Own the Last Mile

jonabbey writes "Robert X. Cringely's most recent column advocates a radical solution to the network neutrality thicket: create our own last mile infrastructure, rather than paying the telcos and cable companies to use our bandwidth as a lever. From the article: "A model in which the infrastructure is paid for as infrastructure -- privately, locally, nationally, and internationally can create a true marketplace in which the incentives are aligned. Instead of having the strange phenomenon of carriers spending billions and then arguing that they deserve to be paid, we'd have them bidding on contracts to install and/or maintain connectivity to a marketplace that is buying capacity and making it available so value can be created without having to be captured within the network and thus taken out of the economy."

Comments

Re:cream skimming

[Xyrus]

Thanks for that idea Mr. Cringley. Now let me tell you how it would work in the real world.

The telecos would quickly pay for laws and regulations that would prevent people from creating a last mile infrastructure. As an example, look at how the telecos are preventing municipal ISPs and other "community" networks.

You see, it's not that the telecos "need" incentives. They have plenty. They just want to milk every single dollar from both government and consumer. This is similar to how the oil companies operate ( we made x billion dollars last year, but we just can't afford to build any more refineries without government money).

Besides, with the whole tiered internet thinking the telecos have been pushing lately is there really any doubt that they have anything but greed on their minds?

~X~