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Network Neutrality - a lost cause
Doc, I'll continue to fight the good fight and talk about network neutrality, but the telcos have far too much power and influence in both parties for the noisy but weak tech lobby to possibly win. The reality is that this is a battle that we are going to lose, making it time to start figuring out what a post-network neutrality world will look like. Only companies with deep pockets will pay the fees, this will turn Google, eBay and Yahoo into entrenched businesses with less flexibility and nimbleness and higher prices. Google and Yahoo will be able to afford to host amateur video content. Bittorent, local high bandwidth wireless and other tools wil get easier to use as a mechanism to route around the telcos. In the short term innovative bandwidth intensive businesses will have to move their target customers to Europe and the Pacific and Americans will look at the cool internet applications available overseas in the same way we look at cool mobile applications today. We'll shrug our shoulders over the neat stuff that we cannot have and look at things we CAN buy instead. Just as no one burned down Washington DC when the decisions that made our cellular infrastructure and services fall so far behind were made, no one will burn down DC as our internet goes the same way.
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