nba & voip don't mix

(yes, this post does contain basketball-related content. thus xz: “bring. it. on.”)

i watched my first preseason nba games of the season on tnt and tbs today, tivoed from yesterday. first it was miami vs. atlanta, who i think they’re obligated to show on tv at least once a year since turner has its hq in atlanta. otherwise, why would anyone show such a wrecthed team? as for miami, shaq looks good, leaner, fitter, and definitely motivated. it’s weird seeing him in black, although he’s now got his old number, 32, back.

as for the second game, it was the lakers vs. the clippers. kobe looked pretty good, although he had a lot of plays where he was trying to do something fantastic but couldn’t quite follow through. it could be preseason legs, but i feel that the whole season’s going to be watching kobe chuck a lot of shots and hope that most of them go in. no season tickets this year, as i don’t know where we’ll be. i do miss those laker girls, though.

it did sound like they were trying to use voice over ip for broadcasting the games, because frequently during the game the commentary would break off in a stutter effect and then come back on. which is exactly how my voip service sounds like when i’m on a call and my computer’s downloading something fierce. they’re supposed to have quality of service features to prevent this and prioritize this, but i don’t think they work that well, as kurtis has another voip provider and he gets the same experience.

i did see that my dsl provider, speakeasy, is now starting their own voip service. they claim that because they own the dsl, they can actually do effective QoS so you won’t get the stutter. but who knows? do i really want to switch everything around just to see? not really.

i’m actually a litte more excited about their onelink service, which allows me to have a dedicated dsl line without having to keep a phone line active. but am i really confident (foolish) enough to cut all the cords?

maybe if i lived in taiwan and had nationwide wifi as a backup…

Posted at October 23, 2004 8:36 PM