Blogging during the streaming of the democratic debate

I wrote this last night as I "watched" the democratic debate streaming from MSNBC's website. Just a frustrating personal experience that adds to overall debate regarding the state of broadband.

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I'm currently typing this as I'm staring at the nbc peacock-turned-loading wheel symbol that tells me to "wait for a few minutes and if we're not back, just wait longer."

I don't have cable. It's expensive and Comcast, the only provider, clearly mistreats their subscribers. Plus TV would be a serious distraction. Instead I get wireless "broadband" from a different anti-consumer company, ATT (my only other choice). So I planned to watch the debate on MSNBC's website. At first it was all good. I had to sit through one ad at the start, but I can handle that. After the ad, for 5 minutes the debate streamed beautifully, so then I got a little adventurous and clicked the full-screen button. Then, as if by some miracle, the picture got bigger, the resolution was decent, and the stream didn't degrade.

I watched full-screen, live, streaming video for about 10 minutes. Clinton and Obama were even talking back and forth about specific issues regarding health care policy and not about Brian Williams' empty horse race fluff.

It felt like I was peering into some glorious future. I was timid, but I dare not look away.

Then the video started to break up and the audio began to stutter. Quick as a flash I minimized, but to no avail. The audio began chirping. So I closed out and went back again. Watched another ad and got back to the debate. 5 minutes went by, and it started to break up again. I closed out, went back, watched ad. This ritual repeated every 5 to 10 minutes, but each time, somehow the ad managed to come through no problem.

Now I'm just watching the peacock twirl. In the middle of an Obama rebuttal, the stream just dried up, his movements slowed to crawl, and then ... nothing. Ridiculous. There is no good reason why we shouldn't be able to get decent broadband in this country. Is this the ISPs fault? Most likely. Is it the FCCs fault? Right again. Is it MSNBC's fault? Not sure. Is it the consumers' fault, as firms like Comcast and ATT would suggest, for "hogging bandwidth?" No it is not.

We need to get this problem fixed, because if we let the regulators and the providers continue to hold hands all the way to the bank, our service will never improve.

Wow, now its back. But the aspect ratio is off, the picture is stretched. The candidates heads look a little wide; Tim Russert's takes up the entire window. : )

What's more is that this "service" coincides with a prediction by the Telecommunications Industry Association (a trade group for ISPs) that despite projected downturns in the overall economy, the telecommunications sector will see strong growth in the next 3 years. Broadband revenue is expected to grow at over 13 percent a year until 2011. See this article from Infoworld.