[LINK] Oh dear (X2)

[Sam Hinton]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> I had a look at my incoming data with the dial up connection icon in the
> tool bar at the bottom of my screen just now.  I downloaded about 85
> messages this morning and about 3 webpages with graphics turned off.  My
> total was sitting at 1,100,000 bytes already.  So if a person has all the
> info coming in, I can see that it would add up quickly.  Telstra may be
> counting correctly, but just ripping off customers with the idea that 100Meg
> is a lot of data when actually it's very little in the bloated age of
> webpage design today.

This is precisely my concern, Jan.  

Seems to me that Telstra are flogging a fast service, which implies that
you CAN download lots of material, indeed encourages people to.

Telstra's ad blurb (http://www.bigpond.com/advance/what/index.htm):

"The fact is, traditional dial up services just can't match the
performance of Telstra Big Pond Advance. This means that as well as news,
information and websites, you can download full-screen streaming video,
high-quality digital music and multimedia clips in just the blink of an
eye."

How many minutes/seconds of "streaming video" can you download up to the
100Meg limit? I reckon there's going to be a number of people stung by
this.  At best it's an oversight on Telstra's part; at worst, it's a 
cynical exploitation of a public that, largely, does not have enough
technical understanding of the technology to make an informed decision.

Of course, I'm sure the truth in somewhere in between.

Sam.
 
________________________________________________________
S M Hinton                   Department of Media Studies	
Research Student                School of Arts and Media
Mobile: +61 0417 241703              La Trobe University
Phone:  +61 3 9479 2501              Bundoora, Australia