Well, I think lawmakers in Washington are just starting to really grasp some of the true potential of the internet, as are big telco’s finally getting it to. By that I mean that tel-cos are starting to think of stupid Ameri-centric business models from the Cretaceous period to apply to the internet.
And today lawmakers fired their first response back about their thoughts in form of striking down a Democrat introduced piece of legislation to help prevent these business models. You can read about it at this link.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6058223.html?part=rss&tag=6058223&subj=news
Basically, AT&T, Verizon, Bell South, SBC, and a few other places control all of our available lines for communication in the US. Either they own the lines running to your house, or the huge ‘backbone’ lines that run from one major city to another.
Whether you think of it this way or not, this is the basis for all communications in the US. This includes cell phones (cell phones would probably still work without it, but not as well), and the internet.
Well, these big telco’s really like the days of AOL, and per/minute usage of the internet (just like how the cell phone companies like it now…lets hope that dies soon like the internet /per minute charges did). And, now that it isn’t a practical business model due to competition in the marketplace, as well as customer demand, they aren’t happy. They feel like they aren’t squeezing every last drop of money out of their investments in internet technology.
So, they figure out, maybe they can charge major websites money for “preferential” bandwith. To break that down a little, what they are are saying is that they can monitor traffic on the web, because information is sent across the web in ‘packets’ or little pieces of information. These pieces of information contain some embedded data about what is inside of the ‘packet’ like where it is from and what kind of information it is. The big telcos want to slow down traffic from major bandwith hog type of sites (read google, amazon, and microsoft) by monitoring where it came from. If Google (or other places) pays them extortion money, *cough* I mean “fees”, then they put the traffic through as fast as normal, or the prioritize it above other traffic for a greater “fee” so it gets to the consumer even faster than other sites.
Congress today in committee decided to let traditional laissez faire economics prevail, and let the situation sort itself out in the marketplace.
As many of you know, I am generally for this approach to commerce type of situations. The market should level so that whoever offers an unrestricted internet plan should win if all things were equal here.
But they are not equal, the big tel-cos have made a serious investment (albeit a subsidized investment) into putting up phone lines, and then upgrading those phone lines for high-speed internet. And, since they put the money up, they run the show. So, if all tel-cos gang up and decide that this is “what’s best for the American consumer” then where do we go for our unrestricted, non-preferential internet? And, while the tel-cos are certainly not doing what is in the interest of the American consumer, they are just protecting their falling profit margins against the competition media consolidation has caused, they are also certainly within their rights as the service provider to create a ‘tiered’ internet where some content is faster than others (i.e. verizon’s new music and video service will always go faster on a verizon network than Google video or rhapsody).
Since there is no way for us as consumers, or even mid to large buisness to buy up unused telephone lines (which there is a lot…it is called “Dark Fiber”), how are we to truely speak with our wallets when our only choices are SBC vs Verizon vs AT&T and they all only offer tiered service?
From the buisnesses standpoint, why shouldn’t they do this. We only won’t like this because it is not what we are used to. We as consumers put up with shit like this from many other places, such as cellphones. If you got used to having unlimited cell phone minutes for example, and the phone companies decided to institute the regular plans we have now, everyone would be up in arms about it. But, just like this situation, the phone companies are just trying to make money by charging the companies that use their system more than others. So what is wrong with that from a buisness standpoint if we are willing to pay per minute charges on our incoming cellphone calls but not our land-lines? This is about consumer conditioning for the big telephone companies (who also have contributed two to three times what the major content providers like Google have contributed to lobbies in congress).
Personally, I just think we are being gouged at every turn by communications companies. I think cable, internet, cell phones, VOIP, land-line telephones, etc should all be available to us in both ala-carte pricing as well as unlimited usage pricing. None of this tierd ‘if you go over your minutes we will send big men to kick you in the knees’ kind of cell phone crap, or having minutes work on way on VOIP, another on cell phones, and another on my local phone. Plus, I hate that I can’t choose my cable company. That is stupid, I should be able to get digital cable from any company that can get it to me, and they should have a chance to lease bandwith from other companies at a non-gouged price. I don’t really care how that happens, but I think that kind of lazie-fare system would work best…no more city-wide contracts…no more big companies being able to apply draconian buisness principals on america because they feel like they could condition us into accepting less for more money. Hell, if McDonalds is offering improved coffee to compete with people around them, why can’t major companies like members of the RIAA and MPAA realize they need to compete on quality, not on quantity and by limiting the customer.
Dear Big Wig Company running person and dumb politicians, (these tend to be one in the same)
You are stuck in old buisness models. Please, make us WANT to buy stuff from you.
It will always be pretty easy to steal no matter what you do to try to stop it. No copy protection has beaten me yet if I wanted something and didn’t want to pay for it. But really good music, and really good movies, really good games and software, are worth the price to me for the added quality I get from it, and for knowing that I contributed to the continued work of those artists.
Please, stop trying to squeeze us for more money, and force us to play by your ancient rules. We are way too much in debt as a society, and we need less restrictions to increase or economy, not more. That is why the internet was so great for the US, the opening of new unrestricted markets, not the tight control of them that you want.
If you take away restrictions, and get creative with your buisness models, I promise revenues will go up for the entrepenures in the US, and then subsequently you. You will make more money, by providing more services, to more people, who can afford to pay for it, than you will by jacking prices up, skimping on features, and then making us thank you for the butt pounding you give us in the courts over stupid copyright laws and dumb patents.
Sincerely,
A true fan of laissez faire economics.