Mr. Blog, a recent unpublicized addition to the upcoming VON Blogger Panel this coming Friday. His views on looking back at history are right on when it comes to Net Neutrality.
What I think is funny is most of the people making decisions or suggestions about the Internet weren’t even online when the Net was really birthed, let alone went through it’s growth phase. For months I’ve been mentioning the direction we are heading. The Balkanization of the Internet has started, and not for the right reasons. Fear is driving the movements to build even more walled gardens.
On one side you have the telcos. On the other there is the mobile operators. I call that the air game and the ground game. Then there is the cable guys who have figured out that they can bridge the two hemispheres by partnering with wireless companies or becoming MVNOs.
The mobile guys on a global basis operate like a cartel. The telcos are oligopolies to the nth degree. The net was built to spur innovation, but now that same innovation is going to put us back to pre 1984 in the USA.
Net Neutrality Round-Up
As telecom reform legislation moves forward, the idea of net neutrality is increasingly getting play in the blogosphere, with a lot of interesting takes on the notion that broadband providers should or should not be able to configure their services…
The internet has always been a place where consumers can choose from a wide variety of services. There is no reason to believe that the telecoms are going to do anything to prevent that. Consumers would never put up with that and the telecoms are aware, it would be too expensive and they wouldnt want to lose the business of those seeking more choice of services.
Worrying about telecos and running into the open arms of the government is not a legitimate solution. In point of fact there isn’t even a problem. No teleco is going out to cut off bandwidth to the little guy. If anything, by putting in proposed changes they would free up bandwidth by moving hogs like VOIPs onto seperate paths. I just don’t understand the big deal.