Re: It takes all sizes (June 5)
I am on the edge of things in information technology, and value Statscan across many subject areas. In any sector of the Canadian economy, most market specialists
know what’s up. But I suggest that your “”superior”” knowledge should be placed in the framework of who reads what, and how many hard facts they have to work with. You may know and trust your issues 1 to 20, but others might want less reading time and clearly validated facts.
For the past six months I have been getting the Statscan daily. Some of it is really obscure and useless to me, so I usually spend no more than a couple of minutes at it, but if something catches my eye, then I read it in more detail. Next day, the newspapers and other media pick it up, and often my own reading or interpretation differs from theirs; so it is a useful set of primary information, not opinion driven.
Some years ago The Economist rated Statscan as one of the best (maybe it was the best) national statistical offices in the world. It sure beats most politicians, and maybe some print and electronic media types.Right now, or two to five years from now, if someone wants to see the state of the game, they will not read those 20 issues. They will get facts from Statscan.
David Croome
Re: Primus eyes $2 million in savings through CRTC ruling (June 4)
So Primus was the big secret? I think Call-Net and AT&T are correct in their interpretation of the impacts of the decision. Tech infrastructure is in fact paid for by us (the users). To charge an exorbitant “”use”” fee by incumbents to new players and be OK by the regulator is like the fox guarding the chicken coup! A monopoly (not even near an oligopoly) is irritatingly inefficient, lazy, presumptuous and prone to price gouging. Perhaps the competition should have a look?
Stuart Sutherland
Re: Broadband users launch petition to protest bit cap (June 3)
Andrew Cole states that 28 to 29 meg per hour is a high quality radio stream. That works out to 65 kilobits per second (kbps). This is just over stereo and not even close to CD quality. The average radio stream is now 128 kbps (double Cole’s stream), and still not CD quality. This stream only allows for less then 3 hours per day, nowhere close to Andrew’s quoted 180 hours per month.
Some say CD quality does not come until about .5 of a megabit per second, which would be only 44 minutes use per day, still giving you half of your advertised connection speed for browsing and e-mail. Others say it comes at around 192 kbps. You can easily find radio streams of this quality and they only allow for less than two hours’ use per day.
Cole also states that he and I have spoken about bits and bytes as well as these caps. Up to the time of printing this article he had sent me one e-mail, which was a form response that he has used with other people asking about the imposed caps. So he is not being honest and it is unfortunate that Bell has resorted to less than honorable tactics when defending its imposed monthly bit caps.
Bob Carrick
vice-president of ADSL operations and policy
Residential Broadband Users’ Association
Re: Broadband users launch petition to protest bit cap (June 3)
Ever notice how cell phones work better during weekdays when ‘Free Minutes’ plans are not in effect? As someone who uses DSL to check my bank balance and send the odd e-mail I don’t mind paying by the byte to ensure a superior level of service. I also don’t like the idea of paying the same rate as someone who downloads half a Shark disk subsystem every month.
You wouldn’t go to the gas station and expect to fill the tank of a GMC Suburban for the cost of filling the tank of a Civic. You can’t build a network without spending money. The broadband suppliers are just asking people to pay for what they use. In my world that’s a reasonable request.
James Broen
Re: Broadband users launch petition to protest bit cap (June 3)
For a list of broadband alternative providers go to http://dsl.compu-skill.ca/.
Gábor Lipták
Re: Linux firms unite to propel open source OS in enterprise (May 30)
Personally, I think this merger is a step in the right direction. Linux needs the consistency that can be achieved by following the LSB, and Linux needs improved internationalization. This merger will lead to improvements in these areas.
On the other hand, I think the business case for being a Linux distributor is weak in general, and this only seems to confirm that. The various distributors participating in this merger seem to be admitting that the domain is not rich enough to support a lot of diversity.
Randal Leavitt
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