This may be the third rail of the conslidation debate. It is an issue that is not going away. The issue of the Internet is vital to ur citizens.

This is Cantrell Johnson. I’m proud to say he has been my neighbor for almost 23 years. He is a part-time pastor. He supports his family doing odd jobs. He used to tile floors. These days he often mows lawns. Rev. Johnson doesn’t just preach about Jesus. He tries to live as Jesus did. He […]

Once we have competition, in other words, in both the core and at the edges, the problems of the Bell monopoly are over, without the need for new legislation.

Unfortunately Enron’s oh-so-clever “bandwidth traders” didn’t know they were selling kittens. They thought they were selling an asset like oil or gas, something whose supply was limited and whose demand was growing. In fact they were selling something whose demand was constrained but whose supply was unlimited.

Cuban is right about one thing. We will not have true broadband in 10 years, we won't break the TV barrier on our Internet connections, unless something is done. But that something is not new technology. That something is to break the duopoly.

As we've seen with open source software, sharing is a rising tide that lifts all boats. New business models emerge, and progress is faster than with the old proprietary model.

In the 21st century, connectivity is our basic infrastructure. The more you have -- the more speed, the more access across all sorts of boundaries -- the greater your access to the world. And the greater your access to the world -- the more connectivity you have -- the more wealth you can create and accumulate.

There are huge markets just waiting to be created, once we let people control their own data. There are enormous edge applications to be created with this data, once we're secure that it won't be turned against us by either big business or big government.

At stake in the politics of the Internet is nothing less than the direction we take as a society. We can remain like Canada, or we can become like Mexico.

The way out remains a floor price under energy so alternate domestic production comes on-line, it means getting out of Iraq, it means accepting responsibility for our own cupidity and playing smarter. The answer to fear is to stop being afraid.