cannot grant certain rights to various groups, and no reduction of rights specifically granted to certain groups (e.g. freedom of the press). But no corporation would be allowed to automatically claim the rights of persons, and their lobbyists could be limited to speaking only as interested individuals, on the same footing as any other citizen.

I actually think it’s only a matter of time (though not necessarily a time in any of our lifetimes) before corporations are stripped of their special rights (and their ability to avoid responsibility) – I just hope it doesn’t take something like another revolutionary war to accomplish it. But as corporations get bigger and more evil, eventually people are going to find an effective way to push back.  I’d much rather see that happen in a peaceful and orderly way (e.g. the aforementioned constitutional amendment) than through violent means, but that will likely be up to our children and grandchildren, or maybe even our great-great-[etc.]-grandchildren.

The one thing I cannot conceive is that corporations as a whole will become less evil absent any fundamental changes in our constitution and/or our legal structure. Just as our forefathers rebelled against overbearing and evil governments a couple of centuries ago, and against overbearing (and arguably evil) religious leaders before that, the day may come when future generations will rebel against overbearing and evil corporations.  Note that the previous rebellions did not result in the end of either religion or government, but both were improved by the process.

EDIT: One thing I want to make clear: Even though Delta is mentioned above, this article is not intended to single out Delta as being any more (or less) evil than any other large corporation.  Again, I think that ALL large corporations are evil to some degree – every single one of them can at times take actions that no reasonable person, acting on their own volition, would ever take.  The reason individuals behave differently when part of a corporation are many (and probably the subject of many studies and books), but the fact is that individuals working for corporations often do behave as they believe the corporation would want then to behave, putting aside their own conscience and sense of compassion in the process. I’m sure that heartless actions by employees occur at every airline, and at every other major corporation that now exists, or has ever existed.

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Killing the Golden Goose

November 25, 2009 at 3:35 pm · Filed under Broadband, Editorial, Internet, Opinion, Wireless, cable, consumer, corporation, customer service, government, invention, networking

I wonder how many folks saw this article yesterday on the Stop the Cap! site:

Cable Companies’ Big Internet Swindle: They Charge You $40 For Broadband That Costs Them $8 To Provide

I had sent this article to a friend and his response was, “if all these huge profit margins are true, then why is Charter in bankruptcy?” Well, a possible reason is that even what ought to be a hugely profitable company can be sunk by bad management and horrible customer service (and I have seen allegations of both with regard to Charter).  But in a way, Charter is the reason for this article. As I mentioned in a previous article,  Charter wants to move to what they call “consumption based billing.”

I just want to point out that while people may be slow to react, they are not stupid.  America is littered with the remains of once-great corporations that in their day were at the top of the heap, but then got greedy.  At one time, the American railroads controlled much of the country, especially the in the west.  It took a while, but shippers finally figured out that trucks were less expensive and more practical.  The thing is, the railroads at one time had all the advantages, including friends in government and economies of scale, but they just plain got greedy and priced themselves out of the market.

I’ve previously mentioned Western Union, which at one time owned electronic text-based communications within the U.S.A.  But even as they became more automated, moving away from guys pounding brass keys and into the age of teletypewriters, fax machines, and microwaves, they kept raising the per-word prices for telegrams. At the same time, the price of a phone call kept falling.  Had Western Uninion been a bit smarter, they might have been a major player in today’s world of electronic communications.

Then we have landline phone service.  While this is a bit of a unique story, since in part it’s a story of the landline business being cannibalized by the wireline side of the business, it still is an example of many customers finally getting sick to death of being overcharged for service.

So what do we have today? We have cable companies and phone companies that overcharge for service, particularly with regard to broadband and cable television. The cable companies complain that they are being practically held up at gunpoint by the broadcasters and content providers, who demand higher fees, and therefore they need to pss those fees onto customers – however, they won’t even consider the one easy solution that would virtually eliminate that problem – allowing customers to pick and choose the channels they want, rather than being forced to subscribe to tiers of channels they don’t want in order to get channels they do want.  If customers were allowed to vote with their wallets, a lot of the alleged extortion by content providers would quickly end.  Yet the cable companies fight the very idea of à la carte programming tooth and nail.

As for metered billing for broadband – it’s totally unnecessary and it leaves customers open to possible fraud by the provider (this is sometimes even a problem with utilities where you can physically see the meter, so how much more of a problem will it be when the meter exists only in software, and customers have no possible way to check the accuracy of that meter).

But what I see here is a convergence of a “perfect storm” that’s going to totally reshape communications in the U.S.A. Here are a few, somewhat related points:

  • Many other countries, particularly our competitors in Asia, are providing far higher broadband speeds to their customers, at a lower monthly rate.  Only so much of that can be explained by population density; I think a larger part is that in many of those countries it’s just not socially nor politically acceptable for companies to exhibit unbridled greed, and to gouge their customers for every penny they can get. The U.S.A. simply cannot afford to have its citizens giving up their broadband connections to avoid being gouged.
  • The much-hated Universal Service Fund should be abolished, but instead it’s going to be expanded to include broadband.  However, the possible silver lining is that any time the government doles out money, it gains more control.  If the government used that control in a beneficial manner — by, for example, imposing network neutrality and a prohibition on metered billing on those companies that receive USF subsidies — it could nip some of these gouging attempts in the bud.  That’s not a long-term solution, however, since those regulations can and do change depending on the party in power.
  • It looks like competitive broadband providers are finally going to be allowed to use “white space” (e.g. unoccupied television channels) to provide wireless service.  If the FCC can make sure that smaller providers get a fair shake, this could allow competitive wireless providers to offer broadband service at reasonable rates (note to such providers – PLEASE don’t assume your users will be happy with an upload speed only one-tenth of download speed.  People want to make and share thir own content, and you should allow them to do that without making them die of boredom).
  • Also, when the large cable and DSL companies start gouging their customers, it creates a market for all available competitive services delivered via more traditional means (competitive DSL, current-technology wireless, etc.)
  • Then there is “the ‘x’ factor” (see below).

What do I mean by “the ‘x’ factor”? I mean the new technology that’s not been fully explored yet.  Technology doesn’t stand still, and there may be a breakthrough soon that will cause all existing technologies to essentially become obsolete. Have you ever noticed that the SETI project, and other attempts to “tune in” to advanced civilizations “out there” haven’t met with any success? Maybe that’s because the aliens aren’t using old-fashioned radio waves. Our current forms of electromagnetic radiation are very inefficient and often, very power-hungry. I suspect that the world of quantum physics is going to provide us something much better, if our governments will allow it.

For example, Google “quantum entanglement” – now suppose there were a way to place two particles in a state of entanglement, such that when you change the state of one particle, the other changes instantaneously, withour regard even to the speed of light limitation on traditional electronic communications.  Imagine that you had a box at your ISP, and a companion box at your location, and each box contained two (or more) matched pairs of entangled particles (probably in some kind of plug-in module) – at least one pair of particles for transmitting data, the other for receiving.  These boxes wouldn’t use radio waves or the electromagnetic spectrum, so there would be no bandwidth limitations to worry about.  Furthermore, communications would be totally secure, because only the entangled particles would communicate with each other. That last part is why some governments would hate it – no more intercepting data mid-stream. But if that principle were developed commercially, your ISP could be on the moon for all you’d care, running off solar power and providing communications for half the planet – and if they started gouging their customers, someone else could set up a competing system, anywhere in the world. Maybe you could set one up in your basement, if you wanted to.

Sure, it sounds farfetched now – but so did the whole idea of radio before it was developed. We’re not talking some nebulous idea here, “quantum entanglement” is now a known principle of quantum physics. It’s just so new that either it hasn’t been commercially developed yet (much like the laser in the middle of the 20th century), or it’s being used in secret for totally secure communications, and the governments that are using it would rather you (and their enemies) didn’t know, not that there’s much an enemy could do about it.

My point here is that if today’s communications companies want to be around for the next revolution in technology (which will surely bring about opportunities that haven’t even been considered yet – who could have envisioned the opportunities the World Wide Web would create?), they had better re-think their ideas about alienating their customers. Sadly, American companies are notorious for not thinking ahead – as long as the current C.E.O. gets his golden parachute when he retires, what does he care what happens to the company in the future?  But the stockholders ought to care, and customers ought to care, and the government ought to care if they don’t want America to become a third-rate nation.

It will be interesting to see which companies survive the next few decades, and which ones kill the golden goose to get the immediate big windfall. But if I had to take service from one or the other, I’d rather get it from the one that plans on being around for the next century, and treats their customers accordingly.

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Why not move Thanksgiving back one week?

November 23, 2009 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Editorial, Michigan, Opinion

It was President Abraham Lincoln that set the date of Thanksgiving in the United States as the final Thursday in November, and since then it’s been moved around a bit. According to Wikipedia:

Abraham Lincoln’s successors as president followed his example of annually declaring the final Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with this tradition. November had five Thursdays that year, and Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one. In 1940 and 1941, years in which November had four Thursdays, he declared the third one as Thanksgiving. Although many popular histories state otherwise, he made clear that his plan was to establish it on the next-to-last Thursday in the month instead of the last one. With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought an earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas…. Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would help bring the country out of the Depression. At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered inappropriate. Fred Lazarus, Jr., founder of the Federated Department Stores (later Macy’s), is credited with convincing Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving back a week to expand the shopping season.[11]

However, many localities had made a tradition of celebrating on the last Thursday, and since a presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was not legally binding, it was widely disregarded. Twenty-three states went along with Roosevelt’s recommendation, 22 did not, and some, like Texas, could not decide and took both weeks as government holidays. Critics termed Roosevelt’s dating of the holiday as “Franksgiving”.
1942 to present

On October 6, 1941 both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution fixing the traditional last-Thursday date for the holiday beginning in 1942. However, in December of that year the Senate passed an amendment to the resolution that split the difference by requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes (less frequently) the next to last.[12] On December 26, 1941 President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law. See 55 Stat. 862 (1941).

The thing to keep in mind here is that there’s no long tradition of having Thanksgiving on a particular date, it doesn’t commemorate any specific event, and there’s no reason it could not be celebrated a bit earlier.  Canada celebrates it a lot earlier, on our Columbus Day, the second Monday in October.  Most Americans would think it quite strange to have Thanksgiving that early in the year, but at the same time, I can think of one really good reason to move it back one week: It would save lives.

There are three things that are different between 1941 and today. First of all, back then we did not have superhighways and cars going 70 miles per hour.  Just a few years earlier, you’d have been more likely to take a horse-drawn sleigh to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving Dinner than anything capable of doing a mile a minute. Second, stores didn’t put out their Christmas merchandise out before Thanksgiving – nowadays, even if some older people disapprove, many stores put out their Christmas wares the day after Halloween (if not earlier) and are already well into the Christmas selling season by Thanksgiving.

And back then, we did not have Black Friday. And herein lies the reason for my thinking.  I have observed that in much of the country, year after year, the week prior to the week of Thanksgiving usually still has reasonably nice weather.  Granted, occasionally winter blasts in early, but except for the real snowbelt areas, temperatures in the northern states (like Michigan) are still typically in the 50’s during the day, and rarely dip far below freezing at night. Then you go into Thanksgiving week, and suddenly old man Winter makes an appearance.  How many years has the truly wintry weather arrived on the day before Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving itself?  How often have Thanksgiving travel plans been ruined by the first blast of ice and snow? If it doesn’t get you on the start of your trip, it still may delay your return home.

But the worst part is, you enjoy a nice Thanksgiving and then, in this part of the country, venture out early in the morning on Black Friday, going out onto icy roads and standing in the freezing cold to get those bargains. Meanwhile the people in the sunbelt states are thanking their lucky stars they don’t live up north, having sucked the last of our warm air down to their part of the nation.  :)

In all seriousness, I’m sure it would save lives to have Thanksgiving and Black Friday a week earlier.  I really hate having my first winter driving experience of the year at 4 AM when I am full of turkey and want very much to go back to sleep. Even when it doesn’t happen much in Michigan, I’m sure there are parts of the country where people slide off the roads (or worse) trying to get to that one big deal on Black Friday morning.  “Black Friday” should not mean people are dying to get to the stores!

In many years, one week would make all the difference between reasonably nice weather and terrible weather. It doesn’t make sense to hold onto a date set back in the days of propeller aircraft, two-lane highways and 40 mph speed limits, and a societal taboo against putting out Christmas displays prior to Thanksgiving, if by moving Thanksgiving up a week we can save lives. Not only that, but it would (in most years) make standing in the dark outside a store far less of an endurance contest.

Think about that if the snow is swirling around your head early on Black Friday morning.  Personally, I wouldn’t even mind moving it back two weeks, but I know how resistant people are to change.  A little change of only one week would be a lot easier for many people to adjust to. Of course, some folks would throw a hissy fit if it were changed at all, but at my age I’ve seen plenty of changes I don’t like, and this one might actually save some lives.

The biggest downside I can see to this idea is that in many retail locations, we’d be tormented by one more week of all those now very long-in-the-tooth Christmas carols… but there also, it seems like many merchants are ignoring the break between Halloween and Thanksgiving, and going right from “Monster Mash” to “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I’m starting to feel like Halloween’s never actually past, since for the next two months thereafter I’m going to be haunted by the ghosts of Perry Como, Burl Ives, and Bing Crosby! And, for the love of all that is holy, I’d ask the stores to PLEASE stop playing Marilyn Monroe singing “Santa Baby” — there is just something weird and wrong about that song, on so many levels!

 

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More bad news: Government wants to apply USF charges to VoIP

November 19, 2009 at 7:52 pm · Filed under Editorial, Internet, Legislation, Opinion, Regulation, Telephone, VOIP News, VoIP, consumer, government, issues

Those of you who’ve read this blog for a long time know that I’m no fan of the “Universal Service Fund”, a charge added to phone bills that in theory is supposed to support provision of phone service in rural and underserved areas.  I’ve called it “Bizarro Robin Hood” because it takes from the poor (telephone customers) and gives to the rich (large corporations). I also think it’s been one reason that people are dropping their landlines – it’s one of those extra fees that are tacked on to phone bills (generally to traditional long distance charges), above and beyond the advertised price. And I think the USF is a defacto “hidden tax” (because the government determines how it gets redistributed, much as with other taxes), yet you don’t get to deduct it from your gross income (unless it’s a business expense), so it’s in fact double taxation.

Well, since so many people are dropping their landlines and/or moving to flat-rate, any-distance plans, the number of payers into the USF is shrinking.  And guess what, rather than saying maybe it was a bad idea in the first place, your government (or should I say, the government of, by, and for the large corporations) is looking to actually expand the USF program! And guess which industry is in the crosshairs:

Congress targets VoIP again in USF bill (source: Fierce VoIP)

On Tuesday of this week, the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held hearings on a “discussion draft” of the proposed Universal Service Reform Act of 2009. You can read about the proposed legislation, including the position papers from the various parties that participated in the hearings on this page. But, who represented communications service customers? Some may think that role fell to “Gregory Rosston, Deputy Director, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research” (read his testimony here), but is he really playing the role of consumer advocate?  I didn’t really get that sense from reading his testimony, although he does make some points that aren’t parroting the large corporations. Instead, I got the impression he was playing the role of “neutral commentator”, while all the other parties were openly advocating their positions.  It would have been nice if someone there had been openly advocating for consumers of these services (of course, one of the big companies would likely have tried to put their own “sock puppet” in that role).

And, there’s one other thing: They want to start using the USF to expand broadband to unserved areas. Well, that’s just great — not only are we not going to axe this form of corporate welfare, we’re going to expand it to include more companies. BIG companies — companies that, for the most part, don’t need any more of our money (Charter being a possible exception, but they could help themselves by reducing their CEO’s salary to something much more reasonable). But I’d be willing to make a bargain with them: I’d let them have their USF subsidies, provided they would agree to two things — to never again oppose network neutrality, and to never abandon the flat monthly charging model (just say NO to metered billing)! Note I am not suggesting they need to offer a wide open pipe for a single flat monthly rate — they can still offer various speed tiers as they do now, and they can still temporarily throttle speed (without discrimination against particular services) to relieve actual congestion, as long as they remove the throttle when the congestion dissipates. But I don’t want them blocking access to services that might compete with services they offer (e.g. online video or VoIP services), and I definitely don’t want any surprise charges on users’ monthly bills because someone supposedly used “too much Internet” (based on a meter that the customer cannot see, or have checked for accuracy).

Of course, that’s the type of proposal a consumer advocate might make, and I don’t see where any of those were invited to testify.

One other point: One of the proposals for applying the USF “tax” is on a per-phone-number basis. This is favored because it’s simple to understand, but of course what they are not telling you is that it will actually shift the burden much more toward the individual consumer than the large corporation.  If this goes through, you can bet your bottom dollar that many companies will go to having just a few “outside” numbers — maybe only ONE — and an IVR (Interactive Voice Response, meaning those automated voice menus you sometimes get when calling a company, that direct you to speak or press certain digits to further direct your call) to route incoming calls.  Prepare to be even more infuriated by IVR’s that don’t get you to the person you really need to speak to without you first tearing your hair out.

Meanwhile, how many families now have multiple phone numbers, because every family member has a cell phone, and maybe they also have a landline or VoIP line, or even a fax line? By the way, did you know that many phone companies actually assign a phone number (for billing purposes) to DSL service, even when the customer is paying for DSL only and not telco dial tone? Will that cause DSL customers to get hit with yet another USF charge?

Compare that to the past, when many businesses had multiple numbers from the phone company (if they had Centrex service, then every extension had an outside number) while most home users had only one line.  Isn’t it funny how the government always considers doing the thing that will shift more of the burden to you, rather than the large corporations?

As for VoIP users: Many VoIP companies have offered extra “virtual” numbers for a small monthly fee (or even free in some cases), so that if you had friends or relatives in another city you could give them a way to call you for free, if they still were hanging onto old-fashioned PSTN service.  Will you be charged an extra USF fee for each such “virtual” number?

It just makes my blood boil sometimes to see how our government colludes with large corporations to come up with new ways to pick our pockets.  The USF should be abolished, and if they just can’t bring themselves to do that, they should at least have the decency to call it a tax and to attach some serious, pro-consumer strings on the disbursement of these funds to those corporations that dip into this particular well of taxpayer money (again, starting with net neutrality and no “excessive use” charges, or in other words, no meters!). Is that really too much to ask?

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Parts of Michigan may soon be in a “broadband ghetto”

November 19, 2009 at 1:46 pm · Filed under Broadband, Editorial, FCC, Frontier, Internet, Michigan, Opinion, Regulation, Telephone, VOIP News, Verizon, VoIP, business ethics, cable, consumer, corporation, government, issues

There are places in the United States that have wonderful broadband connectivity, such as the fortunate residents of eastern states (and a few select places in former GTE areas) that receive FiOS (fiber to the home) service from Verizon.

There there are those places, including many in Michigan, where there is no broadband service at all.

But in many areas of Michigan, the situation has been happier. Many customers have a choice of service from two providers, the phone company and the cable company. Unfortunately, in many parts of the state, particularly in the less densely populated areas, there may be a real problem in the near future. Those areas are served by Charter Communications for their cable service, and Verizon (soon to be Frontier if the planned sale goes through) for their phone service. And areas served by those two companies may be in for a double whammy.

Rather than try to write my own explanation of why this is so, I’ll give you the headline and the links. For Charter, the headline comes from BroadbandReports.com:

Charter Eyeing ‘Consumption Based Billing’

This is not only bad, but unnecessary. Both BroadbandReports.com (a.k.a. DSLreports.com) and the appropriately-named Stop The Cap site regularly run articles explaining why this is so. In fact, the very next article on the BroadbandReports.com site is this one:

Again: Metered Billing Is Neither Necessary Nor Inevitable

Here’s Stop The Cap’s headline on Charter’s plans:

Charter Cable Wants To Emerge From Bankruptcy And Overcharge Customers: Rate Hikes & Limits Under Consideration

The problem is that almost nobody (other than certain backward-thinking broadband company executives) really wants a meter running on their broadband connection. Think back to the old days of long distance calling, when you paid by the minute for long distance – you rationed your usage because you didn’t want to run up a huge phone bill. Nowadays, about the only people who still used a landline and metered long distance to make long distance calls are those who don’t have a cell phone (with unlimited calling, or a generous bucket of minutes) or some form of VoIP service, both of which provide unmetered long distance. In fact, I have read that studies have shown that people will pay more for unlimited service even when their actual usage would allow them to save money by using a metered service, simply because they want the security of knowing exactly what their cost will be each month. I firmly believe this, because I feel exactly the same way.

Now, some are probably thinking that if Charter goes to metered billing, you’ll just switch to Verizon. But Verizon doesn’t love you anymore – they want to dump you off on a company called Frontier Communications. Want to know what that will likely be a very bad thing? Well, while Michigan’s been sleeping on this issue, the state of West Virginia (particularly the Consumer Advocate division of the state’s Public Service Commission) has not. They’ve been doing their homework, and the resulting headlines from the Stop The Cap site are these:

Frontier DSL: “Slow, Low Quality, and Priced Significantly Higher Than Verizon” Says Expert Hired By WV Consumer Advocate

Strong Opposition Erupts in West Virginia Opposing Frontier-Verizon Deal: “Too Many Risks” Says State’s Consumer Advocate

One thing to note is that Frontier reserves the right to charge customers extra if they use more than 5 GB in a month (that is a limit only a Scrooge would love – even Comcast allows 250 GB of usage per month before they raise an eyebrow) and their prices for comparable levels of DSL service are much higher than Verizon’s.

Anyway, here’s the problem I’m seeing. Michigan is already in an economic slump, and the thing we are trying to do is attract technology companies to replace those jobs lost because of the downsizing of Michigan’s automobile industry. But what company in their right mind would move to a broadband ghetto? If all you can get is costly, metered broadband service, wouldn’t you rather live someplace else?

There are large areas of Michigan where the phone company is Verizon and the cable company — assuming cable service is available at all — is Charter. Michigan should not just give rubber-stamp approval to the Verizon-Frontier deal, even though in the past they have pretty much given the phone companies whatever they wanted. And the state needs to do everything possible to make sure that as many residents as possible have alternatives other than Charter and Frontier for their broadband service. If that means encouraging cable companies to overbuild each other (that is, having more than one cable company serving the same area, which just about always results in lower prices and better service from both companies), so be it.

If you are reading this article, you need to realize something. This is a very small blog on a very big Internet. The people who might be able to make a difference on this issue are probably not going to read this unless you send it to them. I’m getting older, and my days of “fighting the powers-that-be” are drawing to a close. I VERY much appreciate the fact that guys like Phillip Dampier (of Stop The Cap) and Karl Bode (of BroadbandReports.com), as well as many others, are keeping this issue alive.  But they cannot do it alone.  If you have the ear of a policymaker, or a legislator, you need to address this issue with them, particularly if you care about Michigan’s future.  Places like Muskegon County (where the northern and eastern parts of the county are served by Charter,  and nearly the entire county will be served by Frontier if the sale goes through), along with several counties to the north and east of Muskegon County ought to be particularly concerned, because this is the sort of thing that could cripple their economic recovery.

At risk of this becoming too long, I’ll just add this: What are you getting your children or grandchildren for Christmas (or whatever December holiday you may celebrate)? Many of the newer gaming systems require a broadband connection, and guess what, those use bandwidth too.  Right now we have a problem with kids doing excessive texting, and although that’s a service that costs the phone companies next to nothing to provide, parents still get hit with huge bills because the kid didn’t realize he was texting too much, and the phone companies can charge absolutely outrageous rates for text messages.  Well, do you want to suddenly start getting huge bills because the cable company claims your kid, or someone in your family, used too much Internet? And that brings up the other point – how can you trust their meter? What’s to keep them from pulling an arbitrary usage figure out of their, er, hats, and billing you for it? At least 99.9% of customers would not have the foggiest clue how to verify that the cable company’s meter is accurate (given a choice, would you buy gasoline from a pump if you knew it was never inspected for accuracy?). Metered billing is a very, very bad thing.

EDIT: Of course, certain people in the broadband industry disagree, and keep coming up with outrageous and nonsensical arguments as to why they should be allowed to overcharge you, and why you should even welcome being overcharged. The BroadbandReports.com and Stop the Cap sites do a pretty good job of refuting those, but given our very broken system of government (which nearly always seems to favor the very large corporations over “we the people”, at least until a corporation does something so outrageous that it cannot be ignored), I wonder if anyone is listening.  I will warn anyone who will listen: If the broadband providers get their way on metered billing, there will be a very direct economic cost, because many people will drop their broadband service entirely, while others will self-limit their online activities so as not to incur “excessive use” charges.  If you do business on the Internet, that impacts YOU, right in the bank account. Here’s a link to the latest refutation of industry B.S., courtesy of Stop the Cap:

The Internet Overcharging Express: We Derail One Limited Service Logic Train-Wreck, They Railroad Us With Another

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Opinion wanted on Hulu Desktop application’s End User License Agreement

November 13, 2009 at 12:02 am · Filed under Mac, business ethics, consumer, corporation, privacy, software ·Tagged ,

(I resisted the urge to make the headline read: “Hulu EULA meant ta fool ya?”  You’re welcome.)

I’m aware that some people have raised an eyebrow at a portion of section 2 of the Hulu Desktop application’s EULA, where it states (in part):

2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. Hulu grants you a license to install and use the Hulu Software on your personal laptop or desktop computer (“Personal Computer”) for the sole purpose of streaming content that is available on Hulu’s site located at www.hulu.com (“Hulu Content”) on your Personal Computer. You may not download, install or use the Hulu Software on any device other than a Personal Computer including without limitation digital media receiver devices (such as Apple TV), mobile devices (such as a cell phone device, mobile handheld device or a PDA), network devices or CE devices (collectively “Prohibited Devices”). You may not use any hardware, software or service other than the Hulu Software to stream, re-encode, project or transmit Hulu Content. …

But, that is not the part that concerns me.  I’m far more concerned about section 5, which states:

5. Consent to Use of Data. You agree that Hulu and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information about your computer, including but not limited to system and application software and peripherals that you use to access the Services. This information is gathered to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support, and other services to you (if any) related to the Hulu Software. Hulu may use this information to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you. (Emphasis Added)

First of all, why should I be required to tell Hulu anything at all about my computer?  Is this so they have a way to enforce the restrictions in Section 2? While this paragraph would concern me even without the inclusion of any “weasel words,” including the words “but not limited to” seems to change the entire tone of that paragraph. Let me put it this way: If you happen to read down this far, what I suspect they want your eyes to see is something like this:

You agree that Hulu (blah, blah) may collect and use technical and related information about your computer (blah, blah) software and peripherals that you use to access the Services. …

And that alone ought to put you on your guard, but many people wouldn’t notice. But if I am reading correctly (and bear in mind that I Am Not A Lawyer), what I think this really means is more along these lines:

You agree that Hulu and its subsidiaries, whoever they are may collect and use any damn thing they want to know about your computer.

So, again if I am reading this correctly, this license in effect gives Hulu and its unnamed subsidiaries blanket permission to take whatever information they can find on your computer.  Now, I have no idea what information they actually look at, but no way in hell would I knowingly give Hulu or anybody else blanket permission to let their software rummage around my computer and “phone home” with anything they happen to find interesting.

I’m really surprised that this hasn’t apparently hasn’t been noticed (yet) by those people who regularly look for this sort of thing.  Anyway, if anyone from Hulu happens to read this, my advice is that you strike Section 5 of your obnoxious EULA. Or, at least run it by someone who understands that users do not intend to give you the keys to their computer (or the right to take the keys at whatever future date you like) simply because you induce them to use your software, and then revise that section to explicitly state what you will collect (with no “weasel words”), and exactly who will have access to that data.

So my question is this: If we have any legal experts in the crowd, does this EULA section seem as offensive to you as it does to me? Or am I just taking this entirely the wrong way?

As for the Hulu Desktop software itself, I cannot comment on whether it’s any good or not, because I’ve never gone past that EULA screen!

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Does UPS stand for “Unreliable Power Supply”?

November 12, 2009 at 6:34 pm · Filed under consumer, electronics, hardware

I hope this is not the start of a disturbing trend in low-cost “Uninterruptable” Power Supplies.  The idea is, these devices are supposed to provide relatively constant power to devices connected to them, even if the commercial power fails, or the line voltage fluctuates outside of certain specified parameters.

However, it seems that in some cases, when the batteries reach their end-of-life and can no longer hold a charge, the exact opposite happens.  In that case, even though the commercial power is perfectly fine, the UPS will shut down, or worse yet, will start cycling on and off, continuously applying and then removing power to the “protected” devices.

I personally had this happen about a year ago with a low-end CyberPower unit that I had purchased a few years back (it was out of warranty, so I’ve since recycled it).  Today on Twitter, Karl Fife (@karlfife) seemed to be having an issue with an APC unit. He made three Tweets in quick succession, as follows:

[@karlfife] APC brand UPS failure again, Again, AGAIN. Our 3rd APC failure WHILE CONNECTED to mains! ‘Because’ batteries at end of life??!! PLEASE!!!
[@karlfife] Doing it POORLY can be expected. NO excuse for doing THE OPPOSITE of its DESIGNED PURPOSE. APC: Fire your marketers and hire some engineers!
[@karlfife] APC: Five nines? NO. More like nine fives! 55.5555555% Uptime!

I replied, mentioning I’d had a similar issue with a CyberPower UPS, and he replied:

[@karlfife] @MichiganTelepho What do they think the U in UPS Stands for? Unreliable? Unpredictable? Unerengineered? Undermine? Underpants? Uh-oh?

I wonder that, too. I’ve had several UPS units over the years (in part because it’s often cheaper to buy a new UPS on sale than to replace the batteries in an older unit) but it seems to be a relatively recent phenomena that a UPS will fail in the worst possible way.  This is just poor design — as long as the commercial power is fine, the UPS should never kill the power, regardless of the battery state.  And if some power problem causes the unit to attempt to go to battery backup, and there isn’t enough of a charge left in the batteries to keep the connected equipment powered up, then the unit should have the option to fail by shutting down and STAYING off, until the user pushes a button on the unit or takes some other action to restore the power.  Under no circumstances should the unit fail in such a way that it repeatedly power cycles on and off, with the potential for damaging the very equipment it’s supposed to protect.

Fortunately, when my UPS failed, I was right there and was able to turn it off within several seconds of when it started, and none of the equipment appeared permanently damaged (also fortunately, that particular UPS only handled a computer that was powered down at the time, plus some networking equipment and VoIP adapters, and although I’m sure that equipment doesn’t benefit from unnecessary power cycles, at least there was nothing powered up that had a hard drive spinning at the time). But I can well imagine that this type of failure could be the cause of equipment failure, especially if no one happens to be around to catch the problem for several hours (or days).

Apparently this only happens with certain units – I bought two of the aforementioned CyberPower units at the same time, and one is still in service and seems to be working fine, so maybe it’s just the luck of the draw.  Still, UPS makers need to realize that people buy their product because they want RELIABLE power.  What’s the point of even buying a UPS if it’s not reliable?  If these products gain a reputation of being unreliable, consumers will stop buying them and it will kill their whole industry.

By the way, the best UPS I ever owned was the first one I ever bought, back in the early 90’s.  I bought it from an auction site (NOT eBay – this was actually back when there were competitive auction sites!) and paid about 70 bucks for it, if I recall correctly.  That thing just kept working and working.  Even after I bought a larger unit, I hooked that one up to a TV set and it kept the TV on through several short power interruptions. The battery finally gave out completely a couple of years ago, though I’m sure its capacity to hold a charge had been greatly diminished for several months prior to that — still, it worked quite well for about a full decade! I’m not certain, but I think it was made by Eveready (like the battery company) and it sure looked like the type you used to see connected to medical equipment in hospitals. You’d think batteries would have gotten better (if not cheaper) since then, but maybe not. If UPS makers are cutting corners on the batteries, that’s a VERY bad idea for the future of their industry!

Is this a common problem, or a relatively rare one? Have you had a similar problem with a UPS? Feel free to leave a comment!

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Will conservative and pro-life Christians still be fooled by the Republican party?

November 8, 2009 at 1:27 pm · Filed under Editorial, Legislation, Opinion, government, issues

I just want to make a quick point here.  You may recall my recent post, “Is slain anti-abortion activist a martyr or a nutjob?“, in which I wrote:

In the political arena, the Democrats pander to the pro-abortion crowd, and the Republican pander to the anti-choice crowd.  And make no mistake, it IS mostly pandering.  They will make speeches at “prayer breakfasts” and other gatherings and make it sound like they’re really concerned about the issue.  Then they go back to Washington and do pretty much nothing – maybe a few token gestures, but nothing has really changed since Roe vs. Wade.  The very mis-named “religious right” (who in reality, are not all that religious and seldom right) in particular seems to live in the fantasy world where if only the Republicans had a majority in the government, they would end abortion once and for all.  They just don’t get it that for most Republican members of congress, abortion is probably less of a concern than who won that 2004 Super Bowl. Meanwhile they continue to help put lousy candidates in office just because that candidate will proclaim that they are “pro-life.”

Well, I wonder how many conservative Christians actually noticed that it was a Democrat, none other than Michigan’s Bart Stupak, who successfully pushed to eliminate coverage for abortion in the health care legislation passed in the House of Representatives. Today, many liberals are crying that this almost makes abortion illegal in the United States (actually it doesn’t, but it will make an abortion a lot harder to get if a woman is poor). You’d think that all the Republican legislators who’ve been pandering to the pro-life, conservative Christian vote would have got behind this, right?

Um, no. ONE Republican vote, and already the right-wing nutjobs want to tear that legislator apart. That type of attitude (as exemplified in the reposted Twitter “tweet” shown in that article) is exactly what has turned me against both the Republican party and organized religion in the past decade.

So, when will you conservative and fundamentalist Christians learn that the Republican party doesn’t care about abortion and doesn’t care about you? To them, you are useful fools. You give them your votes (and in some cases, your adoration) and they don’t deserve it.  They are using you.  I’m sure Jesus would have seen right through them – why don’t you?

Jesus preached love – love your neighbor, turn the other cheek, pray for those that use you.  Conservative Christians may want to pray for the Republican party (since the Republican party has certainly used them), but hate should have no place in the Christian religion, and yet more and more, both fundamentalist Christians and Republicans are becoming known as people of hate.

Sorry if the truth hurts, but somebody needed to say it.

And for those who think this sort of commentary doesn’t belong in this blog, read this.

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Men: Does your workplace (or your current relationship) seem like the lowest level of Hell?

November 7, 2009 at 2:56 am · Filed under Blog, Editorial

If so, I have a blog recommendation for you:

A Shrink for Men — A blog for professional men in complicated relationships and dissatisfying careers combining psychology, insight, humor, irony, sexuality, and social commentary.

Don’t be put off by the “professional men” part, especially if you are caught up in a relationship that leaves you feeling like you’re a victim of war.  And also, while the blog is written primarily for men, women can likely find some good advice in the articles on workplace bullying and mobbing:

Workplace Bullying and Office Politics: What is Mobbing?
How to Avoid Bullying and Mobbing at Work
How to Recognize 7 Personality Types in Office Politics
6 More Office Personality Types

As for the bad relationships… if you’re a man and you really need some support on that issue, start with the most recent articles on the blog and work your way back, or start at the first article and work forward from there. Definitely read the comments left by readers on some of the articles (they often offer additional insight on the article).

How do you know if you are in a truly bad relationship (since the perfect relationship is, after all, pretty much a myth)? Well, here are a few articles from the blog that can help you figure out if you are in one:

When Love Hurts: The Emotionally Abused Man
13 Signs Your Wife or Girlfriend is a Borderline or a Narcissist
Relationship Roller Coaster Ride: The Cycle of Abuse
Is Your Girlfriend or Wife a Professional Victim?
10 Signs Your Girlfriend or Wife is an Emotional Bully
Traumatic Love: Is Your Narcissistic or Borderline Wife or Girlfriend Making You Sick?
25 Signs your Narcissistic or Borderline Wife or Girlfriend is Traumatizing You
12 Signs You Should Break Up With Your Girlfriend or Boyfriend or Spouse

Believe it or not, I found this blog linked from another page that I found via an only slightly-related Twitter link (sometimes it pays to follow links and see where they lead you). I’ve known more than one guy who stayed in an abusive relationship for years, then finally got out but at great cost (both emotionally, and in some cases, financially). If you are in such a relationship, the healthy thing to do is GET OUT as soon as possible. Note I did not say “get help” or “get counseling” with the intent of trying to “save the relationship” (or marriage), because this type of abusive relationship can NEVER be saved — it can only be prolonged, but the longer you prolong it the worse it gets. If only information like this had been available 35 years ago, it might have saved some friends of mine from considerable grief.

The interesting thing about this blog is that it is written by a woman with a PsyD degree, who apparently has seen a lot of men that have been emotionally abused (or worse) by their bosses or significant others.  Yet this is a segment of society that seems mostly invisible — while battered and emotionally abused women get a lot of press and sympathy, when it’s men on the receiving end they are often either ignored, or it’s “blame the victim” time.  Just to put it in perspective, name me one city in the world that has a special facility for battered and abused men.  “Homeless shelters” that provide shelter for drug abusers and winos don’t count (people who don’t abuse alcohol or use drugs really don’t want to sleep in a room full of people who do, if there is any other alternative, and that’s true regardless of gender).  Seems like nearly every county of any size has a shelter for battered and abused women these days, but when a man is the victim he’s expected to just fend for himself, and the cruel irony is that he’ll probably be at least suspected of being the actual abuser.  And if there are minor children, they will only very rarely be left with an abusive father, but how often do the courts award custody to an abusive mother without even looking into the situation? Talk about discrimination…

And yes, I do realize that battered and abused women do exist, and when that happens it’s despicable. But there is also a certain percentage of females that know that the police and the courts tend to assume that whenever physical violence or emotional abuse takes place, it’s the male who started it, so these women use that unwarranted assumption to their advantage to manipulate the system (and whether you are a male or a female, you’ve probably known a few women like this.  Guys tend to use a word to describe such women; it rhymes with “itch”).

I really hope that everyone reading this is in a healthy relationship (if you are in a relationship) and in a great workplace (if you are employed), and can honestly say “none of this applies to me”, but if that’s not the case and you are a man, there is a lot of good advice and support to be found at this blog. Oh, and if you are in law enforcement and/or the court system, and you are at all interested in being fair to those you serve, it wouldn’t hurt if you read a few of the articles on this site — it might open your eyes just a bit.

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The affordable housing option you may have never considered – but perhaps should

October 27, 2009 at 7:16 pm · Filed under consumer

Maybe I should have written this article a year ago… but anyway, it seems there are a lot of people who have been forced to move out of their homes for one reason or another. Very often they go looking for an apartment and unless they are really fortunate, they often find that apartment living is nowhere near as desirable as their prebvious living arrangements.

For many of these people, there is another option they may have never considered, but probably should. Today, it’s called manufactured housing. When I was younger, they were called mobile homes. Very old people may still think of them as trailers. But a trailer is to a manufactured home as a beat-up VW from the 60’s is to a luxury car of today. Manufactured housing has gotten MUCH better over the years, yet far too many people can’t stop thinking of them as “trailers.”

So, let me explain to you the advantages and disadvantages of manufactured home living:

The biggest advantage is that whether you currently own a home or are renting an apartment, you can get far more bang for your buck with a mobile home. Single wide mobile homes (even ones of recent manufacture) can often be had for under $10,000 used, in a mobile home park. As with any home, some folks don’t take care of their homes, while others keep them immaculate, so if you look at used manufactured homes, don’t be surprised (or put off) if the first one you see looks like a dump – just say “no” and move on. In any case, when you find one you like you will almost certainly find that even with the lot rent (or property tax, if you buy one on private property), you will be paying less per month for your home payments than you are paying for your current living arrangements – and if that’s not the case, then I can pretty much assure you that the manufactured home will be a step up for you!

Another advantage is that you are building up equity in your home. Granted, it may not be all that much, but then again if you keep up your property and don’t overpay to begin with, when you move out you may be able to recoup much of what you’ve paid. EDIT: Don’t read too much into this – it is very true that many types of manufactured homes, particularly the older single-wide mobile homes, depreciate in value over the years.  However, if you buy one that’s nearly fully depreciated, fix it up and improve its appearance, and then resell it, it is possible to actually make a little money on the deal – and by “a little” I mean “maybe enough to fill your gas tank a few times”, not “enough to make a down payment on your next home.” My point here is that when you do decide to move, unless the place is a real dump you can probably get something out of it, whereas with an apartment you might get your security deposit back, if you’re lucky.

And one other BIG advantage for some is that, because you own the home, you have more control over it. This is particularly true when it comes to pets. Whereas many landlords won’t allow pets at all, most mobile home park owners tend to be much more lenient – after all, since you own the home, they won’t get stuck cleaning up after your pet when you move out. So if you are being forced out of your home and your kids are crying at the prospect of having to give up Fluffy (particularly if Fluffy is a cat or a small dog), you really should start looking into manufactured homes.

Speaking of kids, in many areas with mobile homes the streets are dead ends or cul-de-sacs, or may have speed bumps or other mechanisms to slow down cars. You may actually be able to let your child ride their bike on the street in front of your home without worrying that some idiot will come tearing through and mow them down. And in a mobile home park, your kids will almost certainly be able to find other kids to play with (of course, if it’s not a nice mobile home park, they may not be the kind of kids you want yours playing with).

One other thing to consider is that most mobile homes, whether new or used, come with appliances (if you are buying a used home, ASK the seller to state which appliances are included, and be sure those appliances INCLUDING make and model/serial numbers are listed on the the bill of sale or purchase agreement. A member of my family bought a mobile home once that contained a nice refrigerator – when they came to move in a couple days later, that new refrigerator had turned into an old, single-door wheezer that sounded like it was about to gasp and die. They called the local police, who paid the previous owner a visit and informed them that it would be illegal for them to sell or dispose of the refrigerator until the matter had been settled in court. When said previous owner realized they were probably going to get hauled into small claims court, it took them about half an hour to show up with the new refrigerator and make a swap. YOU may not be so lucky, so be sure you and the seller understand EXACTLY what you are buying, and get everything listed on some kind of document relating to the sale, and signed by the seller!). You may get furniture too, but if it’s furniture that originally came with the home when new, it’s probably not real high quality.

Now, the fact that you own (or are buying) a home can also have its disadvantages. Unlike an apartment, you can’t just walk away after giving 30 days notice. If the home is in a park, you may be responsible for either selling the home to another person, or moving the home out of the park. Until you do one or the other, you will still be responsible for paying lot rent. If it’s on private property, you will have the same hassles as you would in selling a house (although if you don’t overprice it, a mobile home should be a lot easier to sell in today’s market).

You will have maintenance costs. On a newer home these will likely be minimal — remember, a manufactured home is built to go down the road at 70 miles per hour, so if it survives that intact, it will probably take quite a bit to damage it. But when something does need to be fixed, it may be a bit more costly that the same repair in a home because even today, manufactured home makers sometimes use weird parts (like non-standard sized doors). It’s not that replacements are unavailable, but they will probably cost you more than you’d like. If you’re careful not to damage your home, these expenses will hopefully be minimal. With an older home, you may be faced with replacing a water heater or even a furnace at some point, and those are expensive repairs. If in doubt, have those big-ticket items checked out before you buy.

The bad: Who has seen the wind? Well, if you see a tornado, you don’t want to be in a mobile home, new or old. So if you live in “tornado alley”, make sure that there is a tornado shelter (or an accessible basement) in the park or on your property. By the way, it’s not really true that tornadoes are attracted to mobile home parks, but it is true that when a tornado his a manufactured home community it generally leaves a real mess, and what that attracts is news crews and their cameras.

The ugly: Before you even think of moving into a mobile home park, there are some things you absolutely want to do. The first is to talk to the park management and ask for a copy of the park rules, and find out what the monthly lot rent is, and find out if you will be changed for utilities such as water, sewer, electricity, garbage removal, Cable TV, broadband Internet, etc. Also find out who provides those services or utilities – if it’s the park, and you will have to pay extra for a service provided by the park, you can just about bet they are adding a surcharge above what you’d pay if you were buying the service directly. And if you are looking at a particular manufactured home, make sure that if you buy it the park management will allow you to stay in the park (unless you want to move it to a different park, which is of course your prerogative, but moving a manufactured home sometimes causes unanticipated damage to the home, and in any case you’ll want to find out how much that move is going to cost you.  And in some states, their may be exit fees in a mobile home park, although those are illegal in other states such as Michigan). Also ask about your pets, if you have any – you don’t want to move in and THEN find out that the management has a problem with your pets.

There are a lot of mobile home park owners that are just great folks, but then again, there are a some that are horrible people and scam artists. To make sure that you don’t get one who thinks their park is their own personal version of a mini-Nazi Germany, and they are taking the role of a little Hitler, go to the park on a weekend (preferably a pleasant afternoon) and stop and have a chat with a few random residents – preferably those who appear to be about your same age/gender/race etc. Ask them how they like living in the park, and if they’ve ever had any problems with park management OR with their neighbors. If they seem hesitant to respond, or appear to be choosing their words carefully, that’s a bad sign. And if the management actually shows up and berates you for talking to residents in the park when you don’t yet live there, drive away and never come back!

EDIT: I forgot to mention, though I had intended to, that there is a wide variance in the quality of manufactured homes. Some are mass-produced in such a way that the construction is rather poor, whereas other brands have a reputation for much higher quality.  Another possible reason for visiting a mobile home park, if you’re considering the purchase of a used home, is to try and talk to people who own a similar model to the one you’re considering (or an even older model from the same manufacturer) and see how they feel about their homes.  Also, if you find that the park managers seem like reasonable folks that you can chat with, you can ask them their opinion of various manufactured home brands that you might be considering.  The caveat here is that they might be in cahoots with a local dealer (or they might even be a local dealer), and thus may have some incentive to talk up whatever brand that dealer is selling — even so, they can often help steer you away from a brand that’s got a reputation as having really poor construction. Now back to the original article…

Definitely read the park rules, and discuss them with your spouse/children/anyone else that may be living with you in the home. Some parks will have rules that sound okay at first glance but when you think about them a bit more, you realize that they’re something you can’t live with. For example, if you are a bit absent-minded, you don’t want to live in a park where you are penalized for forgetting to cut your grass on a particular day, or to take in your garbage cans by a certain hour. If the rules seem a bit unreasonable, the park owners might be very unreasonable. And if a park looks extra nice when you drive in – almost like a garden spot – it might be that way because the park management is quite anal about forcing residents to make their properties look that way (or the management will do it, and send the negligent resident a big bill!). Can you live with that?

The upside of a nice park is that it may be less attractive to those you might not want to live close to. Just as you are looking for inexpensive housing, so are many other people, for various reasons. Some want inexpensive housing because they’d rather spend their money on alcohol or drugs. This is why it pays to take some time to talk to existing residents – you can get a pretty good idea of what the park is like, and if you ask the right questions you can find out if there are residents that are likely to try to sell drugs to members of your family (which, hopefully, you want to avoid — or at very least, you’d want to be in a different part of the park).

A far better alternative in many cases is to find a relatively new mobile home in good shape on private property. These do exist in many areas, but are hard to find. Real estate agents hate them (and often will use every trick in the book to talk you out of buying one) because their commission isn’t nearly as high on a mobile home as on a stick-built home. And if a real estate agent does accept a listing for one, they will often jack up the selling price far beyond what the home and property is worth (in one case I know of, the real estate agent priced the home and property at just under $70,000. You could have bought land in the same area, had well and septic and concrete pad installed, and a brand new mobile home placed on the property for about $40,000 at the time).

Which brings me to another point – if you know what you are doing, sometimes the best thing to do is buy a piece of vacant land in an area zoned for mobile homes, and develop it yourself, then place a new or used mobile home on the property. Be sure to talk to your city or township officials before attempting this, as you will need to be concerned about things like proper zoning and minimum lot sizes. You’ll also want to know what utilities are available in the area. Buying real estate is tricky, so you may want to hire a real estate agent to act as YOUR real estate agent (to protect YOUR interests, not the seller’s) during the process. On the other hand, if you can use some property that’s been in your family for a long time, and there are no zoning issues, that may be a way to go.

EDIT: Keep in mind that newer manufactured homes (the type that come in two or more sections, sometimes called “modular homes”, that are virtually indistinguishable from stick-built homes after they have been placed on the property) can usually go anyplace that a comparably-sized home can go, depending on local laws.  Those units generally aren’t limited to areas zoned for mobile homes, but the cost will be higher because the original purchase price is higher (generally at least $10,000 or more higher than a brand new, comparably-sized double-wide mobile home) and they generally have to be placed on a regular house-type foundation (not just placed on a concrete slab and supported by cement blocks, as is often the case with mobile homes).  Depending on how well-made the home is, this is the one type of manufactured home that actually can increase in value, although to a large degree that can depend on the condition of the property and the surrounding neighborhood. In some areas you can buy these homes and have them placed on a lot for only a fraction of what a similar contractor-built home would cost, and considering that not all contractors do the best possible job when building a new home, you may actually be happier with a factory-built modular when all is said and done.

[Tip: What's the difference between a double wide mobile home and a modular home? Look under the home. If you see long I-beams that span the length of the home, and metal framing, and maybe axles where the wheels would be attached (although those are often removed after the home is delivered) then it's a double wide mobile home. Also, if it's sitting on a cement pad and supported by concrete blocks, with vinyl or metal skirting hiding the underside of the home, then it's more than likely a double wide mobile home.  However, if when you look under the home you see wood framing (similar to what you'd see in the basement of a home that doesn't have a finished ceiling), and if the home is sitting on a regular house-type basement or a foundation with crawl space, it's probably a modular home. If it's in a mobile home park, it's almost certainly a double-wide mobile home, except under very special circumstances (e.g., it was previously the park owner's residence).]

Often, a great way to find a manufactured home, or property where you can place a manufactured home, is to drive around in places where there are already such homes, be it a mobile home park or an area where you see manufactured homes on private property. Look for “For Sale” signs, and use all the normal caution you’d use when buying a regular house or piece of property (particularly with private property, do not assume that the zoning laws have not changed since the homes you see were placed there! You can often keep using an existing home as a residence, but you may never be able to move a newer or better home onto the property, or onto adjacent vacant property you might purchase. Don’t assume anything!).

You can also look for manufactured homes for sale in newspaper classifieds, in the free “real estate” throwaways they pass out in some cities, and even online in places like Craigslist or eBay. Note that when buying from a private owner, you want to be extra diligent in looking for needed repairs. If possible, take someone with you that has lived in a manufactured home for several years – they may spot problems that you wouldn’t think to look for.

Unless your only other option is sleeping in a tent, never buy a manufactured home that was built more than about 20 to 25 years ago. Prior to that, the same construction standards used today were not in effect, and you may find homes that have very thin walls, non-standard fittings, and lots of other problems. Never buy a home with windows you have to crank to open, unless you are in a very temperate area – those windows lose heat in the winter like you would not believe.

This is just a suggestion for those who may need affordable housing. Newer manufactured homes can be quite nice, especially when compared to some of the overpriced, run-down apartments being offered in some neighborhoods, and many people don’t even consider the option because all they think of is drafty trailers with next to no insulation, and tin roofs, and bathrooms so small you can wash your hands in the sink while sitting on the john. You may still find some of those things (particularly in used homes) but very often people are VERY pleasantly surprised when they walk into a newer manufactured home, and find it’s nothing like what they imagined. You can, of course, buy a brand new mobile home (in which case the dealer almost certainly knows of several mobile home parks where you can place it) but be aware that mobile home dealers are very much like automobile dealers – some will give you a fair deal and a wonderful experience, and others will give you an experience that you’ll regret forever (there is nothing like talking to previous customers to find out about a particular dealer).

Also, if a dealer offers to do the prep work on your private property before delivering a manufactured home, make sure that it is clearly understood and that you have it in writing who is responsible if anything goes wrong.  For example, if the dealer hires a contractor to install a septic tank and drain field, and then the plumbing inspector refuses to pass it because it’s not up to code, do you really want to be on the hook for having it done over?  You probably will be, if you’re not very careful about how the contract is written!

In any case, if you are looking for housing, good luck in your search!

EDIT: I am pleased to note that The Consumerist found this article, and that many of their readers made comments on their site. While many of the comments there are quite valid, I take personal offense to the one guy who suggested that this might be “a spam blog grabbing stuff from Associated Content.” I want that person to know that every word of this “most obvious garbage” was written by myself.  And yes, my blog is on WordPress.com – so what, at least it’s not Geocities! ;) Also, I will note that my comments were primarily based on what I know about mobile home living in the Great Lakes area. If people in the SF Bay area are paying $200,000+ for a mobile home then all I can say is that some enterprising Californians ought to start buying mobile homes from the factories in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, etc. and hauling them out to the Golden State – even after the transportation charges, there’s got to be a huge profit potential there, if they really sell for that kind of money.  Now, if we are talking newer manufactured (modular) homes then that’s a slightly different matter, although even then I still tend to think somebody’s making a HUGE profit out there!

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