Well it was bound to happen. Some ISP decided to limit it’s users to a cap on how much bandwidth they can have. If I remember correctly when I signed up I was given a 4MegaBit pipe cable modem and payed for it monthly as a service. It did not secifiy how much bandwidth I used. Now I’m not against that model but give me a cost reduction then if I don’t use that bandwidth… So instead of a flat 50 bucks per month for useage and then overage costs… Give me a plan where I pay for what I use. So if I use less I play less.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080122-shooting-yourself-in-the-foot-time-warners-usage-caps.html

I’m guessing they will not go for that. $$ always wins.

You either love or hate the iphone. I am of the mind set that I love it with an envy type love. I would own one if it would work with Exchange. I know, pure iphone lovers will tell me that there are work arounds. But, I rely too much on my calendar and contacts to give up my somewhat trusty Samsung Blackjack.

There is a great article on how Apple used the iphone to help change the wireless world. And I agree. They took a product that everyone uses, made it cool, sleak, and easy to use. And then got a provider to work with them. What a great business decision.

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/16-02/ff_iphone

AT&T just said that it may filter internet content. Right on the heals of comcast getting sued for a few billion dollars (that will never go through). But what I am seeing is that providers do not get it. Filtering content (bittorrent or P2P) is not the solution. I do understand that the more bandwidth people use the more it costs the providers, but filtering is not the way to go. The bandwidth hogs now are video, p2p, and bitttorrent, but in the future it will be other things. For example, VOIP (2 lines at your house, one for parents and other for kids) then it will be IPTV (your television).

Imagine that you are getting ready to watch the superbowl on your 70inch plasma tv and your IPTV cannel cannot provide a signal to fill the screen (think of a youtube video) because they decided to limit (filter) the rates the day of the superbowl.

So in my eyes filtering is not a solution. Bittorrent is not the issue, but just a service that is being singledout because people use it. As people become reliant on their broadband connections (I already am) this will become more of an issue.

I am on both sides of the fense. 1. a home owner should own the responsibility to look over their finances. 2. a bank should make solid loans. Here is a great article explaining how the banking got off track.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7164898.stm

I have been very happy with my smartphone (cingular blackjack) however there are a lot of people who are not. When I got my phone in August the sales team said an update was coming for windows mobile6 (the os). I was excited for this since I understood that wm6 is much faster and more stable than the existing wm5. I started watching the forums at ATT for the update and then realized that there are some really unhappy people out there. It appears that ATT has been promising this for a long time but has not communicated or updated anyone on the progress
http://forums.wireless.att.com/cng/board/message?board.id=samsung&thread.id=44529&view=by_date_ascending&page=110
If you look at the form above it is really interesting to see how people can get mad.
Instead of waiting I decided to grab a Leaked ROM for wm6 that is availble all over the internet. It is basically a beta release from Microsoft to ATT. A few people are working on this rom to make it work well.

The end resolve is that the WM6 version of the OS is faster, better on the battery, better looking and has not crashed yet. It was well worth my 30 min to find the ROM and install. Even though I am not supported by att any more, I think I can handle it.