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To Save Net Neutrality, We Must Build Our Own Internet (vice.com)
In light of reports that FCC plans to announce a full repeal of net neutrality protections later this week, Jason Koebler, editor-in-chief of Motherboard, suggests that it is time we cut our reliance on big telecom monopolies. He writes: Net neutrality as a principle of the federal government will soon be dead, but the protections are wildly popular among the American people and are integral to the internet as we know it. Rather than putting such a core tenet of the internet in the hands of politicians, whose whims and interests change with their donors, net neutrality must be protected by a populist revolution in the ownership of internet infrastructure and networks. In short, we must end our reliance on big telecom monopolies and build decentralized, affordable, locally owned internet infrastructure. The great news is this is currently possible in most parts of the United States. There has never been a better time to start your own internet service provider, leverage the publicly available fiber backbone, or build political support for new, local-government owned networks. For the last several months, Motherboard has been chronicling the myriad ways communities passed over by big telecom have built their own internet networks or have partnered with small ISPs who have committed to protecting net neutrality to bring affordable high speed internet to towns and cities across the country. Update: FCC has announced a plan to repeal net neutrality.
The issue with this mentality is the last mile problem. Communities have monopoly agreements with ISPs (comcast/att/etc) that restrict the ability to get a new ISP to the home. Radio based internet is still a possibility perhaps since it avoids much physical infrastructure. I think another good option is community provided (aka utility) internet service. Comcast/Centurylink caused a law to be passed in Colorado that disallows municipal internet unless a community votes to allow it again. In Colorado alone, it has happened MANY times.
What makes this guy or anyone else think that we, The People, will be 'allowed' to build our own Internet replacement? Think about this: if the government is taking the leash off ISPs, what's to stop them from eventually buying out backbone providers, or otherwise using leverage to prevent them from providing backbone connectivity to this upstart Internet 3.0? For that matter, what if ISPs use pages out of the Starbucks playbook, and saturate any given market with their services, even if they're taking a loss overall, just to squeeze small startup Internet 3.0 providers out of the market? Then buy them up, absorb or liquidate them. The phrase 'uphill battle' doesn't even really begin to describe the situation. Now consider this: Ajit Pai is clearly in the pocket of the telecom industry. To my mind that makes him corrupt as hell. What's stopping him from putting any roadblocks he can in the way of Internet 3.0 companies, to either stop them from happening at all, or hamstring them so much that they're not viable? There apparently isn't going to be any 'fair play' anymore, so anything is going to be possible. Add to all this, that the general public, who don't even know what 'net neutrality' is in the first place, is completely oblivious to all this. They just pay their money because they think they have to, and so long as they can see Facebook on their phones, and watch movies and play games on the Internet, they really don't give a damn. It's only when things aren't working that they care; they aren't going to be sold on 'Internet 3.0' because why should they change?
The whole situation sucks. ISPs, greedy companies, and oppressive governments are destroying the Internet for everyone, everywhere, not just here in the U.S.. It may not be possible to save it, and it may never be possible to create a viable alternative to it.