Yesterday I received my Business Week magazine for the week of March 11th 2010 and there was an interesting article in it;
Revenge of the Cable Guys
If you think online TV will be free forever, think again. The cable companies have a plan to keep control—and stick you with the bill
By Ronald Grover, Tom Lowry and Cliff Edwards
I found it so fascinating that I immediately Buzzed it however it has kept me thinking all last night and into the morning. This could be good and this could bad.
If the cable companies were all run with high ethical considerations producing a conscionable profit and thought of themselves as a service provider that can be both profitable and a benefit to their community that would be one thing.
I see the cable companies with the potential to marginalize the service we receive and putting a meter on it then upping it every year to meet stockholders demands without much thought to the user. It is, or can be, a monopoly.
From the FCC Reboot web site: All Americans should have affordable access to robust and reliable broadband products and services. Read more about the National Broadband Plan.
There must be competition in each community. Not just cable companies or the telecom but powerful wireless provided by someone else, not related. The competition must be able to provide all the services. I don’t care who but Comcast, Time Warner, and whoever else should not be allowed to run rough shod over this much too valuable tool that is connected with living.
We need to be sure that the Internet is available to everyone at a cost that can be affordable, and I mean everyone.
If it isn’t it will be.
This will be the life of communication in the future; bigger than telephones, bigger than radio or television, bigger than mail/email, it is and will be all of the above. It does include all these communication tools now. Everyone needs equal access from anywhere at all times. It will make us safer in the long run.
It can also be the method of education of all peoples. We learn with this tool now, everyday, in so many ways.
Today the Internet has given back the voice to the people – it is the true freedom of expression as long as it is not used to trample the rights of others. We produce blogs, podcasts and video casts. We have web sites of personal expression, selling products and services, of art and of life in general. We all have text messaging if we choose to use it. We are closer than ever to those that we want to be close to.
If we are not careful we can loose this.
Visit the FCC web site, visit other web sites; The FCC Reboot, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read up on and take a position on net neutrality. Write your congressman. We need to be heard if we have any interest in seeing that what we have today is not taken from us.
A word of caution. The other big risk is the “FEE’s” or charges, “the meter”. The current providers maybe taking lessons from the gas companies. We could have a cost per mile that would leave a great number of people out.
Come on Google – wireless everywhere. That could help honesty.
