Episode 28: Microsoft vs. the EU, Second Life and More!

Thanks guys - good show,

I read about Jack Thompsons open letter to Bono here:
http://www.ps3today.com/Blogs/News/hqs/blr_1839.aspx

Jack Thompson deserves his own section in the jackass hall of fame aside from that, you asked what the "solution" was to some of the telecomunications regulation.

From the business side, I understand the need for public companies to recoup expenses for laid infrastructure, but the methodology by which they have tried to accomplish this harms consumers and competition. Taken as a package the deregulation of telecommunications, creation VERY entertainment friendly intellectual property law, federal taxes for things like e911 which have not been spent on proper implementation all do considerable damage to consumers. Take a look at your phone bill and you'll see charges for federal and state taxes, ask where those monies go, even with celluar carriers, and you'll begin to question the validity of telecom laws.

As far as Google is concerned, they pay ISPs for bandwidth (well, and Akamai) as do individual users (even public library users pay via taxes). if both endpoints are paying for service from an ISP, why should they face more cost from telecoms? If both end points are paid for what is the real issue here?

Oh I don't think Google or anyone should pay per hop.

I just think that stories that put Google and other Internet corporations on the side of "technology innvators" (the "good guys") and ISPs as a bunch of money grubby scum have have to have some balance.

The Internet is kind of a big free for all still in many respects in which the burden isn't shared equally.  Google, Stardock, etc. are all free to make their millions but for any of us to argue that the ISPs should be more regulated is a little offensive I think.

"As far as Google is concerned, they pay ISPs for bandwidth (well, and Akamai) as do individual users (even public library users pay via taxes). if both endpoints are paying for service from an ISP, why should they face more cost from telecoms? If both end points are paid for what is the real issue here?"

The problem is the "in-between" pipe.  Those hops that are between you and the Internet provider are being paid for by someone else. 

PowerUser.TV pays for the 50 megabits it needs. But it's not as if it's also contributing to the global bandwidth pool.  For you to get our podcast or reach that search engine or download that game, that data (and subsequent bandwidth usage) had to go through a bunch of others who freely pass it on making their money from other avenues.

The problem is that the Internet is slowly changing. The backbone providers are slowly losing out to upstarts such as Cogent (who we use) who can practically give away bandwidth while others are still having to subsidize the backbone.  Eventually that's going to go away and they'll have to find some way to pay the bills.

What Google and others want to do is make sure that these backbone providers don't compete with THEM and hence "neutrality laws".  At least, that's how I read it.