How Telecoms Will Kill The Internet

Net neutrality is coming to an end, as an array of deep-pocketed telecom firms throw money and lobbyists at Congress in an unyielding effort to put a barely-figurative chokehold on Internet users. Luigi: "Well everything breaks, don't it Colonel? (he breaks something on desk) Oh dear." Dino: "Oh see, my brother's clumsy, Colonel, and when he gets unhappy he breaks things. Like say, he don't feel the army's playing fair by him, he may start breaking things, Colonel." Colonel: "What is all this about?" -- the Mafia puts the squeeze on the British Army, Monty Python's Flying Circus (ep8 season one) What's it all about? The same things it's always been about - control and money. Those things can be neatly interchanged with lots of others. In discussing the Internet, an older reference could be to the auto industry. The Internet was supposed to put an end to buying cars at dealerships, cut costs by eliminating the middleman. Seen that happen yet? Today it's about well-connected telecoms instead of well-connected car dealers, though. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, sees net neutrality threatened in a detailed That was Madison River in North Carolina; the FCC hit them with a Control and money. Pay those in control to give you something that you thought you were paying for already. The theme seems to be "just because you're paying for Internet access doesn't mean you're paying for *Internet* *access*. It's not just Professor Geist seeing this happen. Doc Searls has been warning people for over a solid month about the threat, but he gives Linux Journal, and on that website he posted his "They see a problem with freeloaders. On the tall end of the power curve, those 'loaders are AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other large sources of the container cargo we call "content". Out on the long tail, the freeloaders are you and me. The big 'loaders have been getting a free ride for too long and are going to need to pay. The Information Highway isn't the freaking interstate. It's a system of private roads that needs to start charging tolls. As for the small 'loaders, it hardly matters that they're a boundless source of invention, innovation, vitality and new business. To the carriers, we're all still just "consumers". And we always will be. Paranoid? They say it isn't paranoia if people really are after you. BellSouth CTO US Government is definitely threatening net neutrality: The legislation in question, H.R.2726, would prevent the city or any other municipality from offering "telecommunications, information, or cable services" except where private enterprises had not provided such services. Currently the ironically-named "Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act" of 2005 has been languishing in a House subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Both BellSouth and AT&T have been here. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") |