Wired Magazine Broadband Cowboy

"There's no sensible reason why Americans shouldn't have inexpensive, ubiquitous, high-performance broadband access, Hendricks says. Using technologies that are already available or in fast-track development, everyone could enjoy reliable, fully symmetrical wireless at T1 speed or better. No more digital divide. No more last-mile problem. No more compromises. The only things standing in the way are the FCC, Congress, and "other people who just don't get it.""

MSNBC Seeking spoils from broadband push

"For months, the high-tech industry has been working behind the scenes here to push its remedy for the nation’s economic ills: a national policy to promote high-speed Internet access..

Now the lobbying is paying off. Both President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle are preparing ambitious programs to give more Americans fast Web connections — raising the prospect of a government-supported gusher of sales for computer and telecom companies. But the programs also raise questions about how the spoils will be divided, and whether the government can revive a sector that has already failed key tests in the market."

Peter Cochrane Broadband Won't Happen by Accident

"So how are we going to advance? I think we have been here before. Back in the 1940s USA TV companies couldn't find an economic means of providing signals to outlying communities. So people clubbed together to build towers and antenna systems, and wired their houses to realize Community Antenna TV. This was so successful that the expanded systems became the Cable systems of today.

In a similar manner, youngsters now frustrated by the lack of bandwidth are linking homes with CAT5 LAN wiring strewn across gardens. Schools are buying 802.11 wireless-LAN cards to create their own networks at a much lower cost than building wiring schemes. There is a message here for the network companies, and a huge opportunity. If they don't provide the bandwidth demanded by rapidly advancing terminal technologies, people will just set to and provide their own. Hotels, schools, coffee shops and places of work are starting to look like the phone boxes of the 21st Century. People are gathering there to satisfy their craving for wide-bandwidth, which isn't a 56Kbit/s or 2Mbit/s dribble, but orders of magnitude more."

redux [01.09.01]
The Washington Post Who's Holding Back Broadband?

"Consumers are slow to adopt broadband because, while there may be an infinite number of channels, there is still nothing on. "Broadband-intensive content," the chairman said, "is in the hands of major copyright holders." These copyright holders have been hesitant to free their content to the net. Their slowness, in turn, has slowed broadband technologies in general."

"But piracy is not the most important reason copyright holders have been slow to embrace the net. A bigger reason is the threat the Internet presents to their relatively comfortable ways of doing business. "Major copyright holders" have enjoyed the benefits of a relatively concentrated industry. The Internet threatens this comfortable existence. The low cost of digital production and distribution could mean much greater competition in the production of content."

redux [11.08.01]
Bob Frankston Beyond Telecom

"By shifting the focus to providing connectivity rather than telephony and television, it becomes obvious that there is a conflict of interest between the current service (and content) providers and connectivity providers.

As long as we allow the incumbents to use their control over both connectivity and services/content to thwart competition in services/content, we will suffer economically. And we will also have a system that is fails to enhance our security because traditional systems are brittle rather than resilient.

The good news is that there is a simple solution that requires little regulation."

redux [10.30.01]
Fortune Great Leap Forward: Techies vs. Telcos

"It's been a grim time for the tech industry. Executives from companies that sell hardware, software, and Net services watched their stock prices and company sales fall off a cliff. Now, increasingly, they're starting to point fingers at one group they think is responsible for their troubles: the giants of telecom. At the usually upbeat Agenda conference held this October in Scottsdale, Ariz., Bob Metcalfe, the legendary network pioneer, took the stage and summed up the undertone of discontent when, on a panel about networks, he described the big regional telephone companies as "scumbags." Nobody objected or disagreed."

redux [05.25.01]
Bob Frankston Content vs. Connectivity

"The consumers' connections to the Internet are controlled by companies who are in the business of delivering content and services funded by advertising. Consumers who wander the Internet represent lost revenue. Customers who use IP telephony no longer make phone calls. Customers who experiment with creating new services are called abusers.

As long as these companies control connectivity, we do not have a marketplace for the connectivity services vital to the growth of the Internet and necessary for innovation and the benefits we have come to expect.

We must allow for a marketplace by preventing players with interests opposed to connectivity from controlling connectivity. It is a dramatic case of conflict of interest and antitrust violation. We cannot afford to tolerate such behavior. It is allowed and abetted by accepting the self-serving fallacies of the existing players. We must challenge their claims and create the opportunities so necessary for our continued prosperity."

redux [06.06.01]
Gilbert & Tobin Internet Connectivity: Open Competition In The Face Of Commercial Expansion

"As a consequence, the rules for Internet interconnection are still in the process of being worked out - and in this uncertain environment, Internet interconnection is an inherently risky business. The new technology presents its own interconnection complexities, with multiple layers of virtual networks built one over the other - so that an operator at any layer of the infrastructure will have its costs determined by the prices charged by the virtual network below it, while its prices, in turn, will determine the cost structure of the layer above. Furthermore, while commercial principles would suggest that money should flow towards those operators which produce value, this does not always happen in practice (a hangover of the historical expectation that Internet access should be free for all). The uncertainties of the environment are aggravated by the fact that there is currently no consensus on the issue of how to attribute "value" to the various elements of Internet interconnection."