i had to leave my browser window open last night, and it's generally a
bad idea to try and record with it open due to ram issues. it's done
now, mostly. i'll have to wait until after 2 am to get back to
downloading the rest of the libraries i'm looking into - i'm looking at
about a 50 gb download, and...
there was a court ruling
last year that put usage based billing in place, meaning the isps can
charge you based on your bandwidth. there's a really bad oligopoly in
canada with internet, stemming from the way the infrastructure was
built. somebody might correct me (i'm not old enough to remember, first
hand) but i believe the telephone and cable companies in canada were
previously state operated. honestly? that makes far more sense to me,
and the reason is that it doesn't make sense to have multiple lines. you
want one cable infrastructure and one phone infrastructure - anything
else is just wasteful. but, the result of it moving from public to
private ownership was that, in any given area, there's a monopoly on the
cable and a monopoly on the phone based around who owns the lines.
splitting the lines up to different companies in different areas didn't
really have the effect of breaking up monopolistic practices, and why
would it? if you live here in windsor, cogeco owns all the cable lines
(and bell owns all the phone lines) so you're ultimately forced to go
through one of them if you want to use the infrastructure.
so,
reacting further to the monopoly, the court ruled that the companies
that own the lines have to sell service to smaller isps. so, the way it
works is that teksavvy buys bandwidth from cogeco, and i buy bandwidth
from teksavvy. the capitalist relation should mean that's more
expensive, because there's more managers.
but it isn't.
it's less than half the price. but what i like about teksavvy is that
they offer very basic rates. i'm on youtube all the time, and i download
a bit of music, but i don't game or watch netflix or anything like that
- and there's only one of me down here, rather than a family of 5 or 6.
my average monthly usage is much less than 30 gb - and usually closer
to 20. nor can i download faster than the internet will let me download.
so, all i need is about a 5 mbps line with a 50 gb limit. what i have
is a 6 mbps line with a 75 gb limit (for $25/month) - and 99 months out
of 100, i'm not going to get close to it. even if i were to download 50
gb of libraries in peak hours, i'd still only be something like 73 gb
for the month.
i don't want to push it, though.
teksavvy
didn't like the ruling. so, what they've done is put the download limit
down (and, like i say, 75 gb is usually way more than sufficient for
me) and allow unlimited downloads over night, from 2-8 am. it's a good
solution for gamers, i guess, who are usually up all night, anyways.
for me, waiting until after 2 to suck this down is an isolated thing to make sure i don't hit the limit...
but,
i don't need a browser for that, so i should be able to work overnight.
i've got a few things to play with, hopefully one of them gives me what
i want right away....
i should point out that i have
youtube defaulted to the lowest quality level, though. this isn't for
bandwidth reasons, it's because my internet tv is a pIII that shipped
with windows 98 on it, so i'm trying not to max it out. well, that and i
just use it to watch lectures and news shows...
i
don't need noam chomsky's wrinkles or paul jay's bald head beaming at me
in crystal clear high definition or who-gives-a-fuck p.