2007 12
Net Neutrality is an absurd dispute
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I am at a conference whose location I can´t disclose but where the top heads of the telecom and internet industries in the United States are all gathered. At this conferences everyone would get along if it wasn´t for the absurd fight over Net Neutrality. To me when telcos and content companies fight over Net Neutrality they seem like angry parents who are asking their kids to choose between Mom or Dad. Kids want both, and consumers want both: the telcos and the content companies. Why would consumers go for fiber to the home for example, and agree to pay more for their internet connection if there´s not amazing video content to see? If Youtube is so well featured in the iPhone it must be because Youtube helps sell more iPhones, what is the point for AT&T of making a huge investment and get people to pay more for wireless broadband and then make it hard for them to see Youtube? And what would be the point of trying to squeeze payments out of Google for Youtube when Youtube is losing money? And Google of course could pay cause they are so valuable but what about the next Chad Hurley with his hot new video start up? Who would pay his fees? What telcos need is the kind of compelling content that makes people want to have better quality fixed and wireless broadband. In Europe we don´t have a Net Neutrality debate. Nor have I heard about it in Asia. And we don´t have it because in the internet world, it takes two to tango: the telcos/cable guys and the content companies. Guys, please stop fighting!
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Cristian Sepúlveda on July 17, 2007 ·
If we do not have net neutrality, Internet will be like TV Cable companies, you will have to pay for different plans:
Basic plan: E-mail and google,
Medium plan: Basic + Youtube, Last.fm and others.
Premium: Medium + Joost, SL, WoW…
I don’t like this way. it will kill the garage entrepreneurship, because Entrepreneurs must have a lot of money to pay Internet tolls.
Martin Varsavsky on July 17, 2007 ·
I agree Cristian, but my point here is that even from a Telecom company point of view to attack Net Neutrality does not make sense. Most of what we like about the Internet are things that we did not know we liked when we got the service but as we like them we get hooked on broadband and we want more and more of it.
So the issue here is that as Verizon for example launches fiber to the home, a service that I am dying to have, I see a tremendous opportunity for Verizon to launc the service together with Joost or Youtube as video is the only app that makes fiber to the home worthwhile. Google as we know it for example uses so little bandwidth that nobody would sign up for fiber.
Cristian Sepúlveda on July 18, 2007 ·
Martin, You are wrong when you say: Joost or Youtube as video is the only app that makes fiber to the home worthwhile. What About FONERA + FONTENA?
What do you think, if Verison charges FON to be available in Verison network. (They could analyse each datagram, shaping NAT information and blocking multi user clients), I don’t want that.
I think there is an unstable equilibrium between Clients/TELCO/content-providers, something in the future could change and turn over the market, Like mobile phone and iPhone (Nokia never thought to charge a fee for minute talked with Nokia phones).
In developing countries, ISP are too strong and is very hard to fight against them using free market because they are an oligopoly, so we need to legislate about it.
In Chile the discussion is overheating, you could see http://www.neutralidadsi.org (Spanish spoken site) to see what is happening here…
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euronerd on July 12, 2007 ·
Martin,
You may combine this blog with the next (about piracy) if you have the infrastructure guys pay for the content, and forbid content companies to sell directly to consumers.
It is similar to having production companies selling their TV shows to Broadcasting networks and not to individuals.
Of course this will lead to an old-fashioned channeled distribution, and is bound to kill creativity. But what’s new 🙁