IP Democracy: Poetry for the Common Carrier Enthusiast in All of Us

VoIP pioneer, investor and net-neutrality advocate Jeff Pulver is funneling his rage over the AT&T-BellSouth merger into…poetry. Not just any ordinary rhymes, but stanzas filled will telco-geek common carrier law-speak.

It started yesterday when he penned this poem “Baby Bells Grow Up with Dr. Seuss.” A sample verse:

Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
How can I get in gear.
With all these free-riders stalking near?
FCC and DOJ must prick up your ear.
Approve our mergers or I fear
I will not build the broadband pipes.
And then what of the VONs, what of the Skypes?
They cannot serve without my pipes.
So back to the era of Al Sykes.

But that’s not the best part — Pulver also taped a dramatic reading of the poem, a video of which can viewed here.

Today Jeff has posted another anti-telco poem of sorts, a rhyme entitled “We Couldn’t Stop the Mergers,” to be sung in one’s head to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” A sample:

Free-for-all, ICC, change the name to FCC.Carterphone, Hush-a-phone,
throw Ma Bell another bone.
MCI, MFS, Bill McGowan had to press.
DOJ, Judge Green, MFJ, change of scene.
CHORUS
We couldn’t stop the mergers
They were always clinging
Since the phone was ringing
We didn’t start the mergers
No we couldn’t take it
And we tried to break it.

Poetry and telephone industry consolidation don’t, to me, go hand-in-hand. But, to paraphrase Thomas Hardy, poetry is nothing more than emotion put into measure. So clearly Jeff Pulver is upset and if the picture continues to darken for VoIP providers, he might end up with enough material for an anthology.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on March 7, 2006 7:21 AM to IP Democracy