The Drake Equation: Is anyone out there?

If you are not familiar with the Drake equation, here it is: N=R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L
Where
N is the number of intelligent civilizations that we may be able to communicate with
R is the rate of formation of stars that are suitable for life to arise (for example, supergiants are too short-lived)
fp is the the fraction of those stars that have formed planets
ne is the number of planets per system with suitable conditions for life
fl is the fraction of those planets where life actually arises
fi is the fraction of that life that becomes intelligent
fc is the fraction of that intelligent life that forms advanced civilizations and technology capable of communication (capable of sending EM radiation out into space, like radio waves)
L is the lifetime of the civilization

This equation is actually pretty simple and it makes sense. The problem is that we don't know the variables. So far, we have only come across one intelligent civilization with any type of advanced technology. Ourselves! And, quite frankly, the intelligent part may be up for debate. So how can we possibly come up with some sort of average fraction of life that becomes intelligent or develops interstellar communications? And how in the world are we supposed to come up with an average lifetime for intelligent civilizations?! There are so many unknowns in this equation. The actual values of N can range anywhere from 10 to millions with our current knowledge. Frank Drake himself gave an estimate of about 10,000 civilizations in the Milky Way.
Okay, so let's go through this and see what we get. We'll start with R, which actually IS something that scientists have a realistic estimate of--about 7 per year currently.
In the past few years we have begun to find that most stars do actually have planets around them. We are finding more and more all the time. So, let's be generous and say that fp is about .9 or 90%. (This article estimates that every star has at least one planet!)
Now, ne is a little more difficult. It seems that most planets that we have found are NOT Earth-like. Does that mean they don't have life? Not necessarily. I like to leave the option that not all life would need the exact same conditions as we do. So, we'll go with .1 (one out of every ten solar systems has a planet suitable for life).
We currently have no way of knowing what fraction of suitable planets actually have life arise. We only know of one. But, let's go ahead and say .005 or 0.5%. And, similarly, the next three are complete guesses (I'd like to think they are educated guesses). Fraction of life that eventually becomes intelligent: I dunno, 0.1 or 10%.
Fraction of the intelligent life that develops technology: this is probably a little higher, we'll say 60%.
Now, for the lifetime of the civilization. Well, we developed technology fairly recently. We only began sending signals into space about a 100 years ago. Now, is it more likely that our civilization will die out sometime in the next few hundred years from disease, war, an asteroid, or will we break the ties that bind us and travel out into the stars to find new homes? This is hard to answer, as much as I'd like to go with the latter, I think we'll just say that our civilization will last another 10,000 years. So, if that were the case, we would be a technological civilization for 10,100 years. We'll go ahead and pretend that we know this is the average lifetime.
Okay! So, let's put this all together and see what we get.

N=7x0.9x0.1x0.005x0.1x0.6x10,100=1.9 intelligent technological civilizations in the Milky Way

Well, crap. Perhaps my estimates were a bit conservative. We know it must be at least 1!
Anyway, you can try it yourself and see what you get.
Keep in mind that this equation is being used to calculate civilizations that we may be able to communicate with and not lifeforms of just any kind. We aren't talking about bacteria or dinosaurs here.
Hopefully, as our technology advances we will have better estimates for some of these numbers. Only a decade ago we thought planets were few and far between, now we know that is not the case. Perhaps, we'll soon have reason to believe life of some form is also abundant. There certainly is enough room for more than one civilization and I don't mind sharing.