“If we had real competition then the whole net neutrality debate would go away,” said Sean Garrett on Silicon Valley Watcher. I wholeheartedly agree.
The Internet needs to be allowed to be what it has always been: a collection of private networks that have found it beneficial to interconnect. The Internet is opt-in.
The Internet has nothing to do with the pipes, the fiber, or the transmission lines. The pathways are essential to moving data quickly, but they’re not essential to the existence of the Internet.
Theoretically, the Internet loves to find its way around blockages and doesn’t need high-capacity and high-bandwidth lines.
Back in the day, parts of the Internet (UUCP, USENET, email) were moved in batch over scheduled dial-ups. Until 20 years ago, the majority of the Internet wasn’t run over always-on connectivity. Until ten years ago, there were still quite a few Internet “eddies” that were connecting via dial-up or expensive ISDN lines. I shit you not!
In my opinion, real competition is what is needed in order to insure that the telcos don’t take their broadband and dark fiber and go home.
Thus far, The Internet has been compelling enough that all members, telcos included, have found sponsorship, membership, and inclusion worthwhile.
Without real competition, the market will find a more efficient, less socialistic, and less democratic way to move data content between and to its customers.
A switched network is still a better choice for real-time voice data, a cable network is still a better solution for video, and a wireless network is still a better choice for real-time audio content.
Packet data is great for email, for bittorrent, for podcasts, for FTP and for the web, but anyone who visits YouTube or has Vonage VOIP realizes that packet switched data is inefficient.
Do you want democracy or do you want Fascism? If you want the Internet trains to run on time and deliver you your voice over IP (VOIP), your television, your video on demand (VOD), your movies, your music, your radio, and your video games over the Internet then you’re going to have to dispense with the inherent bureaucracy of the current Internet model and choose something much more monolithic and centralized like a good military dictatorship.
I personally want the emergent opt-in, non-zero sum game that I have affectionately come to know as the Internet. I love democracy.
Why do you hate Democracy? Why do you hate America so much?
