On Tue, 2004-12-07 at 05:38 -0600, Thomas Cameron wrote: > On Tue, 2004-12-07 at 17:04 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > for dial up users around here it certainly *is* a showstopper. they > > wouldnt even dream of doing it. period. > > Where is "around here?" Are you saying that 150 megs over the course of > a whole month is not possible there? Ouch. > Sorry I'm a week late in replying, and my apologies if I resurrect a dead thread that really needed to die. However, I did feel it pertinent to comment on Thomas's notion that bandwidth is now cheap everywhere. Throughout Central America, upper-middle-class home and office users with $50/month to spare can get a 128 Kbps or even a 256 Kbps connection via DSL or cable in the big cities. This is quite reasonable. However, once outside those cities or outside that income bracket, 90% of the population is stuck with dial-up that rarely exceeds 28.8 Kbps and costs US$0.045 per minute. Now, a little math: 150MB = 1,258,291,200 bits @ 28800bps = 43691 seconds = 729 minutes This assumes a single connection, no errors, no broken connections, perfect efficiency, etc. so in reality the number of minutes billed by the phone company is going to be *significantly* larger. But even in this perfect world, those 729 minutes are going to cost $32.80/month. In countries where an accountant makes $300/month, 10% of the monthly salary of a college-educated professional *is* a big deal, in fact it *is* a showstopper for that college-educated professional. Never mind the people who make $150/month, like my receptionist for example, or that immense majority of the region for whom making that much in an office would be nothing short of heaven. For you, $30 is a nice dinner. For a sizable chunk of the human race, $30 is a week's pay. Never forget, you are one unique and valuable part of the world. But that does not mean that the entire world is like you or has some of the luxuries you do, and the repeated proposal that "bandwidth is cheap" is patently false, horribly parochial, and utterly ridiculous in MOST of that world. Cheers, -- Rodolfo J. Paiz <rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
