Is It Time For A Completely New Internet?

The one we have seems to be butting up against the limits imposed by the large carriers that refuse to put out the dollars needed to expand as needed. A blurb in slashdot asks why it should be that the large carriers (telcos and cable companies) have the power to shape the internet, instead of the public will, ostensibly the reason it exists to serve.

On October 14, the FCC issued a call for public comments on a study (PDF) done by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society about whether the US should require the telephone and cable companies to open their networks to competitors so that independent ISPs could begin offering broadband, much in the way it was done back in the days of dialup access.

The study found that open-access in virtually every other country ‘is playing a central role in current planning exercises throughout the highest performing countries,’ noting: ‘While Congress adopted various open access provisions in the almost unanimously-approved Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC decided to abandon this mode of regulation for broadband in a series of decisions in 2001 and 2002. Open access has been largely treated as a closed issue in US policy debates ever since.

We find that in countries where an engaged regulator enforced open access obligations, competitors that entered using these open access facilities provided an important catalyst for the development of robust competition which, in most cases, contributed to strong broadband performance across a range of metrics.’”

This is the sort of thing the Republicans can all get on board with, as it promises to make competition a priority, and should bring one of two things, maybe both – access pricing going down, bandwidth and overall availability going up. Competition should also relieve some of the complacency found in many areas, where the current providers believe things are ‘fine as they currently are’.

Today, in many areas, there is not a monopoly, but only a choice of two providers, one cable company and one telephone provider. Imagine how much better it might be for customers if the public in most areas had a choice of four or five carriers, all vying for their dollars, and constantly competing to raise speeds delivered, and uninterrupted uptime.

In Southern California, the choice many times is only two, when the market would clearly support more. When there are only two choices, the one you want to move two can keep you waiting for weeks, in a possible case of collusion with the other provider to keep each other’s current subscribers from jumping ship. I know it would be very nice to be able to have a couple of more choices, at the ready, to get your new service established in record time. If there had been more competition, perhaps it would not have been as easy for the current crop of  providers to drop newsgroup access, which had long been considered an integral part of any internet service.

If you want to have more choice, and perhaps higher speeds, with increased quality of service, it would be wise to click the above link after gathering some thoughts on the opening of networks.  Don’t rely on your representatives to do this for you, as they are probably already on the payroll of both providers in your area, simply to make certain nothing changes.

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it’s a big planet, with plenty of room for internet expansion

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