The phone system break up has had it\'s plus and minuses. We can now shop for cheaper long distance rates but multiple severs has opened the door for them going hog wild in several directions. Seems now that the Fed has more than one neck to keep its foot on, AT&T has decided it\'s okay to try and openly swindle consumers now that being broken up is no longer a threat. The latest I heard is numerous complaints about the speed of BB in one area being only slightly faster than dial up, after doing heavy promo for sign ups with the fine print in the ads and contracts reading there is no guarantee of a minimum speed.
Another good one in the news a month or so ago was AT&T sending out a calling card worth 100 free hours for signing up for their long distance service. The catch is once you used the free hours, at $.96 per min. (very steep) the rate leaped to $3.95 per min. (OMG!). I could go on with more but you get the idea, freed of their monopoly and the Feds focus that went along with it, they feel they can afford to be downright dirty tricky bastards.
MS is a different story. Never a true monopoly they\'ve felt free to be bastards all along. My ideal is not to see them broken completely (well, we can always hope) but only to see the core of their closed OS become public domain. Failing that, even preferably, would be to see consumers slowly turn to an alternative OS owned by noone. Behold;
PS3 and Linux, the Trojan horse makes ready to enter the MS kingdom. Bill, we have a seat behind Steve waiting for you, Window users all over the globe would like nothing better than to see your ass take it. What\'s that Bill? xbox2 will keep the mighty horse at bay? In your dreams!
Oh sorry, I do tend to ramble on. Don\'t I?