In a discussion of a House Energy and Commerce Committee Staff Working Draft Bill, Jeff Pulver suggests that the concept of Net Freedoms may not amount to much if a “fair price” and “non-discrimination principle” are not attached to end user access. He also encourages “obvious allies” to work together on behalf of end-users and innovation.
So, here is the problem. The current debate largely sidesteps the concept of end-user empowerment and ignores the perspective of retail customers, including retail customers capable of self-provisioning communications services for themselves and their own communities of interest. No one seems to be talking about precluding discrimination between various end users. Now that an end user can download an open source IP-PBX and become their own service provider, no one is talking about how to ensure that the end user may control their own communications experience. Everyone is giving lip service to the concept of “Net Freedoms”, but unless there is a fair price associated with unfettered access to the Internet, Net Freedom might not amount to much. Without a non-discrimination principle attached to end user access, nothing will keep a control of a last-mile facility from charging one rate to a pizza parlor (an end-user who does not threatened the last-mile access provider’s core business - voice, video, data delivery), and a much higher, debilitating rate to a VoIP application provider (an end-user vying to offer services that might compete directly with the last-mile access providers core business).
The obvious allies appear to be the edge device vendors, the application providers, the end-users, and the consumer advocates. I would like to see us come together and become a meaningful force as we enter Communications Policy War, Round II. Unless we work together, I fear no one will speak for the end-users and for those that want to harness and maximize the power [of] the Internet to revolutionize the communications experience.
Mitch Shapiro at 10:47 PM|Comments(0)
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