Gordon Cook extracted the following from today’s traffic on the mailing list created on behalf of the $200 Billion Broadband Scandal.
The picture is not from the list. Instead it’s from Steve Borgerding, who took it on a field trip with Melrose, Minnesota Troop 68 of the Boy Scouts.
A failure of imagination to see that It is ‘just’ capacity, from Erik Cecil of Level3:
The deeper irony is, of course, that as intelligence moves to the
edge,
pipe suppliers appear to be nothing more than utilities.
Which, in all
fairness, brings up an issue that I struggle with on
behalf of my employer
– how in God’s name does one attract money for
a build when all you are
building is connectivity? The backbone
industry got crushed by excess
capacity and the Bells are doing
everything they can without regard to
their own credibility to make
sure that the same thing doesn’t happen at
the edge. [Cook Report,
"Turning the edge into scarcity."]
This points
to an even deeper irony – it is because of their fear
that they have
nothing of true value to sell that the fact of the
matter – it is just
capacity – will eventually become glaringly
obvious to all. But again,
investors are driven by the same fear.
So it is in many ways a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Typically those
situations really have to crater
big before those invested in such
delusion wake up – viz. the Abramoff
scandal in DC. We are probably
years away from the full public perception
of that, but maybe not.
Like a bamboo tree – which grows for 4 years
showing barely a shoot
and then upon the 5th year rockets up 80 feet in
less than 6 weeks,
perhaps this has been growing for a very long time and
may rocket up
very quickly for reasons anticipated and
unanticipated.
So coming full circle if I may, perhaps the greatest
failure of
politicians, regulators, businesspersons, lawyers, technologists
and
the public at large is a failure of imagination. Perhaps we’ve
failed to imagine a world where incentives (and disincentives) are
aligned and drive people to do the right thing. Having spent
the
past 10 years of my career focused solely on enabling the 1996
Act, one
thing is certain – it is not easy to force business or
people or business
to spend money.
The Bell (former / present and substantially similar)
companies – as
evil as they may appear and act at times – are
extraordinarily adept
at aligning their actions perfectly with the
incentives and
opportunities afforded by the current regulatory
environment. And
regardless of where the next generation of regulations
end up, I’ve
seen little yet that convinces me they aren’t already well
ahead of
that curve and likely control substantial portions of the
outcome.
The rest of the industry survives by exploiting the gaps in
their
business plans and strategies, until, as you point out, they are
consumed by their larger rivals.
Can Google Upset the Apple
Cart?
My only deepest true hope is that Google will upset this apple
cart,
but I don’t think that organization yet quite gets (with the
exception of Vint [Cerf] – he’s seen enough of this) just how
powerful
incumbent interests at the physical/data/IP layer can be –
and Google has
several to fight
- Those aforementioned at the physical / data and IP
layer – the Bells and others who would restrict the flow of information on
pipes; - The applications layer – MS; and of course, a few layers that
actually control the outcome of the OSI stack — i.e. the "real" IP layer –
intellectual property holders who’d restrain their ability to index the
world; - The other even more real "IP" layer – "individual
politicians" – who’d have them divulge the guts of their search engine’s
index for reasons no more compelling than a politically driven fishing expedition for child pornography. I do take my hat off to their refusal to provide anything; MS, AOL and others reportedly complied at
some level or another.
The Laws of Money
So the one last true hope
I have is the one law that so far as my ken
stretches appears immutable:
the laws of money – it tends to flow
(and politicians and regulators follow
like cattle after fresh hay)
where innovation and true value create worlds
not imagined by and
ultimately more powerful than those that the incumbents
invest so
heavily to preserve.
Change is coming & I don’t think
it will be too kind to the Bells.
They are way way over the line. It may
come far later than most of
us would like or can reasonably tolerate but
change is inevitable and
the more rigid the organization, the harder its
fall – as to that, I
can vouch from personal experience because Qwest’s
legal case in my
present litigation is so utterly and inexorably twisted
their only
hope is in confusion because as soon as the contradictions
become
apparent they are unavoidable. It isn’t even a policy call – just
raw twisting of facts and law. Problem is this is hard stuff to
understand at first – and thus they win by delay. But not for long
if
there’s anything I can do about it, I am; Lord knows, I’m putting
my
backbone into this one. I may be one, but as I’ve read in other
places,
"we two form a multitude". There’s more than two on this
list & thus a
vast multitude assembled here infinitely more powerful
than the sum of its
parts.
