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OPINION
7A
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY AUGUST 29.2008
Bandwidth limits hinder Web's growth
The beautiful thing about the Internet is its simplicity. If you want to go to a Web site, you open your browser and type in the address. If you want to see a picture of a cat, but don't know a Web site that has one, you just go to a search engine and type in "cat," and you have 962 million options. However, the simplicity of the Internet doesn't go much further than that, especially when it comes to companies whose business models are the Internet.
The three largest Internet Service Providers, also called ISPs, in the country may switch over to a service that includes a cap on how much data can be transferred in a given time (usually one month), called bandwidth limits or consumption-based billing.
This is especially poignant because of the business policies of Lawrence's local ISP, Sunflower Broadband.
The cheapest service Sunflower provides is a $14.99 plan that has a six gigabit limit.
What does that mean? The average file size on Youtube is 10 megabytes, meaning you get to watch approximately 600 videos a month as long if they are close to the average size. That's not a problem. There's no way Idade wade through 600 music videos, rickrolls and instructional videos in just 30 days, but again it isn't that simple.
Every single teeny-tiny bit of information transferred gets thrown into your bandwidth total. All those annoying ads, all those Facebook photos, every single letter on every single Web page — all of them go toward your total. And once your total hits 6.01 gigabytes, you get to pay extra for every gigabyte you
go over.
Sunflower Broadband is not alone in this practice. They are simply following the best business plan for the short term.
But bandwidth limits are a short-term solution. Sunflower claims to have one of the fastest Internet connections in the country at 21 megabytes per second. This may be true, but being the best in a country known for having horrible Internet speeds (and a ridiculously low growth rate on that speed, somewhere in the realm of 0.4 megabytes per second a year) is the same as being the best athlete on a team that doesn't make the playoffs.
Who cares? Hell, the average Internet speed in Japan is as much as 61 megabytes per second, according to PCWorld.com.
There's more to the issue than pure dollars and cents, however. If simplicity makes the Internet beautiful, innovation makes it great. From streaming video rentals from Blockbuster and Netflix to phone calls from a computer using Skype, the Internet is changing the way everything is done.
In the end, ISPs are just protecting their interests. They are trying to increase speeds, as well as revenue, and bandwidth limits are the easiest way to do just that.
But if ISPs look on this as a long-term business model, though, the United States will quickly fall behind the rest of the world in online capabilities.
Companies will continue pushing the limits of the Internet's capabilities, and the rest of the developed world has already shown that they are ahead of our curve on infrastructure development.
Before you know it, Europeans will be going to highdef.youtube.com. and we'll be visiting stoneage.youtube.com.
Marvin is a Shawnee junior in English.
Changing drinking age would hurt high schools
RECENT COMMENTS
inking age
@KANSAN.COM
While railing against MADD you did nothing to support your point (Editorial: University should rethink approach to students' drinking, Aug. 27). Lowering the drinking age is a bad idea. It will make some high school seniors legal. It will make a bad high school drinking scene worse. It is irresponsible of these colleges' chancellors and presidents to suggest that the drinking age is what contributes to binge drinking.
You are correct that the University should rethink its approach, but the answer is not jumping on the 18 bandwagon. It is about what it has always been about: education and peer pressure.
—excerpted from a comment by empirelucas
Allow drivers to speed if they want to pay for it
I'm all for people slowing down and driving more efficiently; however, I don't think the government should be the one doing it (Editorial: Reducing
speed limit not big enough of a solution, Aug. 26).
People's pocketbooks are already slowing them down, with many people driving under the speed limit on the interstate in an effort to save gas money.
If I want to drive my Honda at 80 mph down the interstate, I should be allowed to.
You are more than welcome to drive however slow you want to. Why shouldn't I still have the freedom to spend less time driving?
—excerpted from a comment by sischlaq
The problem is that your freedom limits the rest of our freedoms in the long term. I reluctantly have to support this. Peak oil is going to be reached any year now if it hasn't been reached already, and life is already starting to get a little harder. This will only continue in the next few years.
Peak oil should prompt energy conversation
—excerpted from a comment by Hendrix 321
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kanan Aesthetic Board are Alon
Doherty, Jenny Hartz, Lauren Keith, Patrick de
Oliviara, Ray Segebert and Ian Stanford.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
How to avoid spending more time with Fergie
These days, celebrities ooze out of every pore of the face of American culture. Gossip about who's dating who or what was found in which actor's glove box or which actress adopted a baby from what impoverished nation has infiltrated our TV shows, newspapers and the Web in a slow, sad march toward ubiquity. Celebrities have created a giant zit that no amount of Clearasil will be able to vanquish.
There is one medium that has remained largely untarnished by this scourge, until now.
People WEEKLY
If you're wondering what redeeming quality sewage has, try teaching young mutant turtles the
"Surely, you may be saying aloud to the newspaper while everybody around you stares in confusion, "I can still play video games without seeing Fergie's face!"
How wrong you are.
EA's concoction of celebrity and video games is more akin to a combination of sewage and pure sugar: Neither serves much purpose alone, but together they go beyond being pointless and become harmful. Each element removes whatever redeeming qualities the other may have had before their unholy marriage.
The creator was later vindicated after his creation was proven to be delicious, but EA is unlikely to receive the same validation.
The necessity of this game is questionable. The convergence of these two cultural forces has been unseen since the maker of Reese's Cups was accused of witchcraft after somehow getting peanut butter into chocolate and vice-versa.
Earlier this month, Electronic Arts unveiled a Nintendo Wii game called "Celebrity Sports Showdown." Gamers select a star from a vaunted roster that includes Kelly Furtado, Avril Lavigne and Keith Urban to compete in sports like slalom skiing, curling and "smash badminton," so called in an apparent attempt to make badminton sound exciting. That succeeds about as well as calling a live session of Congress on C-SPAN "smash filibustering."
FERGIES LOVELY
LADY HUMPS
OR BABY BUMP!
MARIAM SAIFAN
A CELEBRITY'S BILLION DOLLAR WEDDING RING!
way of the ninja in a dry sewer and get back to me.
But never has the idea of putting big names in ridiculous situations been so interactive. The same faces that stare back at us every time we wait in line at the grocery store now threaten to invade the activity many of us use to escape them. The same people who sell pictures of
To be fair, inane celebrity competition is far from a novel concept. America has always liked to see its famous folks do random, stupid crap. Look at the 1970s, when "Battle of the Network Stars" pitted Mr. Kotter and Kojak against each other in an epic tug-of-war battle that until that point had only been a reality in the feverish dreams of television addicts. Look back even further to 1804 when Aaron Burr competed against Alexander Hamilton in the pistol duel as part of an ill-conceived "Get Out the Vote" campaign (a public stunt that would serve as a predecessor to Diddy's less literal "Vote or Die" movement two centuries later).
Nichols is an Overland park sophomore in creative writing.
Fight the star power. Pop the zit.
their children for millions are now licensing their names and likenesses for more cash and exposure.
Our society doles out fame to people desperate enough to keep themselves in the spotlight. We're letting people profit just for existing. This points to a culture that worships names and not accomplishments. We award recognition to people because we recognize them. It's a trend that must be stopped.
But it's not as easy as just not buying the game. We need to make sure nobody buys the game when it comes out this holiday season. If we don't march on Best Buy with picket signs that read "Get outta my Wii, LeeAnn Rimes!" soon we will have no choice but to obey our celebrity overlords as they destroy the Constitution and replace it with People magazine.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Here's some of the most important information that you may have missed from this week's campus news. Check out kansan.com for full stories and to leave comments.
Cost in dollars to park in Lot 90 and 72 for football games last year. This season, visitors must pay $20 to park in these lots.
THE CONTEXT
The new price may deter some people from driving to the opening game, which may help clear campus out sooner, but the University has yet to address parking for students, faculty and staff who need to use the buildings around these lots for academics. We should not be forced to pay to use campus buildings.
THE BIG PICTURE
THE CONTEXT
Percent of 18- to 24-year-olds who are registered to vote, according to the 2004 census.
THE BIG PICTURE
Multiple groups have been urging students to register to vote and claim to have seen increased numbers of interested students. But the length of this presidential campaign season may be turning some members of the younger generation off. Turn off your TV until mid-October, and you'll probably still be caught up on all of the political "news." But vote.
THE CONTEXT
The amount in millions of dollars that the University is looking to cut from its overall budget next year.
THE BIG PICTURE
As the largest of the state universities, KU will face the harshest cuts. There is no good place to take money from, and the University says it will raise tuition as a last resort but is "planning for the worst." Faculty and staff positions are likely to be cut, but students should keep a close eye on what stays and what goes.
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call 785-864-0500.
Always use protection.
Don't eat sushi. Two words: bad gas.
--ing object?
I love getting stoned and reading this. It makes me feel closer to everybody.
Spam.
I just saw a commercial for the movie "College." I want to know why I am not having amazing three-ways with blonde sorority girls. Oh wait, its because I'm intelligent.
Whoa... Heath Ledger died?!
I love how people put lost ads on Free for All, that say "Let me know if you find it." How the hell will we find you to tell you we found the missing object?
I love when people get into anonymous fights on Free for All
Obama is my Christ.
--liberal or conservative.
Obama may very well be the antichrist.
--liberal or conservative.
Page 1 of Ad: KFC, Page 2:
Firestone. Page 3: A&W, Page
4: "Excess tummy flap may not
be your fault" quote from diet
nills I love it
I've reached a new state of indifference.
--liberal or conservative.
More than one Republican messed that party up. That party as well as the Democratic party have been on a steady self-destruct sequence since the 1970s. With the fad of neo-politics, very few students have lived with a true
As I was riding my bike near that intersection I nearly saw the coolest thing. One of those armored money trucks was about to run over some stupid people. It would have
made my day.
--nate.
The people who bitch about busses being late: it's because all the goddamn freshmen and other stupid idiots on campus don't let the bus go up by Watson Library and Stauffer-Flint. Let the bus through so we can get to class
--nate.
To the person who people watches to judge people by the way they dress and talk ... you sound like a douchebag.
You heard it here first: McCain picks Clarence Thomas as his vice-presidential running
Want more? Check out Free for All online.
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