Podcasting What Geeks Really Want To Hear

Welcome to the new Geek Muse blog!

We’re done with Simple PHP Blog, although it has served us well over the last year and half. We’re now using WordPress via DreamHost. Things should be much faster and there will hopefully be less blog spam. I’ve moved over a bunch of the old entries; however, comments did not transfer. Speaking of comments, you must now get an account with the Geek Muse blog before you can post comments. It’s fairly painless and will help us keep down on spam.

I’m looking forward to working with the new blog (as I can now use Ecto and other blogging tools) and I hope that our little blog will get a little more use out of us, as well as all of our listeners.

Where are the broadband price wars? (Ars Technica)

What is clear is that US broadband isn’t so hot when compared to what’s available in other countries. In Japan, symmetrical 100Mbps connections can be had for under $35 per month, while South Koreans can get fast fiber optic connections for $32. Burstein notes that in France, “twice the speed, 60 channels of TV, and free international calls have settled at about €30, or $40. The French package was closer to $30 when introduced—half the American price without TV, and less than a third of the U.S. ‘triple play’ price.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.  I just “upgraded” my DSL services from 1.5Mb down/1.0Mb up to 3.0Mb down/640k up.  So far, I’m pretty unhappy.  I’m paying more for something that seems worse (or at least near equal) to me so far.  The thing is, somebody else in my area may be paying the same amount and be getting 7.0Mb down and 900k up.  WTF?  If my line can’t handle that speed they should either charge me less or upgrade my line. I’m most likely going to be giving my provider a call tomorrow!

Even so, I’m not getting anywhere near 100Mbps for my $40+/month.  Something seriously needs to happen in the U.S. to address DSL service.