Hard though it may be to take a pink site seriously, if you care about the future of internet access, you owe it to yourself to read David Weinberger’s broadside against the telecommunications industry, “Delamination Now! [1]” David worries that “the incumbent carriers” are trying to turn the Internet into cable television, with a pricing model that will allow them to charge different amounts for different types of data or favor one content provider over another.
Network neutrality [2], the flipside of the current carriers’ model, would treat a bit as a bit, and nothing more. Payment to wholesale providers would be made for bandwidth used, while a new breed of ISPs could compete by offering different services: anonymity from one, outrageous connection speeds from another. David’s piece [3] is passionate, heartfelt, and sure to provoke debate.
One wonders, as well, how the recent FCC decision [4] regarding the upcoming auction of the 700 mHz spectrum - soon to be freed when analog television signals are “switched off” - will affect the discussion. Google had asked the FCC to do, essentially, what David Weinberger is asking for: require the winner to sell access to the network on a wholesale basis to rivals. While many media outlets are lost in a half-empty [5] / half-full [6] debate over who came out best in the ruling, Wired’s Charlie Sorrel is excited at the prospect [7] of Google purchasing the whole thing and eventually building a free, ad-supported wireless network.
It’s hard not to root for optimism in the face of statements from those such as Steve Largent [8] of the CTIA, the trade association of the wireless industry: “We remain committed to the principle that wireless consumers and American taxpayers are best served when such a valuable commodity is auctioned in a fair and competitive manner with no strings attached.” That sounds to me like a disingenuous way of saying that once a bone has been tossed to the notion of competition, the winning company will be free to monopolize their prize as they please. Delamination now, indeed.
(P.S. I realize that David’s page is pink because of the recurring motif of the princess phone [9], but still.)