[cvsnt] mirror/synchronize cvs repositories (CVSNTUpd) ?

[Gerhard Fiedler]

I'm not really sure where you are going with this. Did you read my last
message? I wrote about a team in a place without broadband. Not a company
not signing up for broadband because of bean counting, but a team living
and working in a place without broadband access available. Believe it or
not, this is reality, no matter what any telecom statistics say.

Fact is that the major part of Brazil is without broadband Internet access.
Overall broadband adoption rates are nice, but did you care to look at the
details? At the absolute figures? Like percent of territory covered? I'm
currently looking for a new place, and since broadband is a must for me,
the possible places are /severely/ restricted, even in the state of Sao
Paulo, which has the best infrastructure of all Brazilian states. It's not
like just moving somewhere and calling the local provider to hook you up.
If you need it, you need to carefully check where it is available. Even in
cities where it is available in principle, it is not available in all
neighborhoods. Look at a state with less infrastructure, and there are
many, and things get a bit easier. It's just not there, outside of maybe
the state capital.

So where are you going with this? No need to use dial-up in Brazil? What
would one do in one of the many places without broadband access? Relocate,
of course. But people may have other reasons, besides work, to live where
they live.

Break-even point? Break even with what? Direct satellite link? That breaks
the numbers before it breaks even, even for a mid-sized team. Same for a T1
line in many places.

You are talking very generically. I don't say that there are no places
where your math applies -- there probably are many --, but you seem to say
that it applies everywhere. I know for a fact that there are /many/ places
where my "math" applies. And for working with teams in those places,
mirrored repositories (to get back to the topic) may make sense, for the
scenario I described. Or not? And why not if not? What is the alternative
(besides, of course, not working with people who don't have broadband
access)?


Tony Hoyle wrote:

> Actually flat rate dialup is quite rare (used to work in telecoms so I 
> used to be able to run comparisons of these kinds of things.. at one 
> point I could have given you the break even point for Brazil down to the 
> nearest second :) ) 

Not sure what you call "rare" (I think flat rate is the norm in the USA, at
least it was for a long time) and whether that's relevant, but currently
there is in many places of Brazil a flat rate of around 100 BRL/month for a
phone line plus 24/7 dial-up Internet access. 

> ADSL, Cable, etc. are normally flat rate so the maths work out the same -
> above a certain usage (quite low normally) you're better off with a
> broadband connection. 

Where it exists, yes (except for the above mentioned flat rate, of course,
but then, of course, where it is available one gets it even if it's more
expensive). But what if there is no broadband available to work out the
math? 

> Brazil has one of the fastest broadband adoption rates in the world,
> btw. so it's hardly a backwater...  

Rates are not a good measurement for status, and no statistic helps you if
you're on the wrong side of the numbers. 3 M subscribers (which is
residential plus commercial) out of 170 M population total. Only available
in major urban areas, and in the one or two densest populated states also
in smaller urban areas. The rest (the major part) of the country is on
dial-up. Statistics about Brazil are usually not easy to read, for one
thing because a large part of the economic activity happens in the Greater
Sao Paulo area, with some 25+ M people, which is of course an urban area
with a pretty good infrastructure, and is not typical at all for the
remaining 99% of Brazilian territory.