[Latest draft of Internet regulation bill]

Fri Nov 11 04:03:53 UTC 2005

On Nov 10, 2005, at 10:18 PM, Christopher L. Morrow wrote:
>> My fingers are tented... can you see?
>
> indeed I can... the evil empire installed a camera in your monitor.  
> quick
> read: http://tinyurl.com/89v8h

I personally feature The Fez on Fridays.  The chix dig it.

> The odd thing is that consumer services seem to devolve into: "who is
> cheapest" not "who has best service". Even FIOS is really just as
> inexpensive as cable-modem these days (cheaper even in some cases) and
> does the home user need more than 6mpbs down for internet things?  
> (just
> Internet, not to include video over ip)

Well, I think there's a presumption that Internet and video over IP  
are still distinguishable down the road, rather than blend into a new  
media form.  Think back how the web showed up and did the same.

And that is also the main reason why this legislative effort strikes  
me as very misguided.  The legislators assume they are dealing with a  
mature product, and nothing could be further from the truth.  As much  
as we try to categorize today, we will restrict innovation (and  
growth of all our businesses) in the end.

So, there was a time when everyone said 'good grief, what would  
anyone do with 1.5mbps', and where in turn engineered bitrates ended  
up being several orders of magnitude lower.  In fact, we all were  
worried what would happen to our POPs and backbone when 1.5mbps  
consumers showed up in volume back in the '98 timeframe.

We're just at the edge of the step function.  I have absolutely no  
worry that people will figure out what to do with bandwidth.  Who  
knows, maybe somebody will actually be successful offering an online  
backup service if the bw ever catches up with the inflation in  
storage, for example.

> call me crazy but it seems like cost is king for consumers, at the  
> pipe
> level. So adding on services to that at a cost is a losing  
> proposition (or
> atleast not very popular, how many AOL cusotmers bought into the  
> secure-id
> auth?)

I think that's all a function of differentiation not being visible to  
consumers.

Once new media types start emerging, this has to change.

>> Sorry, I have plenty of buddies at Verizon/MCI and SBC/ATT...  Not
>> slamming you guys, just worried and watching.
>>
>
> join the party :)

I'd offer to buy a round, but I think that'd break the bank. ;-)

Best regards,
Christian