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Lessig on Broadband
Editorial on unbundling, net neutrality...
"Broadband is infrastructure," argues Larry Lessig in a blog post about net neutrality and broadband deployment, "like highways, if not railroads. If you rely upon “markets” alone to provide infrastructure, you’ll get less of it, and at a higher price." He continues: "Verizon’s entry-level broadband is $14.95 for 786 kbs. That about $20 per megabit. In FRANCE, for $36/m, you get 20 megabits/s — or about $1.80 per megabit. How did France get it so good? By following the rules the US passed in 1996, but that telecoms never really followed (and cable companies didn’t have to follow): “strict unbundling.”

Most recommended from 28 comments



calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA

3 recommendations

calvoiper

Member

On the Baby Bells killing the 'Net....

In his blog, Lessig makes the point that if the Bells had been able to, they would have killed the Internet early.

He's right. Recall their ISDN products. Their world view was one where when you wanted a broadband connection to Amazon, you would dial Amazon's phone number and then you would be connected. After that, you could dial ebay or Overstock or whoever else you wanted to.

Each a separate call.

Each billed separately, over and apart from your monthly service charge.

(Oh, and of course, the merchants you wanted to call could provide a toll-free number for you, if they wanted to pay for it.)

Fortunately, this didn't happen (yet), but allowing the extortion of protection money from content providers will put us in about the same place if we let it.

calvoiper