James Miller wrote: >I've lost any grasp of what's really at issue here. Could someone please >summarize for me the precise points in dispute? Or is it just a >prognostication contest? > There are a few theads which have been woven in. We have the results of the efforts of transnationals to increase market share. Which is not always done by improving the product. PC magazine and others started out by tracking the improvements in office productivity. Several sources noted that the curve flattened out when Windows 3.1 came out. Presumably, the gui interface was easier for newbies. But if the newbie cant type, then it does nothing for the productivity related to data input. The mouse was great for manipulating images, but slowed down the interface compared to the speed of hot-keys.
Then there is the ongoing connectivity issues which are getting more troublesome as people move out of urban areas and further into the rural fringe. You can see some of it on the WISP list (Wireless ISP), in which the techs routinely mention 'LoS', Line of Sight needed for data, and how this is blocked by trees and terrain.... which is only a problem because they are using frequencies at 700 mhz on up. With typical tract housing, no biggie, they were built on cleared farmland, and the only trees are planted and small. But folks are ever more looking into rural areas with more character than flat farmland. Large trees with a canopy of 50 foot on up are preferred. Antenna masts over 50 foot get expensive, and the trees are growing... what with global warming and the rain we've seen this year, prolly more like 18" per year. Some areas are also bothered with acid rain, which is *conductive*, so that the atennuation is even worse. The PR from the transnat cellular systems dont match the reality. They have a string of cell towers on mountains between Little Rock and Springfield, and if you stay on US 65, and- on top of a ridgeline, you can talk. But when the highway dips down into a creek valley, forget it. and if you get further than 10 miles from the US 65 corridor, you can forget it even if you are on a ridgetop. The situation for high speed wireless data is even worse. They dont even bother to come out for a site survey such as the WISP guys go thru in the suburban fringe. And the situation for 56k is also bad. The people who try to administer the local ISPs are not up to speed. We keep accounts at 2 of them because, when one is down, the other usually still works. It's only been 10 years since Alltel replaced the Welcome Home fire department party line rotary dial with a private line touch tone. I remember speaking with someone at a local ISP about the MS-CHAP authentications problem I was having that eliminated my DOS access, and that I was having trouble with Linux. Her response: "What's Linux?" That was last year. Globally, the lack of expertise in rural areas is chronic, so I'm not surprised. She was prolly working at the Sonic before she began selling systems and hookups at the local ISP store. But I can understand, because the people who designed the hardware and software for us all live in urban areas. Likewise the regulators for the FCC. Agricultural policy is written by Washington bureacrats for their friends with ranches like George Bush, who dont havta make any money in the farming business. Technologically, the problems of rural connectivity could be solved, but the urban policy makers have other agendas. Which is why I expect to see a kind of rebellion, where FCC regulations are ignored, just as they were with CB radio. The solutions all reside in using high gain Yagi antennas at frequencies under 500 mhz which punch thru the forest canopy without problems. And terrain problems with the deep river and creek bottoms (folks like to live on trout streams) will trend on down twards 50 mhz. This might possibly walk on commercial broadcast FM/TV/UHF, but hardly anyone out here still uses any of them. Everyone is going to the dish for their mass media, and in town, everyone has cable. Lotsa folks still get the local TV, they like it for the local weather, but--- they get the feed off the dish. Increasingly, I see the market elites are installing satellite radio in their cars. In the Ozarks, this makes a lot of sense, there are lots of dead zones, like along US 65 from Leslie to Marshall AR, where if you hit 'scan' on the radio, it picks up the Christian fundy radio station in Springfield MO. Hit 'scan' again... and it ends up back at the same Christian rants. And as the people with money to spend get the satellite radio, the ratings for the local radio stations decline, and they are now going out of business. Leaving even more empty bandwidth. But- if you once have the home equipment to go wireless, what is there to prevent users from modifying gear to use whatever empty bandwidth they can find in their own locality, and what would prevent them from communicating with each other directly (across LATA boundaries) without having to rely on the erractic services of win NT local ISP servers, or paying Instate Long distance charges? (which have always been the highest) Contary to representions, I dont see an active conspiracy twards planned obsolescence by Microsoft and the Linux distros. But I do see the synergy, where M$ complicates the authentication protocals, which impells new users to buy the new PCs which the local ISP sells. I see further that the distro programmers, who simply crack the code to retain logon functionality, incline Linux users to do as I did- get a newer distro. Rather than go down the garden path dealing with the proliferation of Linux archive formats, GCC or other compilers, or which parts of the RTFM collections I actually need to read.... just get a newer distro. Or several. at 5-50 bucks/install CD, it's worth trying Mandrake, Slackware, Debian, Redhat, Suse, or whatever. At some point, I expect, if not already, some geek will collect the software to permit the desktop to control a transmitter to shape the waveform to an antenna. And at some point, rural neighbors and friends will realize that they can communicate without paying a phone bill or an ISP. And while that may be seen as illegal, the user base can see how the system has been manipulated by the transnats like Microsoft. That unethical manipulation empowers rebellion, and could lead to anarchy, especially if the numerous enemies of the transnats figure out how to crash their servers. The kinds of minds which many geeks have include an anarchic streak, which dont interface well with the mandarin minds that control the system. The flap over 'carnivore' a case in point. More than most places, we here understand the power of ascii to communicate; you dont need a gui. And just as the automotive industry, new ideas get a following for a while, then get abandoned as the lack of functionality becomes more obvious. More than most places, rural folks realize the inherent security in the dispersal of critical social functions across the landscape and out of urban areas at risk of WMD. And when you think about it, a totally independent means of communication, ie wirelessly, across a local or regional area, will go a long ways twards maintaining public order and respect for some system of authority. The robusticity of SURVPC hardware and software would play a large part in our own national security.
