ColbyDog's Blog

Welcome the new "Information Gas" Station

Last week, Time Warner confirmed its plans to test a new Internet pricing system that would charge a "pay-as-you-go" rate for high-bandwidth consumers. Perhaps you wondered why Time Warner was "giving" away access to their services the past year? How the company could offer such affordable pricing for their combination voice/data/tv packages and stay competitive was certainly a question I asked myself. But one look at the fine print and it became obvious- "Introductory pricing subject to change at any time without prior notice". The media giant could tighten its profit margins for a a year in order to squash the competition. Their gamble worked for millions opted for the convenient combined services and "up-front" savings. Now that most smaller providers have either closed their doors or been gobbled up by big media, Time Warner's "real features" are being rolled out...

Democracy only works when the masses are able to access information, review it and make informed decisions about their government's policy, authority and laws. When access to, or presentation of this information is restricted, denied, or filtered, democracy is dead. Of course the other part of the equation is that the society must seek to maintain a literate and educated citizenry to be able to accurately question authority, but thats a topic for another post.

Now that Time Warner, along with its four other corporate media companions, has sequestered an overwhelming market share, it announced that it will explore charging by the megabyte for broadband... like Gasoline- pay-as-you-go.




Now we citizens will be "charged by the gallon" to access information on our own public airwaves! Just like oil that comes from under our public lands is sold back to us at ridiculously profitable rates, so too will access to our own information now become the next oil boom for a precious few mega-corporations.

Before we go and blame the greedy Time-Warner we really need to examine how such policy could be permitted. The Federal Government is in charge of the internet and has final say on content and delivery through the FCC. But don't shoot the messenger for delivering the message... its not the FCC in masse thats to blame, but its Kevin Martin and his Bush appointed majority commission who's dismal record of protecting our nation's airwaves and content from abuse.

Even then its hard to ferret truth from fiction when you listen to Big Media sing the blues. Cable companies claim to have limitations on how much traffic they can support. Some Internet service providers have claimed that the only way to manage their networks is to disconnect customers when they cross a mysterious line of ‘overuse’ or by secretly blocking applications like BitTorrent which directly crosses the line of stifling competition.

Time Warner will chill innovation in cutting-edge applications because consumers won't pay extra to use them. Viewed in the context of our long-term national goals for a world-class broadband infrastructure, telling consumers they must choose between blocking and metered pricing is a worrying development. But why are these the only choices?

Why not use public policy and market forces to improve the quality of our networks? The best answer to any capacity crunch is to build the kind of high-capacity networks available in the world’s leading broadband nations. If smart, open access policies and genuine competition are working in Asia and Scandinavia, why not in America?



Because Kevin Martin is running the FCC and he's a big friend of corporate media...surprise!... so not-only is he giving away our airwaves and allowing unprecedented consolidation of radio, tv, internet and telecommunications, but his organization hasn't conducted any oversight or posted any statistics alerting the public to how ridiculous the claims by cable companies are. The US has fallen to nearly the bottom of the world's developed nations for internet speed, while costs are the highest.... yep, the very nation that invented the internet, is now one of the worst places to manage it.

Listen to the cable giants, they'll say "filler-up and get your complimentary content filter".

Besides- who's gonna report the facts-the corporate news?