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How The Cable Industry Will Kill The Internet
from the consequences dept
A very interesting discussion that ties together a number of the issues that regularly crop up here at Techdirt, talking about how new plans to have cable internet providers limit bandwidth to users will effectively kill the internet as we know it. In an attempt to make more money, these companies have convinced people that "bandwidth hogs" are a problem - though, there seems to be plenty of bandwidth to go around (and the cable companies themselves have admitted that the systems are built so they won't run out). The throughput limitations could also help make Hollywood happy by making it nearly impossible for anyone to download or stream content - since it would eat up their allocation. Normally, I would say that this would be an opportunity for a new business to come along and specifically offer access without limits, but as this article suggests, current FCC policy may make that nearly impossible, since the broadband providers don't have to open up their networks. In other words, they're getting a monopoly, and they're now using various "tiered" pricing schemes to squeeze extra monopoly profits out of it.
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Usually what happens in a case like this is that the monopoly isn't broken up, but some other technology comes along to supplant it. You might have a monopoly on the railroad, but that wouldn't help you for freight shipped by truck.
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Okay, here's what I think can prevent this, or at the very least compete. Assuming that enough people in a certain area want high-speed access without silly limitations, wi-fi and hard wire links could share ISDNs, T1s, whatever between several apartments and/or homes. I believe that if you had enough interest, you could provide better access for far less $$. I was already thinking of sharing my cable connection for a few $$. (Oooohhh that's that's evil!)
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