“Hiawatha Bray writes about a very scary debate currently going on in DC”:1: Whether telco’s can prioritize their own services over those of “competitors”, and whether incumbent telcos can charge both end users and content providers for access to this “prioritized” delivery service. Why is this scary? Because if the incumbent telcos get their way, both consumers and most businesses suffer. Hiawatha’s article covers the basics of the fight.
There are really two points that get completely lost in this discussion, however:
# This whole attempt by incumbent telcos only is possible because of the SBC+AT&T and Verizon+Sprint mergers. We had a good thing going when we kept end user delivery and backbone internet service separate, and our FCC and FTC both screwed us–consumers and small and medium businesses.
# Incumbent telcos keep “squawking about how they are due some return on their investments”:2. Bullshit. No one owes them anything. There are no certainties in business. If you have a good product and people want it, you can make money. If you don’t or they don’t, then you go bankrupt. Just because you’re investing billions on new fiber optic networks doesn’t mean anything. You don’t invest unless its going to be a good way to make money. BellSouth and SBC both are trying to make _us_ — consumers — bear the risk of the investment they are making.
“Why do fundamental business economics not apply to the Internet?”, Bill Smith, CTO of BellSouth asks. They do. The Internet _proves_ fundamental business economics better than any other technology. The real question to ask, Bill, is “Why don’t you understand fundamental economics enough to see this?”
[1]http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/12/13/telecoms_want_their_products_to_travel_on_a_faster_internet/?page=full
[2]/2005/11/02/sbc-ceo-claims-he-owns-the-internet-and-will-charge-everyone-for-its-use
Filed under: Network Neutrality, News, Policy
