ab@work

all in one post.  Like Adrian Monk, I don’t believe in coincidences.

Last week, the FCC announced they would be investigating Comcast, because of repeated rumors they are filtering/blocking P2P access through their pipes. I had heard they were simply “inserting” spurious TCP “closed connection” messages into the stream. Comcast say “this only affects less than 1% of users.. so who cares?” Translate as 99% would be quite happy with just an internet appliance that feeds you all the movies you can watch and more. Of course, an FCC investigation could end with an approval of Comcast’s tactics. But Time Warner obviously think the writing is on the wall, and are looking for another way of handling congestion….

On Wednesday Time Warner Cable said they are considering tiered access to the Internet. The more bandwidth you use.. the more you pay. Sure its is an upfront way of handling congestion, but its also a sad admission that they need to prop up their current infrastructure rather than build fiber systems for bandwidth that can handle an exponential explosion of content.

And at CES in Las Vegas, an AT&T veep said they are considering “inspecting and filtering” Internet traffic. Considering? they have been actively working with the feds for a very long time… just a “pay as you go” business arrangement, you understand.

Of course, the dinosaurs aren’t just fighting over which of them “owns” the Internet.. they are fighting their own extinction. This week, the FCC also finally cleared Google to bid on the 700MHz spectrum in the upcoming auction. Remember Google’s four conditions on their $4.6B minimum bid: and that FCC agreed to one out of the four: that one of the blocks of the upcoming spectrum be kept accessible to all mobile devices.

If someone goes after your core business, you go after theirs.