isen.blog

UPDATE December 20, 2008: Guitar sold.

Original Post: No, it is not one of the famous Garcia Irwin guitars, unfortunately. Jerry Garcia gave the guitar on the left to Perry Lederman, one of my best friends and deepest influences. Perry died in 1995 of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. In the period Perry was sick and, "living on borrowed time," as he put it, he got back in touch with some of the musician friends of his past.

Perry claimed he was an unattributed guitar player on two Dylan albums; I never knew Perry to utter a false word, and he was a fine, fine guitar player. (He used to play Berkeley with Al Young, who is now California's Poet Laureate.) Perry told me he taught Bob Dylan to hitchhike, and they hitched from Greenwich Village to Boston and back in the 60s. After Dylan came through Massachusetts in 1994, Perry showed me the back stage picture he took of Bob and Perry's daughter.

The for-sale details of the Perry-Jerry guitar are here, along with a recounting of Perry and Jerry's last meeting, backstage at Boston Garden on September 27, 1994. Perry had arranged backstage passes for his wife and daughter and, generously, for me and my wife. For a brief moment, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Perry and Jerry as Perry introduced me and Jerry delayed the second set to catch up with his old friend. It was my last Grateful Dead concert.

If you can't afford the $100,000 guitar, you might want to hear Perry's only solo album. It is deep. Perry's friends Elijah Wald and Tom Renshaw produced it. My photo of Perry is on the inside front cover. I have a few left. Write me for details.

Technorati Tags: GratefulDead, Music

There's a consensus emerging among my friends Brough Turner, Bill St. Arnaud and Martin Geddes, that Network Neutrality by regulation is not practical. Each has their own reasons, but the conclusions converge inescapably with mine -- given current industry structure, the incentives are all wrong. Vint Cerf's fervent wish (hey, mine too, were it more plausible!) for a "lightweight, enforceable Network Neutrality rule" is a pipe dream. Any such rule I could think up would put today's carriers in an untenable, self-competitive situation.

UPDATE: After I posted this I remembered Susan Crawford's posting several weeks ago, saying much the same thing. (This time she was only a few weeks ahead of the rest of us.) Susan wrote

I am as committed to the ideal of the open internet as the next guy, and my dream is to have OneWebDay support that goal. But the mischief that can be done to our future (in so many unexpected ways) by insisting on statutory and regulatory definition of neutrality seems to outweigh the possible benefits of this path. There is so much nonsense, so much horse-trading, between where we stand now and the glorious goal of neutrality. The sad fact is that Americans don't mind vertical integration one bit, and the duopolists know that. Not only that, but price discrimination in a competitive market is actually a good thing. Now all we need is a competitive market.

The only ways out are (a) heavyweight structural separation, that is, the providers of underlying connectivity would be prohibited from offering applications, (b) heavyweight enforcement, whereby violators would be punished so severely that it would indeed deter violation, or (c) Layer Zero Competition, with very low barriers to conduit, pole attachments, spectrum, and "carrier neutral meet-me points." In extreme forms, (a) would be realized by a Layer 0-3 provider that was a government sanctioned rate-of-return monopoly, and (c) would play out as a plethora of customer-owned networks. (There's another family of scenarios, too, where some company (or set of them) evolves a business with economic incentives to provide and subsidize an open Internet.)

Unless there's an obvious solution I am missing, Network Neutrality, as currently conceived, will result in a gonadless rule that nods vaguely towards the good but incents discriminatory and predatory behavior. I'm sure today's carriers would prefer that to (a, b or c) above.

Let us remember that the goal is Internet Freedom, an Internet that is maximally open, best effort, supported by the best available technology, and at prices that are just, that is, close to cost but sustainable.

Technorati Tags: Competition, Deregulation, F2C, Freedom, Internet, NetworkNeutrality, OpenAccess, Regulatorium, Telepocalypse, VintCerf

It was not enough that the citizens of Lafayette had an unnecessary referendum about their municipal fiber to the home network rammed down their throats by BellSouth and Cox Cable. It was not enough when the incumbents pulled dirty tricks like push-polling. It was not enough when Lafayette beat the incumbents 12,290 to 7,507 in the election. It was not enough when the incumbents sued Lafayette over every comma and semicolon in every possibly relevant law. It was not enough when the two post-election lawsuits were thrown out. Now BellSouth is appealing to have one of the two post election lawsuits reinstated.

C'mon already. The citizens have spoken loudly and clearly. But is BellSouth listening? No. "We have not changed one inch since day one," said Bill Oliver, president of BellSouth Louisiana.

I guess BellSouth can afford to lose money longer than the citizens of Lafayette. And, apparently, they can afford to be insensitive market-deaf boors too. Competition? Fuggedaboudit.

As usual, Jim Baller pointed this story out.

Technorati Tags: Competition, F2C, FTTH, LafayetteLA, MunicipalNetworks

My talk, entitled "Who will Run the Internet?" will be webcast at 10:00 AM Boston time.

UPDATE: David Weinberger says that the webcast is archived here.

Here's the abstract:

In the beginning, the Internet Protocol's job was to form a network of different kinds of networks by ignoring properties that were not shared by all. Thus the original Internet sent packets, and that's about it. All Internet applications were done at the edges. Meanwhile, network service providers like telephone companies (and, in the U.S., cable TV companies) had long established a vertical business model whereby fees paid for their applications, i.e., telephony (or television), subsidized the operations of the network.

As the Internet becomes more capable, Internet telephony, Internet TV and other applications are causing the old network service providers to lose revenue. Extrapolating revenue trends to their logical conclusion, we can foresee the severe weakening of the operators of today's Internet infrastructure. This raises the question, who will operate the Internet? The speaker presents four scenarios, Telcotopia, Competition, Re-Regulation and Customer Owned Networks, as a sample of plausible alternatives for the Internet's future.

Technorati Tags: F2C

From the Washington Post yesterday:

On Sept. 15, the first major draft of proposed changes in the nation's telecommunication's laws was circulated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The draft said Internet service providers must not "block, impair, interfere with the offering of, access to, or the use of such content, applications or services." On Nov. 2, another draft of the bill came out . . the prohibition on blocking or impeding content was gone.

Technorati Tags: F2C, NetworkNeutrality, OpenAccess

Kenneth Deffeyes, the Princeton geology professor who is Peak Oil's voice of scientific reason, says here

Although it is a bit silly, we can now pick a day to celebrate passing the top of the mathematically smooth Hubbert curve: Nov 24, 2005. It falls right smack dab on top of Thanksgiving Day 2005. It sounds a little sick to observe a gloomy day, but in San Francisco they still observe April 18 as the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake.

Yesterday, November 24, was Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. I gave thanks for my energy rich lifestyle, and the bird that was fed on fossil fuel enriched feed, that came to market on a fossil fuel powered truck, that was kept in a fossil fuel powered electric refrigerator and was cooked on a fossil fuel gas stove. I gave thanks for my friends who had come hundreds of miles in fossil fuel powered vehicles to celebrate with me in a fossil fuel heated room.

I gave thanks that in this year of 25 named tropical Atlantic storms, whether fueled by atmospheric carbon of fossil fuel origin put out there by humans or not, that none of them had come to Cape Cod.

Then I had a little sliver of humble pie for dessert. Now, for the first time in the 146 year history of petroleum, production is leveling off and eventually will decline. Meanwhile, demand, which has lagged supply since the 1860s, shows no sign of leveling off. Production and demand will diverge. The Magic Hand will hold us in its inexorable grip. Gasoline may be down to $2.09 temporarily, but we ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Whether the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock on the last Thursday of November is beside the point; it is the date we celebrate. Whether the actual global peak of oil production actually fell on November 24, 2005 is also irrelevant. It is as good a day to mark as any.

Steve Crandall is marking it too.

Technorati Tags: ClimateChange, Energy, Environment, GlobalWarming, HubbertsPeak

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Politics

. . . (ie scary guys in dark suits) showed up. they filled the hall outside the room, forcing cancellation of the break for fear that we'd not be allowed to re-start . . .

And so it goes at Fellow Berkman Fellows' Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon's Expression Under Repression (flyer.pdf) workshop in Tunis. Story here. Frequent updates here. I sure hope Ethan and Rebecca get home safely.

Technorati Tags: Berkman, F2C, WSIS

When I was a boy growing up in Woods Hole, it was my duty to deliver the Falmouth Enterprise to subscribers around the Eel Pond every Tuesday and Friday after school. It is still published every Tuesday and Friday.

Eureka! I opened the November 8 issue to find this Editorial, by Managing Editor Janice Walford. Clearly Municipal Wireless has reached a tipping point.

Since the Falmouth Enterprise's website no longer carries this editorial, here it is, word for word.

Community Approach to Internet

Just as many families are taking a hard look at their monthly expenses for cell phones, Internet access, and the like, small towns and large cities are also seeking ways to trim their “communications” budgets.

The town of Pepperell, for example, with a population of 11,000, hopes to save $30,000 a year on its Internet access and cell phone bills, which equates to about 60 percent of its communications budget.

This savings will be accomplished by switching from the broadband service, offered by cable and telephone companies, to a wireless computer network, owned and operated by the town.

Pepperell’s system administrator, Den Connors, told Commonwealth magazine that last year he was comparison shopping for cable (wired) modems for the town. After investigating the wireless option, he said, “It became very obvious that it would simply be cheaper for a town the size of Pepperell to go out and install this gear in one shot.”

The total cost is between $120,000 and $130,000, which Mr. Connors says the town expects to recover in about three years.

Pepperell’s wireless network consists of about 30 diamond-shaped boxes containing an antenna and radio transmitter, each the size of a baseball base. Each installation, costing $1,500, is attached to the roof of a municipal building, plus one in the belfry of the historic town hall. Most of the installations are on slender 30-foot poles, similar to cell phone towers. Installation and maintenance on any tower less than 100 feet can be performed by town workers; anything higher than that requires special certification and insurance.

Mr. Connors says the signals bouncing among the boxes provide Internet access to all the buildings at speeds from 10 to 100 times faster than cable- or phone-based access. There’s an automatic data backup system and many of the landline telephones already have been replaced with VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). In the second phase, video cameras and alarm systems will be installed, which will be advantageous to the public safety and public works departments. Mr. Connors says that while cost-effectiveness was the primary goal, the new system also is being well received by employees for its efficiency.

Pepperell is only the second of the 351 communities in Massachusetts to take the wireless route. Malden went wireless for municipal purposes 18 months ago. It has now, according to Commonwealth magazine, launched a citywide network that allows all residents with computers and PDA devices to access municipal and community websites.

Brookline is investigating starting a public and municipal network simultaneously, an approach that also is being eyed by Newton.

Meanwhile, island-wide high speed wireless Internet access is being proposed for Nantucket. Transmitting devices that are small enough to hang from streetlights and telephone poles are part of the plan, in order not to add visual blight.
There are other important considerations, in addition to cost-savings, driving this movement toward municipal wireless.

High speed Internet access is becoming a public necessity, like water, gas, and electricity. Large and small communities are beginning to realize that they have to provide their residents with this service, either in partnership with the private sector or as a public utility. The concept is taking hold in communities from California to Michigan to Vermont. Two examples of the public-private partnerships that are being pursued are Philadelphia and San Francisco. Last month Philadelphia chose Earthlink to build and manage a citywide wireless network, at no cost to taxpayers. Low-income users will be charged $10 a month, other residents $20. Google has offered to make all of San Francisco wireless for free, gaining its revenue from targeting ads to users.

Massachusetts, which likes to bill itself as being on the cutting edge of technology, is obviously lagging behind, just as the United States is trailing far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband.

As can be seen with the split rate in Philadelphia, there is a need to make Internet access universally affordable, whether it’s in low-income urban neighborhoods or rural communities that are also badly underserved by the private sector. The community Internet approach treats broadband access as a public necessity, not a privilege, according to the freepress.net, a website that has a wealth of information about this emerging trend.

Increased public access is another fine benefit. By using the local networks, towns can offer their residents any number of services, including public safety, political forums, church services, and Internet radio stations.

Many in both the public and private sectors see broadband access as an essential tool for economic growth, health care, and education for all ages. Proponents of affordable wireless broadband say access helps to keep jobs and attract new businesses. It also is an indispensable tool for telecommuting and advances in telemedicine.

It is a given that businesses such as Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T see all this as an invasion on their turf. Once it saw what was afoot in Philadelphia, Verizon reportedly spent more than $3 million to lobby the Pennsylvania state government to pass a bill preventing other cities and towns from offering the same services, unless the phone company has refused to do so. Texas has a blanket prohibition on the public sector entering this field. Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed a law in June that prevents cities and towns from offering broadband if there are competing private services.

A battle also is brewing in Congress, with millions being spent on lobbying to keep the public sector out of this arena. On the side of big businesses is Republican Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas, a former telephone company executive, who introduced legislation similar to the ban in Pennsylvania. On the Senate side, Republican John Ensign of Nevada has introduced the misleadingly named Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act. Truly on the side of consumers are Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who have introduced legislation giving free rein to cities and towns to offer broadband.

Some competition for the major providers would be healthy, because their track record is dismal when stacked against the progress being made abroad. A recent study shows that the US has dropped to 16th in the percentage of its citizens with access to broadband, lagging behind South Korea, Canada, Israel, and Japan.
The US is the only industrialized state without an explicit national policy for promoting broadband. Until recently, the US led the world in Internet development. Now Japan has shot into the lead, with nearly all Japanese having access to high speed broadband, with an average connection speed 16 times faster than in the US, for about $22 a month.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, in an article called “Down to the Wire,” Thomas Bleha says: “By dislodging the United States from the lead it commanded not so long ago, Japan and its neighbors have positioned themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, technological innovation, and an improved quality of life.”

This is a lesson that needs to be heeded close to home, too.

Reprinted in entirety by permission of The Falmouth Enterprise. The Enterprise's very limited Web site (which only goes back a week, thus does not include this Editorial) is here.

Technorati Tags: MunicipalNetworks, Press, WiFi, WirelessNetworks, WoodsHole

"It is, quite frankly, unacceptable for the United Nations to continue to include among its members states which imprison citizens for the sole reason that they have criticized their government on the Internet or in the media."

Samuel Schmid, President of Switzerland, at the opening of the World Summit on Information Society, Tunis, quoted here.

[Andy Carvin has a WSIS blog aggregator here -- Worth Reading.

Technorati Tags: Freedom, WSIS

What is the meaning of Telepocalypse? Is it the withering away of the telephone companies because network connectivity is so abundant and ubiquitous that there's nothing to sell? Or is it that dark day when the Internet becomes nothing more than TV-with-a-buy-button-on-steroids?

Martin Geddes recent Telepocalyptic entry makes me think that maybe he is rooting for definition #2. He tries to deconstruct the term, "Network Neutrality," but he imputes far more complexity than is warranted, as if to cast aspersions on the entire concept of network neutrality and all of its adherents. His point?

Net neutrality messes up freedom of contract, freedom of association, and property rights.

In fact, everything about the Regulatorium that the telcos know, love and play like a Stradivarius messes up freedom of contract, freedom of association and property rights. Franchises mess up these freedoms. CALEA messes up these freedoms. Universal service messes up these freedoms. E-911 messes up these freedoms. Laws against municipal market entry mess up these freedoms. Special access to public rights of way messes up these freedoms. Laws that prohibit non-US companies from buying US telcos mess up these freedoms. Spectrum regulation messes up these freedoms. So why should network neutrality be any different?

Network neutrality is simple. It is simply content and application agnosticism. When a network operator deliberately introduces an impairment in their network aimed at specific applications or classes of applications, that violates network neutrality.

Blocking Port 25 violates network neutrality. Introducing upstream jitter deliberately to make third-party VOIP impossible violates network neutrality. Detecting Skype and blocking it violates network neutrality. The broadcast flag violates network neutrality. Capping long downloads to discourage TV over IP violates network neutrality. These fail the content and application agnosticism test. But saying "don't run a server," in a service agreement is not a violation of network neutrality. It is just garden variety discrimination.

It is all about market power. About a year ago I was unhappy when Continental Cablevision blocked my Port 25, and I switched. Thank goodness I could switch, and thank goodness the only other provider available to me was not a blocker. If I could do that among multiple providers, I would be happy. In such cases, the marketplace itself would enforce whatever the marketplace wanted. Then we'd have no worries about Internet freedom. But until that day arrives, the absence of fair use rules for the Internet in the name of a "Free Market" that does not exist simply hastens the day when the Internet ceases being a place for citizens and, instead, becomes TV-on-steroids-with-a-buy-button.

UPDATE: Martin Geddes' reply.

Technorati Tags: FCC, NetworkNeutrality, Telepocalypse, Regulatorium

Doc's take on Saving the Net from the Pipeholders reads, in part

. . . the bigger enemy is in how all of us understand the Net itself. We have choices there, and those choices may mean life or death for the Net as most of us have known it — and taken it for granted — for the last decade or more.

How we understamd the Internet, indeed, how we tell the story of threats to the 'net, is a hard problem. Doc observes:

The Regulatory Environment . . . is where the phone and cable companies have an upper hand, and where they have natural partners among the copyright obsessives in the entertainment industry. All those groups want to kill the Net as we know it. If they have their way, the Net we know is toast.

If saving the net is among your concerns, Doc's essay is worth reading.

Technorati Tags: Content-Conduit, DocSearls, F2C, Internet

Last Wednesday, November 9, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Internet, held a hearing (webcast archive.ram) on the latest discussion draft (.pdf) of the current proposal for the Next Telecom Bill.

Vint Cerf, who could not attend the hearing because he was busy getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House, sent a letter to the Subcommittee that was read into the record at the hearing. It was so idealistic (and correct) that it has a snowball's chance in the congressional cauldron.

Vint's letter said, in part:

Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate in favor of certain kinds of services [i.e., Voice telephony and video -- David I] and to potentially interfere with others would . . . not give consumers the broadband Internet our country and economy need.

*snip*

As we move to a broadband environment and eliminate century-old non-discrimination requirements, a lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive.

He is certainly right, but currently there is currently no congressional constituency for a single Internet, regulated uniformly, without voice and video carve-outs.

I audited the House hearing on Nov. 9 via Webcast. Representatives Markey and Boucher, the only apparent netheads on the Subcommittee, expressed dismay with weakening of network neutrality rules from Draft 1 (9/15) to Draft 2 (11/3). Both addressed the issue of whether the carriers would reserve enough capacity so the basic BITS (that is, Internet Access) service would usefully support present and future Internet apps, and both expressed concern that carriers might impair (or prevent growth of) their basic BITS offering to favor their VOIP and Video offerings.

Boucher and Markey seemed to be thinking about a rule to mandate that BITS providers would not introduce such impairments. This might be a reasonable compromise EXCEPT that I can't imagine any such rule that would be (a) practically enforceable and (b) light-handed so as not to be subject to pages and pages of FCC regulations, followed by slow-rolling, litigation, weakening by FCC interpretation -- in other words, a replay of the 1996 Act at its worst.

On an Internet that coexists with voice and video carve-outs, carriers operating services with conflicting needs would find themselves in the same untenable bind that the '96 Act's unbundling put the carriers in over the last decade.

In the current situation, the "enshrined" voice and video services come with a well-known business model. The other service, Internet connectivity, when application-neutral, provides an alternate way to get those same services either "for free" or by attracting customer fees to other loci. Both kinds draw on the same network resources. Thus, the carrier will be motivated to favor voice and video rather than the new, self-competitive alternative. If Congress made a rule that would mandate how carriers must treat their BITS service, and the rule's specs deviated from the carrier's perceived business interests, I can only foresee a failed law.

On the other hand, a "lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule . . . to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive," would require significant restructuring (of industry and/or government) to be both lightweight and enforceable. I can't imagine how such a proposal could possibly become law in the current congress!

I sure would like to find a way to make real legislative progress towards that "lightweight but enforceable" rule without making the same mistakes we've already made. But without a constituency for such a rule, I despair.

Suggestions anybody?

Technorati Tags: F2C, NetworkNeutrality, OpenAccess, Regulatorium, VintCerf

Duane Bowker quotes Dorothy Parker, writing, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force":

Michael Crichton, State of Fear [Fiction. I picture the author going to his publisher to say he'd like to write a book ranting against soft-headed wanker environmentalists. His publisher, in his best Dr. Evil voice, asks Crichton, "can they be EVIL, ILL-TEMPERED environmentalists?" The fiction in this book is really, really bad...I mean worse than Lost World bad, and I didn't think that was possible. The non-fiction segments, which are a large portion of the book, present arguments and data against the most simplistic interpretations of global warming. His point is well taken that there are a lot of unknowns in our understanding of the global climate and that things are certainly more complex than they are often portrayed in the mass media. But comparing environmentalism to eugenics? PLEASE!!! To quote Dorothy Parker: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." On second thought, do the right thing and recycle it.]

As a relatively new Berkman Fellow, I'm delighted to report that the Berkman Center for Internet and Society has gone a long way towards "eating its own dog food," in the last several weeks. The Berkman home page has become a hot source of recent news and upcoming events. A Berkman blog aggregator lists Berkman bloggers and re-blogs the most recent posts from the Berkman community. I've added a Berk-stuff heading to my own blog's sidebar.

Even better, if you're a Berkman guest, or if you're walking past 1587 Mass Ave, or if you're a Berkperson and Harvard's network is down (at five nines, Harvard would already owe me several centuries), you can use Radio Free Berkman, our open Wi-Fi hotspot, as easily as you can use the hotspot in your local cafe. As readers of Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace know, in most cases, "you cannot connect your machine to the net at Harvard unless your machine is registered -- licensed, approved, verified" (p.26). So Radio Free Berkman is an important step, maybe even a bellweather.

Kudos to the hard-working staff of the Berkman Center for the hard work behind all these improvements!

Aldon Hynes wrote to point out that open Wi-Fi hotspots would be illegal in Westchester County under a proposed new law that could go into effect "early next year." An article in news.com says

The draft proposal offered this week would compel all "commercial businesses" with an open wireless access point to have a "network gateway server" outfitted with a software or hardware firewall . . . The proposed law has two prongs: First, "public Internet access" may not be provided without a network gateway server equipped with a firewall. Second, any business or home office that stores personal information also must install such a firewall-outfitted server even if its wireless connection is encrypted and not open to the public. All such businesses would be required to register with the county within 90 days.

Wow. Without this essential legislation

". . . somebody parked in the street or sitting in a neighboring building could hack into the network and steal your most confidential data," County Executive Andy Spano said in a statement.

Let's get behind this progressive legislation right now, before it is too late and our Confidential Data is stolen by Evil Hackers using Open Wi-Fi. Call SUSAN TOLCHIN (914) 995-2932 and LYNNE BEDELL (914) 995-3106 (the contacts listed in County Executive Spano's statement) to express your support for this vital law.

Technorati Tags: F2C, Stupidity, WiFi

ICANN has announced that Susan Crawford is joining ICANN's Board. No matter what you think of ICANN one thing is certain, Susan will make it better. Susan writes

I'm going to need [my blog readers'] help over the next three years. I'll do my best to keep the lines of communication open, and I'll be urging ICANN to do better at explaining its limited mission to the world and opening its processes to view.

Congratulations Susan. Congratulations ICANN.

Technorati Tags: ICANN, SusanCrawford

I'm at the annual Marconi Foundation Symposium, where Gordon Moore, Bob Lucky, Jack Goldman (founder of Xerox PARC), Len Kleinrock, Whit Diffie, and other founders of our field are bemoaning the demise of (mostly U.S.) telecommunications R&D.

Amid this concern with R&D, the FCC press release (.doc) approving Verizon-MCI and AT&T-SBC mergers says

. . . the mergers will give the companies increased economies of scale and scope, which should [should? -- DI] increase their incentives and resources to engage in basic research and development.

I'll eat my hat if duopoly scale and scope alone actually yields more research. I think the new telco giants need a bigger bone to chase, such as rate of return regulation that gives them a financial reward for increasing the expense side of the ledger. That'd be back to the future.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, MCI, SBC, Science, USLosingLead, Verizon

Everybody who cares has probably seen this already, but it is a milestone (on the road to . . . well at least there's no hint of good intentions here) so here it is:

Why should they be allowed to use my pipes [for 'free']? . . . The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

SBC (soon to be AT&T) CEO Ed Whitacre in Business Week, November 7, 2005. Link

Technorati Tags: F2C, NetworkNeutrality, OpenAccess, ParadoxoftheBestNetwork