Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Mon Dec 20 20:28:38 UTC 2010

> The result is not competition, but a government sponsored duopoliy.
> This didn't bring more players to the table, it just let those already
> at the table offer a full set of overlapping services.  Likely a good
> step, but not the same as getting new entrants into the market.
> 
> --
>        Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
>         PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

"Back in the day" people used to get their email, usenet, maybe even
hosting their web page, from their ISP.  When DSL came about, many of
these services migrated to the portals and the ISP became less of a
"services provider" and more of a "transport provider".  The "problem"
with operations like the cable providers is that they seem to want to
fight tooth and nail not to allow the video services a person consumes
becoming an a la carte service where the end user picks and chooses from
what amounts to "video portal" sites. 

An analogy from the old days might be an ISP trying very hard to prevent
users from getting Yahoo! or Google mail or outside web hosting.  The
cable providers apparently aren't keen on simply being an ISP and
allowing end users to get their video content from wherever they choose.
In other words, they see themselves as a video content provider that
also provides internet service while the market is trying to move them
to an internet provider that also offers video content.  This is made
worse when the content distributor is also the content producer. The
migration toward the "siloing" of entertainment content means this
problem will just get worse. 

What's next?  AT&T buying Disney and Verizon buying National Amusements?
So now you have the company that produces the product also owns the
railroad that delivers the product and charges fees for competitors
shipping their goods on that railroad that makes the others less
competitive.  So the competing railroads simply buy up their own freight
producers and do the same thing.

Or do we create a "highway" that allows any number of freight shippers
to operate to ship goods from any number of buyers to any number of
sellers.  I suppose what it boils down to is making the companies decide
what they are.  Are they an "internet service provider" or are they an
"entertainment content provider" because being both at the same time
seems to be a built-in conflict of interest from the consumer's point of
view.