We're so close to losing the Internet - right now! Hello!

Basically there's two phone systems in the UK. The old BT network which is copper wire from the local exchange to your house and the newer fibre network. If you live in a city or town then fibre is probably installed right up to the pavement outside your house. If you live in rural areas you'll almost certainly have to use the existing phone line and being miles from the exchange adds to the . After BT was privatised it was forced to share it's network "to encourage competition" so various alternatives have sprung up. They offer great things and then seem to struggle to come up with the promised service. There's some pretty poor services on offer in the UK. One such is a 2MB connection capped to 2gig a month! This costs around £18 a month (US$31). I pay £35 a month (US$61) for a 4MB line (4MB down and a small upload speed). That's uncapped but covers only the net connection, the TV is another £10 (US$17.50) a month and then there's the "line rental" on the phone, that's another £10 a month plus whatever calls we make.

The alternatives, some of which are initially quite attractive, "up to 8MB for £18 a month" for example, require an active BT line. I'm with the company that has the fibre network so I have one choice. It's pricey, but it's always works and it's fast. The catch with the alternative choices is the little phrase "up to" before the alleged line speed. So "up to 8MB" might actually mean that at times it isn't anywhere near 8MB and you have no recourse because you were plainly told "up to" 8MB whereas I get 4MB reliably and it's fibre to about 6 feet away from where I'm sitting.

For the amusement of all LXers', I post this joke I received a while back regarding cattle. Certain names have been change to protect...Me.

Enjoy.

A cowboy was herding his cattle in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in The Gimp and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.

He then accesses a MySQL database through an ODBC connected OO-Calc spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry, and after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi- tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the cowboy. "Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know anything about my business."

"Now give me back my DOG."