Longrider

27
Nov
2009

Internet Woes

Filed under: French Matters,General Rants,Personal Stuff,Science and Technology — Longrider @ 20:56

One of the very few frustrations about living in rural France is Internet Access. We are too far from the exchange to get ADSL. Therefore our options are limited. Dialup through France Telecom/Orange is marginally less painful than tearing one’s toenails out with red hot tongs. Consequently, we signed with Vivéole. Given that a 1Gb/s deal costs the equivalent of what I was paying in the UK for a rather faster service, I can’t say that I’m that happy, but beggars can’t choose and all that.

However…

Recently we have noticed performance dropping off. Yesterday, Mrs L was tearing her hair out with frustration as pages wouldn’t load and it kept hanging before grinding to a complete halt. A little investigation led me to the fair use policy:

La F.U.P. (Fair  Use Policy) est  un ajustement  des débits en fonction des volumes téléchargés. Il n’y a pas de coupure de service, pas de surtaxe, et  le téléchargement  est  illimité. La FUP est  nécessaire pour  une bonne répartition de la bande passante satellite et  s’ajuste sur  un mois, avec une remise à zéro des compteurs de téléchargement  à date fixe mensuelle.

Côté émission :

Si plus de 250 Mo sont envoyés dans le mois, la vitesse d’émission est limitée à 96 kb/s
Si plus de 350 Mo sont envoyés dans le mois, la vitesse d’émission est limitée à 64 kb/s
Si plus de 500 Mo sont envoyés dans le mois, la vitesse d’émission est limitée à 32 kb/s
Si plus de 700 Mo sont envoyés dans le mois, la vitesse d’émission est limitée à 16 kb/s

Côté réception :

Si plus de 1400 Mo sont transférés dans le mois, la vitesse de réception est limitée à 768 kb/s
Si plus de 2000 Mo sont transférés dans le mois, la vitesse de réception est limitée à 512 kb/s
Si plus de 2500 Mo sont transférés dans le mois, la vitesse de réception est limitée à 384 kb/s
Si plus de 3000 Mo sont transférés dans le mois, la vitesse de réception est limitée à 256 kb/s
Si plus de 3500 Mo sont transférés dans le mois, la vitesse de réception est limitée à 128 kb/s
Si plus de 5000 Mo sont transférés dans le mois, la vitesse de réception est limitée à 64 kb/s

If you look at this, once you start to use the service, the ISP starts to strangle your speed. Not for Vivéole a straightforward upper limit, they start cranking down from the outset. Now, I don’t much approve of fair use policies to start with as the only fair use is that the customer gets what they pay for. Like other service providers, Vivéole is happy to take my money for something I will never see, but unlike other service providers, they have made an art form of it. Taking the piss doesn’t come close to describing this “policy”.

If there was an alternative, I would take my business elsewhere. Unfortunately, there is no elsewhere to take my business to. I could upgrade to double the “speed” for double the price, but as that means rewarding them further for punishing me for the effrontery of expecting to get what I have paid for (and I still won’t be getting what I will be paying for), I am somewhat reluctant.

And, let me say that the one thing that really ticks me off about France is that customer service post purchase can be problematic – particularly with online retailers who have contact pages that don’t actually work…

All that said, balanced against quality of life, I’ll stick with it and see how things develop. Nothing is perfect and this isn’t going to make me pack my bags and head Blightywards to live. In the meantime, I’m stuck with 64kb/s until the 3rd December. Well, Mrs L is. I’m in the UK on my mobile internet, which is postively whizzing along. Ahem…
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Copyright©2009 Longrider

27
Nov
2009

Quelle Surprise

Filed under: Civil Liberties,General News,Political,Transport — Longrider @ 20:28

Via the Englishman I see that the Swindon experiment is going well.

FOUR months on from the scrapping of speed cameras in Swindon no increase in accidents has been reported on the roads affected.

Well, bugger me sideways, I never saw that one coming. Of course there has been no increase in accidents reported – because there is no evidence whatsoever that speed cameras reduced them in the first place. What speed cameras do is cause a Mexican wave effect as drivers hit the brakes and then accelerate irrespective of whether they are within the posted limit or not.

Asked at Monday’s Scrutiny Committee meeting what impact there had been since the decision Coun Greenhalgh (Con, Freshbrook and Grange Park) said there had been no discernible effect on speed levels.

Again, to anyone with a modicum of common sense, this is a statement of the blindingly obvious. Speed cameras do not reduce speed – except within the immediate vicinity of the camera, when drivers hit the brakes and then accelerate irrespective of whether they are travelling within the posted limit or not. So, taking the damned things away has no effect on either speed or accident rates, because the cameras had no positive effect to start with. They are a revenue raising device beloved of the car hating brigade that have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with spite. Frankly, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Greenhalgh continues:

“There has been no increase in accidents at those locations. Speed is an issue but there’s no evidence speeds have increased on those roads. We often get people saying speeds are too fast on a certain road then, when we do some analysis, we don’t get any evidence of that.”

Well, ain’t that a surprise… People have perceptions about speed that bear no relationship to actual speed. For the most part, drivers are not seeking to drive maniacally fast. Yes, of course there are the idiots, but there will always be the idiots no matter what is done by moronic politicans to make us all safe. And the idiots will not merely be driving too fast for the conditions, they will also be tailgating, changing lanes without checking properly and failing to pay attention to the traffic cionditions. These are behaviours that a police traffic officer will be able to discern. They are not behaviours that a speed camera will pick up.

Coun Greenhalgh said the £320,000 road safety budget was now being directed to other areas.

He said: “We are now refocusing our resources on delivering elements such as proper accident investigation.

“We are also looking at things like signage and at road layout. We need to focus on methods that make it harder for people to speed in the first place.”

This sounds like pragmatic common sense to me. More power to Swindon’s elbow, say I.

There is, however, always one…

Scrutiny chairman Coun Derique Montaut (Lab, Central) pointed out that the council was still failing on its promise to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on Swindon’s roads by 40 per cent from the 2005 figure.

And it is no surprise that he is Labour, is it? 40% is one hell of a target, frankly – and, besides, as Coun Greenhalgh points out:

“There are a number of things we can do to reduce the risk but we cannot prevent people from getting killed on our roads.”

Of course not.

“Road users have to take responsibility for their actions.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. A rare outbreak of common sense. Is this a recovery or merely green shoots I see? Am I being optimistic or will those green shoots be devoured by the slugs and snails?

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