Network neutrality came from the telephone business. With electronic phone switching (analog, not digital) it was possible to give phone company customers who were willing to pay more priority access to trunk lines, avoiding the dreaded “all circuits are busy, please try your call again later.” Alas, some folks almost never got a circuit, so the FCC put a halt to that practice by mandating what it called “network neutrality” – first-come, first-served access to the voice network. When the commercial Internet came along, network neutrality was extended to digital data services, lately over the objection of telcos and big ISPs like Comcast, and the FCC is now about to expand those rules a bit more, […]
This week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) releases its proposed new rules for Internet Service Provider (ISP) network neutrality. I have written many times about Network Neutrality and once I have a look at the FCC proposal I am sure I’ll have comments to make here. In general I’m in favor of rules that allow me, as a consumer, more digital freedom. It would be great to run Skype over my iPhone, for example, just as I can already run it over the cellular connection on my notebook. But right now I’m talking about a different kind of network neutrality, the kind I’m struggling to achieve in my own home.
I was hanging the other day with some ex-Google folks. There are more and more of these as the search company matures and the fact that I’m running across a few is, in itself, meaningless. But without giving away any trade secrets (which the ex-Googlers absolutely refused to do) these chance encounters have opened my eyes a bit to how things actually function inside the Googleplex. It’s different, really different.
Today is the Labor Day holiday in the USA, so to honor the more vulnerable parts of our society and economy I’m engaging in this fantasy rethinking of our current economic crisis. If only……
Note there is additional new material at the end of this column — Bob
What happened to Second Life? The 3-D virtual world from Linden Lab is still very much around but I don’t spend much time there, do you? Second Life has peaked. And there is something to be learned from this transition.
Sales of video game consoles and video game software are down this year as are sales of DVDs, none of which are supposed to happen in a recession. Hollywood thrived during the Great Depression, remember? And now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control 
