Dan Gillmor on the Content Threat
Posted on:: January 22nd, 2003
Dan Gillmor’s column warns that the lack of competition in the access provider market may well lead to a stifling of content itself.
The question boils down to something fairly simple… Should giant telecommunications companies — namely the cable and local-phone provider — have vertical control over everything from the data transport to the content itself? Or should we insist on a more horizontal system, in which the owner of the pipe is obliged to provide interconnections to competing services?
Hmm, let me think about which I’d prefer….
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Its still the “Paradox of the Best Network”. If a telco or cable company does not have vertical control (ie content+network), they become a commodity and thus won’t make money (or at least make very much less profit). So if an access network costs a lot of money to set up, and does not have suitably high returns, why would anyone do it?
btw, why, as the article points out, is it cheaper in Canada than the USA to subscribe to cable modem – what are they doing differently? I can choose between two providers in my street in Sydney, but I’m not sure its cheaper because of that. More of a “which-annoying-restriction do you want to pay about the same of money for”.
OK, I can answer my own question, now that I’ve read the Open Spectrum paper and looked at David Reed’s excellent presentation “the illusion of spectrum scarcity”.
Open Spectrum/Radio is the answer.