Steve Stroh writes:
Show of hands… who wants to build alternative delivery networks so
you
don’t HAVE to use cableco or telco?
Bill St. Arnaud’s doing it with
fiber. I’m doing it with wireless. Whatever works that’s NOT telco/cableco.
The telco/cablecos are STUPIDITY and CAN be routed around.
For those
that have access to irresistible bandwidth bargains like FIOS, I foresee a
rise of a new class of service providers – VPN end points; all of your
Internet traffic from your home to a "neutral point" on the Internet is
encrypted inside a VPN, and once your traffic hits that "neutral point" it’s
taken out of the VPN and routed to its destination. VPN used to be
computationally intensive and complex to configure. Not any more – it’s
being bundled into routers, and Hamachi made VPN into a download no tougher
to use than Skype.
If the "crackdown" happens, use of VPNs will happen as a
counter-action. From the service provider’s perspective, it’s an
irresistible business – all that’s needed is (now open source) software,
bandwidth, and CPU cycles.
Hamachi seems to have it down. When they have the
Mac client and offer the endpoint service, I’m signing up. Boingo’s already
there (when you use their client software at a Wi-Fi Hotspot). HotSpot VPN
is another.
The need for VPN isn’t yet widely recognized, and the services
aren’t very high profile – YET. All it’s going to take is a mention from a
Mossberg or Manes or Levy… and a tipping point will be reached in
weeks.
I’m not blind to the threat that the telcos/cablecos pose with
their lobbying muscle… but at some point they will lose the battle to the
technology and the popular will and be forced to just let people do
whatever it is they WANT to do with their connection… or find
themselves with a very expensive infrastructure and few customers
because their former customers bailed to using networks that let them do
what THEY want to do with the connection they’re paying for.
Now… if
they want to give me a decent service or connection for free in return for
advertising (Gmail, MetroFi)… well, let’s talk.
