Murray3
join:2001-03-06
Texas
| reply to Asmodeus
Re: A What...?
said by Asmodeus  :Listen, the ability to access the internet regardless of method is a LUXURY!!! period... Yup. I don't see how it could possibly be deemed a Utility.
I could survive without Broadband... but would not fair so good without water, electricity, etc. |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| How about in five to fifteen years, when your copper is gone, and a single fiber or coaxial line runs into your basement and fuels everything, including your phone, television, stove, and grandpa's iron lung?
Does basic data connectivity stay in the "luxury" category then? |
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IamZed
Premium
join:2001-01-10
Dayton, OH
| Exactly. Electricity was a luxury once. A phone was a luxury once. Running water was a luxury once. People who think fiber is a luxury can’t see past tomorrow, and shouldn’t be allowed to plan it.
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A thing worth doing is worth doing to excess |
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Sarah
Premium,ExMod 2002-05
join:2001-01-09
Cambridge, MA
clubs:
| reply to Murray3
said by Murray3 :said by Asmodeus :Listen, the ability to access the internet regardless of method is a LUXURY!!! period... Yup. I don't see how it could possibly be deemed a Utility. I could survive without Broadband... but would not fair so good without water, electricity, etc. How exactly does electricity keep you alive?
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The devil makes work for idle hands, but Stanford makes work for idle CPUs! |
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neosolace
Stay In It
join:2003-08-25
Verbena, AL
| reply to Karl Bode
IMO... Although it isn't QUITE to the point where it should be a utility yet..Karl is right. This is no different than rural phone,electrification, and even gas service was in the earlier part of last century. Although I don't completely trust the idea of competing with muni operations, I do think that the government will HAVE to get involved (maybe not just in the ways everyone thinks) to get broadband to the masses. There's just no simple, easy way to do it. I think that if carefully planned out and overseen, a government (or otherly financed) operation could benefit everybody. |
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Network Guy
join:2000-08-25
New York
 ·PHONE POWER
·Broadvox Direct
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to IamZed
Once it becomes standard, as in the rural communities also run it, then I'd call that a utility. Current trend seems to be rollouts in the major metropolitan and surrounding areas only, and to me that's considered a convenience, not something to count or rely on. |
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neosolace
Stay In It
join:2003-08-25
Verbena, AL | reply to Sarah
Granted...it doesn't "keep you alive", but I don't think I could really "live" without those services.
For instance....that lovely sewer system runnin' beneath the street! |
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Sarah
Premium,ExMod 2002-05
join:2001-01-09
Cambridge, MA
clubs:
1 edit | said by neosolace :Granted...it doesn't "keep you alive", but I don't think I could really "live" without those services. But why does that even affect whether it should be a utility? The definition of a utility is not "something I need/want really bad." 
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The devil makes work for idle hands, but Stanford makes work for idle CPUs! |
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wifi4milez
Big Russ, 1918 to 2008. Rest in Peace
join:2004-08-07
New York, NY
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·RoadRunner Cable
·BroadVoice
| reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode :How about in five to fifteen years, when your copper is gone, and a single fiber or coaxial line runs into your basement and fuels everything, including your phone, television, stove, and grandpa's iron lung? How exactly is fiber going to "fuel" my stove?? I do agree with your other examples however.
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I like dogs, guns, and cheeseburgers. Whats your malfunction? |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02 | I'd guess it's fairly sound to believe a lot of appliances will be connected to the internet to aid self or remote diagnostic repair, update firmware, and sell marketing companies information on how often you do X, or eat Y..... |
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Sarah
Premium,ExMod 2002-05
join:2001-01-09
Cambridge, MA
clubs:
1 edit | They have ovens in development (or maybe that you can buy now, I dunno) that you can program when to start baking, or even to refrigerate something until 4 PM and then heat it up in time for dinner, etc.
Doesn't seem like much of a stretch to be plugged in so you set it remotely from phone or office. "We'll be home in half an hour, let me call the oven and start the lasagna baking."
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The devil makes work for idle hands, but Stanford makes work for idle CPUs! |
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Talis
join:2001-06-21
Houston, TX
| reply to neosolace
How many centuries did man survive without lovely sewer systems runnin beneath the street? All these utilities people keep bringing up improve the QUALITY of life, but do not sustain it. There are still place in the United States that do not have sewers, electricity or water systems. They still manage to live. So stop classifying broadband as non-essential compared to the other utilities. None of them are essential.
Broadband access has as much potential to improve the quality of life, for individuals as well as whole communities, as any other public utility. |
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Beeper
Part Of The Problem
join:2001-09-27
Dayton, OH
clubs:
| reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode :I'd guess it's fairly sound to believe a lot of appliances will be connected to the internet to aid self or remote diagnostic repair, update firmware, and sell marketing companies information on how often you do X, or eat Y..... I believe point # 4. Everything else is rubbish.
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Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope. Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism. |
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icp1
Premium
join:2000-10-13
Saint Louis, MO
clubs:
·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to Talis
said by Talis :How many centuries did man survive without lovely sewer systems runnin beneath the street? All these utilities people keep bringing up improve the QUALITY of life, but do not sustain it. There are still place in the United States that do not have sewers, electricity or water systems. They still manage to live. So stop classifying broadband as non-essential compared to the other utilities. None of them are essential. Broadband access has as much potential to improve the quality of life, for individuals as well as whole communities, as any other public utility. You don't think electricity, clean water, and sewage are essential to life? Scary. I understand your point about some places don't have them and survive, but try shutting off just 1 of them in a place like new york city. You would have a huge upswing in death and/or disease from any one of them being gone.
Now back to the point -- broadband is not currently a utility in my opinion, but I believe the internet itself it almost to that point, if it isn't already. |
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B
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-28
| reply to Karl Bode
Pithy comments from some of you, and I'm somewhat inclined to agree, but isn't it a little early to judge?
I mean, why pick broadband as the next must-have utility (to be granted special consideration by state and legislative planning), rather than wireless networks? Or cell phones? Or satellite? Or iPods or that frickin' Segway?
All kinds of stuff is important to our current way of life, and all kinds of stuff MAY have enormous importance to the majority going forward. But who's to say which ones are the proto-utilities?
Heck, few things are more pervasive than supermarkets and cell phones, and I don't see much real regulation or city ordinances targeted at either.
-- B
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In a realm outside causality and function |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Not sure which comments are pithy.
Simply putting forth the seemingly ignored future-fact that home data, in very short order, will be one-pipe that connects to all manner of electronics, connecting everything in the home to a global network, and largely a necessity for anyone not hiding out on the fringe's of society. (Which I grant is always a choice - and maybe in 10 years a wise one)
I don't know if that observation justifies subsidization or anything else, simply throwing the concept on the table. |
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captokita
Premium
join:2005-02-22
Calabash, NC
| reply to Karl Bode
--I'd guess it's fairly sound to believe a lot of appliances will be connected to the internet to aid self or remote diagnostic repair, update firmware, and sell marketing companies information on how often you do X, or eat Y...--
LOL! Can you see it? You go to cook dinner, and a pop up window comes up on the stove.. "Before you cook your dinner, please click here for info to enlarge your......sausage." Dinner sausage! Get your minds out of the gutter people!  Or someone hacked into it and overcooks your food.
But it's a matter of time before all appliances are "internet ready"
To get this back on topic, right now, the internet, broasband or dialup, is a luxury. One day, that will change. |
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N3OGH
Bear patrol must be working like a charm
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
·Verizon FIOS
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode :How about in five to fifteen years, when your copper is gone, and a single fiber or coaxial line runs into your basement and fuels everything, including your phone, television, stove, and grandpa's iron lung? Does basic data connectivity stay in the "luxury" category then? When fiber replaces copper everywhere (many years from now), one of 2 things will happen. Either local telcos (or whoever is offering the fiber) will decide it's cheaper to offer their POTS service over an all fiber network, and offer customers voice service only over a fiber connection, or the cost to offer broadband along that existing fiber will be so inexpensive, it will become an add on to whatever replaces the traditional POTS system as we know it.
Some above use the argument that electricity was once a luxury item. While this is true, it is a poor argument. In the time electricity was a luxury, most people heated their homes with coal or wood, and could survive in the cold without electricity. Anyone here have a gas or oil burning heater that doesn't need electricity to fire and circulate heat through your house? I would think not.
A utility is a service you could essentially, die without. In January and February in the northern states, one could freeze to death without heat. One could not live without water, hence water, sewer, electricity are utilities.
The reasoning behind Telephone service being a utility is it is the quickest way to summons aid in an emergency. EG, medical emergency, fire, etc. I think this is specious reasoning at best, considering so many people are ditching their POTS lines. If POTS is such a utility, why are so many people ditching it? Nevertheless, I accept the argument, not necessarily agreeing with it.
Sorry, I don't see where broadband fits into the utility category. I lived my entire life without broadband until 1999 when I was one fo the first people in my neighborhood to get a cable modem. We didn't have cable TV until 1995.
As far as your stove, and grandpa's iron lung, I as of yet to see either one of these devices powered by a broadband connection....
The day you convince me someone would die or freeze without broadband is the day you'll convince me it's a utility. |
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John Galt
Forward, March
Premium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
·CenturyLink
| reply to B
said by B :...or that frickin' Segway? (Homer Simpson voice....)
Segway....!
(cut to Homer zooming around town, wreaking havoc and destruction...)
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A is A |
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Aggie Dan
Stop... Reverse That.
Premium
join:2001-01-30
Frisco, TX
clubs: | reply to Sarah
I dunno. That sounds like a luxury to me. |
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