NETWORK NEUTRALITY AND AN INTERNET VISION
[SOURCE: LXer, AUTHOR: Andy Oram, O'Reilly Media]
[Commentary] The telephone company strategy of charging
content-providers will, I think, hold back fiber upgrades -- not promote
them. The telephone companies will evaluate customers at each central
office and decide whether the demographics of that neighborhood can pay
back their investment through orders of video or other premium services;
roll-outs will be leisurely to say the least. I predict the companies
would also play games with their existing servers and pipes to ration
content. They will milk their existing lines to the hilt before
investing in optical fiber. That's what happens when a company is driven
by incremental business models rather than some kind of vision. None of
us like to feel we have to sit there and take it when anybody dishes out
a bitter feast. So a lot of people raise hopes of bypassing the Bells
and bringing high bandwidth to the public a different way. Some have
gone so far as to declare the incumbent telephone companies hopelessly
outmoded and destined for the dust heap. Other people take a
proportionately moderate view and look forward to alternatives that
would raise the competition a little and lead to a healthier
marketplace. That last attitude is the one I find most realistic, if not
the most inspiring. None of the proposed alternatives sound strong on
their own, but if we put them all together we may have a future we can
live with. 1) It's conceivable that an entirely new species of
data/voice company will arise to use WiMAX to conquer the last mile. 2)
Cities and towns are well-placed to pick up coverage of the last mile.
3) The wildest proposition, and therefore the one that might just work,
is for everyone to buy his or her own fiber. This is what large
institutions have been doing for years.
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/53907/
