Friday, November 07, 2003
Prime cut, bone in
Dave Burstein at DSL-Prime, a sincere devotee of the communications revolution despite his advocacy of half-fast technologies like DSL, writes:
"I remain amazed that some carriers think it's smart to freeze and even degrade their customer offering, while limiting what people can do on the net. Moore's Law brings down the cost of your routers, modems, servers. Internet transit and other factors. The internet grows dramatically, constantly offering your customers new choices. Not riding that curve leaves you vulnerable, and only works if your competition is totally defanged . . . [H]ow the heck can it be right to use QOS to allow selected content through, while degrading other service? Why are some looking to block our killer app, peer to peer, instead of finding ways to accommodate? Hubris, poor competitive analysis, short term thinking, a breakdown in communication between the CEO's plans and his technical decision makers all seem to play a role."I applaud Burstein's clear-eyed diagnosis and righteous anger, but his conclusion is wrong. Incumbent conservatism is not driven by, "Hubris, poor competitive analysis, short term thinking," et cetera. The incumbent understands "The Paradox of the Best Network" better than Burstein. I suspect that at some level the incumbent knows that the best network is perfectly capital repellant. I suspect that the incumbent knows it must cripple competition, cripple its own network -- or die.
Comments:
Post a Comment
