What is Digg?129 Comments
- HanSolo69, on 10/10/2007, -1/+103And if Digg ran the highway system you would keep passing the same exits and landmarks over and over and over again.
- SirGunslinger, on 10/10/2007, -14/+72Yeah, and if Grandma had a dick she would be Grandpa...
- diggdong, on 10/10/2007, -5/+50On the surface this seems like an apples and oranges argument. But, pay roads with private ownership is becoming an increasing issue for freedom to travel in the US.
- theNazz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+45Especially roads that were built with tax dollars now being sold to private interests to turn into toll roads that are funding foreign interests...
- CraigJ, on 10/10/2007, -6/+43and this is different from Cingular, Sprint, etc. how? If you're going to call one out, call them all out otherwise I might suspect you have some sort of agenda...
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+30If Google owned the highways then every road sign would have an 'Ads provided by Google' section. Most roads would work perfectly yet would inexplicably still have 'Under construction' signs up despite the roads being open and used by millions. There would be serious question marks over Google tracking your road usage with the privacy issues that come with it. Finally Google will only be allowed to build roads in some countries provided they do not link in certain towns and facilities onto their network.
- shagwAg3n, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16well, for the record, cingular is the new at&t :D
- godd4242, on 10/10/2007, -5/+20To everyone above me
WHOOOSHHH
This all flew right over your head. - dafragsta, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15Ted Stevens would be the toll booth operator. He's comin' out of the BOOOTH-uh! (To dump some things on your big truck, of course.)
- RonPaulsiPhone, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15Except for AT&T controlling a ton of the internet backbone and helping the NSA spy on US citizens and being the number 1 opponent of net neutrality. Basically yeah, I'll take a phone company screwing me over my phone service instead of spying on me and trying to ruin the Internet any day of the week.
- cliffoliveira, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14...and every other lane would be BREAKING.
- jmpeagle, on 10/10/2007, -3/+14subsidizing the rich by taxing the poor is a democrat/republican's wet dream so it all kind of works out.
- MellerTime, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11I don't know where you live, but around here we have the random 'Under Construction' signs anyway... If we're really lucky, someone has come along and duct-taped a black plastic trash bag over the sign, which has since started to get torn down by wind, etc. Why we couldn't just have the DOT come back out and take their $1,000 sign with them... who knows.
- Dracker, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9You'd be forced to travel a lot of roads mirrored, as overwhelming traffic would shut down the normal roads.
If you drive like an ***** your fellow drivers would bury you in dirt.
All the billboards would be labelled [PIC]
Signs would show whatever routes are popular at the moment - luckyn8, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9At least with at&t you could roll over your unused miles.
- MellerTime, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Which is, for the record, really the same as the old AT&T, just don't look too closely....
- cmdrNacho, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8no different from any other carrier.
- BufordT, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Atleast you could flip someone off, and no one else would see you do it right away. They would have to expand full tree, or view all of their replies.
- quaxon, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8they are all the same, and they are all *****. i dont understand why cell phones and the companies who provide the service in america are so far behind other countries. the cell phones in japan are literally light years ahead of us, they had iphone type cells years ago, we are falling behind in everything because we allow corporations so much ***** control. obviously they are just going to keep screwing us over because 1) the average consumer is ignorant to the fact that many other countries have much better cell phones and cell service and 2) even if we knew we wouldnt do anything to change it, like so many times before the average american will just bend over and let the corporations give it to them in the ass.
- virtualball, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Seriously, I read this and thought, "Wow, this is exactly like Alltel and Verizon!" I think people give AT&T a bad name even though every other carrier (except Revvol (Ohio carrier)) does this!
- HippyJM, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Nicely written. It has things that apply to all carriers, especially the end.
The iPhone is a good idea thats 60% executed. Its a fantastic blow job and then she quits and its blue balls. Was it worth it or no? - mapkinase, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6The fines are double in the construction area. Get it?
- Chakat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Except for those damn people with those N95 roadsters. Who the hell do they think they are, anyways, able to switch between AT&T roads, Tmobile roads, and wifi roads at will? They must be filthy dirty commies!
- thall, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7"Tax dollards need to be turned from funding highway projects to funding mass transit systems. Socialized roads has lead to urban sprawl, pollution and other environmental degradations."
Urban sprawl is taboo?? So we should all be packed like sardines into a few megacities taking the bus/train to work? Both models have their flaws....in your utopia if the transit union wants to take the city hostage because they want a raise, you're stuck without a decent transport to work until a new deal is worked out.
"Poor people would pay less taxes and middle class and rich people would be more conscious of their driving habits." It'll get more complicated than you think. Trucking companies then have to pay more in tolls, and this cost gets passed down to consumers like grocery shoppers. Now you have a case where the poor pay little to get to the store but pay more to buy food. - ygrof, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5And he would explain that the highway system is really just a system of tubes, and the mailman was late because the tubes were clogged with junk cars.
- ghpoobah, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Most of these are pretty old, but the iCar is new.
If AT&T ran the highway system, things would be different.
Only AT&T-approved cars would be allowed on the roads, all of which would be toll roads.
Drivers would have to prepay their tolls, based on the estimated number of miles they expected to drive. Those who drove fewer miles than estimated would get no refund; those who drove more would be charged for the overage at a higher rate.
The AT&T-approved Apple iCar would be limited to a top speed of 30 mph. Sales people in AT&T car showrooms would have no idea how the iCar operated.
Buyers of the iCar would be required to use it for a period of two years or to pay a penalty. In addition to the purchase price of the iCar, buyers would have to pay a one-time activation fee to get the engine to start, not to mention the taxes.
AT&T's roads would feature fluctuating speed limits. In some cases, speed limit reductions would correspond to the traffic on the road; in others, the speed limit would just drop for no apparent reason. Posted speed limits would not correspond with actual ones.
The engines powering AT&T cars would sometimes just stop, depending on the driver's location. No warning about these "dead spots" would be provided.
Many of AT&T's roads would be made of dirt, despite tax credits AT&T received to pave its roads.
AT&T-approved cars would not rely on risky user-operated windows or doors. Entering or exiting the vehicle and raising or lowering the windows would be authorized upon request by a remote AT&T operator.
For the sake of safety, passengers would not be allowed to load unauthorized food content into the vehicle. Adding and removing authorized cargo to and from the vehicle would be allowed, for a fee.
AT&T-approved cars would come equipped with an integrated digital jukebox, complete with a coin slot for easy listening. Input and output connectors would be disabled, for passenger protection.
AT&T would make horn tones available for $3.99. No transfer of music from the car's jukebox to its horn tone storage chip would be allowed.
AT&T's Terms of Operation would specify the kinds of driving allowed on the AT&T highway system. Ride sharing, trailers, off-road driving, picking up hitchhikers and cruising would all be grounds for license suspension.
Car customization would be allowed only using AT&T-approved colors and accessories.
Driving beyond the coverage of AT&T's highway network would incur roaming charges.
AT&T's road system would report the start point and end point of all trips to the National Security Agency. This information would be used for your protection.
If none of this sounds particularly appealing, don't worry. This is just one possible future of many. AT&T knows enough to stick to its core competency: innovation in telecommunications. - GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5This is why I love mobile phone operators in Britain. Consumer pressure has long since destroyed any illusions of grandeur they may have.
- Yez70, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Except AT&T has been doing it for over a century.
- jholdaway, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4If Verizon ran the highway system then you would not be able to get help if it was a humid day, the dot on your car would be pink!
- superkendall, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5It's not like this article doesn't describe every cell phone provider in existence...
- shagwAg3n, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5props for toll booth willie reference :)
- dkla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Pretty funny... good for a chuckle here and there. For all those comments above mine, please take it as such-- just a light-hearted article for a fun summer afternoon... :-)
- robojerk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Blue Screen of Death would take on a whole new meaning then..
- Otto, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Not everybody wants to live in a city. Cope with that fact.
Oh, and blocked for idiocy. - heythisismyname, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Horntones..... That's great!
- geekee, on 10/10/2007, -6/+9If the road system were run by AT&T, I'd pay far less in taxes.
- kindrobot, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3...and you could drive on a road sometime between 8am and 5pm for an hour, but they won't tell you when and if you show up late you can't drive.
- billymonster, on 10/10/2007, -4/+7and if the cable company paved roads they would go out if it rained, and for help you would have to sit on the phone for an hour.
apples and oranges. - clickwir, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3More like Golden Delicious vs Fiji. They are different, but have lots of things similar.
- ThatsUnpossible, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Most of us are already paying well over $5 to drive down public roads -- they tax you in other ways besides tolls, and they generally suck at maintaining the roads and at keeping them efficient and safe. Why? Because there's no incentive. Profit provides an incentive, as you can see in many other areas of free market economies.
A Democrat/Republican's wet dream is to tax you in indirect ways so that you can pretend you're not already paying for all the waste in government -- and that dream is a reality. - tech42er, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
- Chakat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I've had more luck with my personal phone which has tmobile service than the work phone I have with cingular. Of course, to continue the car/tollway analogy, the N95 lets you also pay lower european fares by being able to replace the toll collector with a localized device.
Of course, that'll change in a few days when the subsidy lock is finally reversed, but for now, you're stuck. - FlyboyP, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The POINT is that the business model of cellphone carriers could use some perspective. Big corporations are sticking it to the consumer because they can. It is not in their interest to run the system like a utility service, even though it is. Fifty years ago the US government would own and operate something as important to the American economy as cellphone infrastructure. That's why the Interstate system was built in the first place.
There is plenty of room for an innovative company, say Google, to come along and give us what we don't even know we want in terms of mobile voice and data. VoIP combined with the 700MHz spectrum and an ala carte pricing scheme could turn this whole game upside down. - rderveloy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4"I don’t[sic] understand why [the] cell phones and the companies who provide the service in [America] are so far behind other countries."
First off, we're not that far behind. 3G wasn’t seriously rolled out in Japan until just 2 years ago. Not only that, but Asian or European companies make most of the phones we buy. Just to name a few, LG, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung are all foreign companies that reside in either in Asia or Europe. In the case of Sony Ericsson, it’s both.
Additionally, you also have to consider that these companies have every right to distribute their latest and greatest products to their home countries before they offer them in the US. Usually, this probably has to do with a combination of trade laws, federal regulations, lack of supply, frequency spectrum (varies from country to country), and patriotism.
If Microsoft had a limited supply of their brand new game console, and they decided it was better to launch overseas first than over here, people would be upset.
Second, as for the network technology itself, it's very easy to understand once you think about it for a little bit. Japan, Korea, and Europe are smaller areas in terms of land mass. Additionally, they tend to be much more densely populated per square mile. Therefore, any company over there looking to provide service...
a) doesn't have to spend as much time and money to provide coverage simply because there is less land to cover, and...
b) has a more dense population meaning more potential customers per square mile.
Additionally, you have to consider that wireless is only wireless between your phone and the tower. Everything else is still wired and copper or fiber connections still need to be made between the tower and the rest of the network. It's obviously going to take a lot more cable, towers, and equipment to cover an area the size of the United States when compared to Japan, Korea, or Europe.
So, these areas not only have smaller networks to work with, but they also have a dense population of customers. It's not that hard to imagine that, with these considerations, companies in Japan or Europe can roll out changes and upgrades faster and easier than they can here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gsm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3g - tomi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Why don't you take it for them?
- BenCoJones, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4It's sad that consumers accept the dismal terms of service offered by major American cell phone companies, and while this analogy is highly flawed, we've got to at least realize that we could be having it a lot better, and start demanding it.
- twb010, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4FTA: "Those who drove fewer miles than estimated would get no refund; those who drove more would be charged for the overage at a higher rate."
Way to research your article. Cingular/ATT has had rollover minutes for years now, and while it isn't a refund, you still get a year to use the minutes you purchased. - jtb4, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Don't forget they would also be searching the bags in your car while you traveled down the street and reporting contraband to the police. Sick isn't it??
- grumpyrain, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2In Sydney we have several private motorways and rail lines. Let me assure you that infrastructure privatisation is simply a way of governments shielding deficits. Building motorways and rail lines costs big money, because a lot of the time you need to buy back land or tunnel under existing development. In any democracy, a deficit is an election nightmare, and it takes a visionary with guts to pull off large infrastructure projects without being trounced at the next election. If you need to dig a half billion dollar tunnel, chances are that you are going to need to involve private companies. Of course the private companies aren't in it for the good will. They want a profit, which means in the long run we pay a lot more for the infrastructure. They also like to throw things in, like road closures, or converting lanes to 'bus lanes' on the alternative routes.
Take Sydney Cross City Tunnel for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_city_tunnel
It was conceived as a way to link east and western Sydney removing the through traffic clogging the CBD streets. It was also a nice shortcut from western sydney to the eastern distributor for those heading to the airport. What did we end up with? An overpriced toll on the road, and artificial funneling of cars into the tunnel by closing lanes on the competing free routes. Because of the high price, motorists avoided it, and the traffic that used to be two lanes was stuck in a single lane.
Or take the Lane Cove tunnel converting Epping Rd (the previous main route) to one lane each way + one lane buses only each way in parts. Or take the M2 years earlier, where entrances and exits were not built if they would not flow traffic through some of the toll gates. At least the M7 has cashless per km tolling, so they actually built entrances and exits at useful places..
The problem with privatisation is that we get screwed out of the service unless we are profitable. - KnightCrawler, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Americans have this idea that anything run by the free market is better. Just look at health care in a America and you realize that it's just not true. Sometimes the government is better suited to run large operations.
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