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May 14, 2014

Should Dial-Up Support HD Video?

If my headline caught your attention, I expect it will soon also cause you to leave, as I have to be up front and say that — yes — this is another article about Net Neutrality.

I chose the title because dial-up can support HD Video, just not in real-time. If you are willing to wait (perhaps an inordinate amount of time) for the download, you can use that technology. But, of course, today dial-up is almost totally gone, as in the U.S. we all now use broadband (and a pitiful variation of that, in comparison to much of the rest of the world).

In 2005 when Ed Whitacre was CEO of ATT he said, “Now what they [Internet upstarts like Google, MSN, Vonage, and others] would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it.” Whitacre continued, “So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?”

In this land of equality, I recognize that we have expectations of intolerance when it comes to discrimination of any kind, even when it comes to the last mile(s). It is the first-mile companies, however, that wrote the open letter last week, many of which have boxes that sit at your house and expect connectivity as well as some level of performance. I also understand that the carrier has to meet the desire that everyone receive the same service, regardless of loop length. Does that mean, though, that sites are to be treated equally as well?

When the iPhone debuted in 2007, it came complete with a keep-alive ping that flooded the network, and ATT got the blame for bad service. When 64KB modems came about, customers demanded that their carriers condition the lines to support the speed. If Netflix is having a problem, do you intend to call Netflix or your cable operator?

As we deploy the boxes, the question of who has the right to demand what from whom must be asked and answered. Google’s Fiber to the Home exploration illustrates the possibilities, but it does not change the issues faced by carriers that are candidly being asked to support solutions that eliminate their services. Would you expect an Exxon/Mobil gas station to provide gas from Shell? The Internet continues to morph into closed systems of direct access within which the only place the Internet lives up to its name is at the IP Layers. Apps are personal and allow internal networking, thus devices such as Slingbox take your home TV and extend it (in theory, anyway) only to you. [Note: Aereo does the same thing, but home is where the antenna is.]

Please accept my invitation to join our May 22nd conference call (11 a.m. EDT) on Net Neutrality that makes sense. You can reserve your spot by clicking HERE.


Edited by Rory J. Thompson


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