[ale] Comcast Caps Data at 250G/Month

[Mike Harrison]

Jim Popovitch wrote:
> to do public good in their own search for private gain. Electric power
> distribution and electronic communications (phone, internet, push/cable
> video come to mind) are two market sets which suffer from the
> economics/physics of the "last mile" problem which gives incumbent
> providers a tremendous competative advantage.

Instead of calling them "incumbent" providers, Just think if them
as the first provider that raised and spent the capital to install
the infrastructure. I'm one of the people that think that the "public 
right of way" should be open to anyone that can raise the capital
and install the facilities to do it. And I'm not "bench racing",
I have actually done it and helped others do it.

The good news is, the "incumbent" often has legacy technology in place,
and may be too large to upgrade small areas or service specific areas.
Opportunity awaits.

And.. in that vain, I'm now helping electric utilities install
various networking technologies for both meter/energy metering
and control as well as other things.

To be a little bit more on topic: The kewl thing is the Utilities
outside the USA are much more open to running their critical servers
on Linux than the inside the USA ones, although several meter 
manufacturers are now using Linux or a derivitive in meters, 
communications infrastructure and data centers. Inside the USA
they call them "Appliances" and put them in funny boxen to not
look like computers.  --Mike--