Sunday, 20 May 2007

unlimited* internet access!

"From $14.97 a mth for 12 mths plus no connection fee and free modem?"
"High speed internet for fast downloads of email, web pages and files. No tying up your phone line and no need to dial up."
"Blisteringly fast download speeds"
"Connect using your phone line; available to over 85% of the population"
"Freedom to roam and connect while on the move; coverage to 98% of the population"
"...plan starts from $59.95 per month with download limit of 12 GB, download speeds of up to 8 Mbps and upload speeds of 128 kbps."

Source: Google Websearch - www.google.com - search keywords are unrevealed for it might give identities of the companies that are related to the mentioned advertisements.
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the above are just some advertisements about internet broadband plans on the web - from google.com.

these internet providers have offered us, the internet users - the too-good internet plans. let's take the 60GB plan for instance. can we imagine how big 60GB is?! roughly, 60GB = 15,000 songs (4MB@) = 85 full-length videos (700MB@) = 499 hours of standard 320 x 420 px YouTube video streaming. okay, so if we watch videos from youtube - that's not considered to be illegal (piracy), but now there are ways to download videos from youtube as well (won't be mentioned).

i think, in a way, these internet plans are encouraging us to be online 24/7 - because of the conditions or the freedom that they've given us. they are giving us the unlimited* access of high-speed internet connection - which i can't see the harm of having it. but the bandwidth capacity is just absurd. what's the purpose of providing 60GB per month? if not to encourage the internet users to download more and more songs and videos? isn't it, in a way, supporting the act of pirating media - mostly songs and videos? why do people download songs and videos in the first place? simply because they can! shouldn't the artists and record companies or even the government take actions on these internet providers or make a law on internet plans instead? yet the advertisements and labels put us sort of under the spotlight - almost making us feel guilty if we download something off the internet.

i remember back in the old days of internet dial-up - i live in that era, my life would be horrible. it might take approximately 1 minute to upload a photo or load a page. and i had to constantly check on the 2 green blinking light computers on the taskbar (windows ruled the internet world back then). but now it might take 0.10 - 0.30 seconds for google to load a page - with broadband, that is. the faster the internet connection is, the faster we finish our downloads, the more we download stuff off the net.

*before i start blabbering about this, i just want to say that i have no intentions to blame or criticise anyone or anybody or anything in any fashion.*

i think the second point why people download and rip softwares and songs and videos are because they don't want to or can't afford to buy or pay for it. why does everything has to be expensive? softwares - at least $100 for a pack while we can download it off from the internet - from a website. say that someone's doing a design course, needs one of the design softwares so damn badly. he can't afford it - and he can't stay at uni all day long - he has no choice but to download it from the internet. is it wrong to do such thing? from another point of view, he can download it because he has the unlimited* internet access.

but let's not blame the internet providers as well. it's about choices and choice. choices - what's available. choice - our own personal actions and responsibilities relations.

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