Before I go on, I'd like to say that the Internet itself has rendered it's own caretakers obsolete. The real reason for introducing a tiered bandwidth structure is to make sure that the other revenue streams of the telecommunications giants here in America aren't cut. This means making sure that services like VOIP and IPTV cost a hefty sum, to keep the competition in line. It's no grand conspiracy involving the government or anything, as plenty of folks have claimed. It's to make sure that people who use the Internet to make alternative telecommunications services available are kept in line. (The irony, their competition uses the very services the telecommunications companies provide to subvert them!)

That aside, this is inevitable. The tiered bandwidth structure will come to be, and there's nothing we little ones can do about it - except to repeat the process that started this in the first place. Telecommunications companies are becoming obsolete, all thanks to technology. It'll be interesting indeed to see where wireless communications take us - we still have some of the radio spectrum to ourselves, and that won't be changing any time soon. Anyone who is familiar with mesh networking will see where I'm going with this.

Right now, it's not especially feasible to replace a nation-wide private telecommunications network with a wireless or hybrid public network, and it will take time to accomplish that end. However, there are emerging technologies and standards here today that aren't being held in any nasty corporation's vice-like grip that we either already can or will soon be able to use freely. We may have to suffer through an artificially crippled tiered Internet for a little while, but there are and will always be ways around it.

Remember, there are few problems that science can't solve. It's our ultimate power, for better or worse. If the telecommunications industry doesn't want to play fair, we'll just have to replace them.

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... and the Internet's failure to be a universal communications medium demonstrates this. Better exchange snail-mail addies with your pal in Russia or Japan because soon thier Internet will not be connected to yours.

It's no coincidence that Europe has just announced plans for a "new" network while the USA is creating a closed "grid". Control is what it's all about. Just as D. rightly points out this is a "step backwards" to the silly old AOL type tech where you can't actually go online, only AOLs network, the future is seperate networks tightly controled by corporate, government, and dictitorial interests.

It was a nice fantasy that the Internet, and technology, would give us a future where ideas and people from all over the world can communicate, but TPTB have no interest in this and, in fact, will make sure it doesn't happen. It was only a matter of time before the many hubs of the Internet were forced into controlable (that is, ownable) slices of pie.

It's the same with TV and radio broadcasts. Radio frequencies are numerous, but in reality massive chunks are licensed to corporations exclusively. Basically, the average license for broadcasting gives a corporation a huge chunk of what actually exists and could be used by anyone. It's like the colour spectrum - getting a license to broadcast is like giving someone a license to the colour green.

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...is for consumers to step forward. Or sideways. Or jump over. If you have Verizon Wireless, it may be time, as Ms Zandt suggested, to use those egalitarian, voting feet that we've been endowed with.

That is...unless we've likewise endowed ourselves with a contract that lasts longer than most TV marriages...

Erm, buyer beware?

I think technology is moving faster than any big telco. Cheap, reliable broadband with good fidelity over less limited distances is coming. In ten years, your local community will be able to pick somebody's house (note--they must be willing, we'll hope that 51 "progressive populists" won't be able to just declare eminent domain in--"socialize"--your backyard within our theoretical community of 100 people), throw up an antennae, install a server, and beam broadband all over the community. VOIP will eclipse talking to people over copper, and this will happen SOONER versus LATER, in my opinion. In fifty years, people in developed countries will be talking over copper about as often as they talk over a cotton string connecting two dixie cups. 802.11b was almost--ALMOST--poised to turn your wireless Palm handheld into an internet chatterbox two years ago...

Then the engineers and programmers threw their hands up, backed out, and began to work on less complicated implementations (there were interference, bandwidth, and security hurdles with talking over .11b on a handheld device). Now .11g, and .11a, and .11n are on the horizon for massive rollout.

What? "Evil companies" who want to make "evil money" will "evily" choke us? Well, back to our theoretic little community--if Cox and Time Warner refuse to do business, or won't give us a fair price on our little wireless umbrella, then any company that can put together enough scratch to toss up a satellite will fill that market void. Of course, we'll have to use a dish + an antennae in that case, but in a community of 100 people, that isn't such a huge dollar commitment to maintain.

Why? Because our little community has "evil money" that we're willing to spend "righteously", too.

Moohahahahaha.

I see no problems here, unless one is so in love with Verizon Wireless they....can't....let....go.... Which is why AOL is still in business.

Gosh, as evidence of consumer driven change in the telco market, I point to the fact that today I can make a call anywhere in the country, for any length of time for $23.47/month (this is my shameless shill for www.Packet8.net VOIP), plus the $44.95/month it takes to keep my modem talking to TWC/Earthlink's cable internet service. Five short years ago, you had to pay a BabyBell $30/month for local service, MCI charged ~$50/month for long distance, and Cox charged $100/month for a 256kbps connection, because they only sold internet "bundled" with their premium cable broadcast service.

In short, I made my own darn "bundle" by doing some simple comparison shopping and got better internet service, and the same telephone service for 1/3 of the price I would have paid five years ago.

P.S. TV over IP is coming, too!

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