The Revolution Will Be Televised
Tue, 10/25/2005 - 13:02
Communications
A recent Wall Street Journal (print version) article described the pain that the telcos are going through due to the onset of VoIP services that are turning voice communications into a fixed-price commodity. Interestingly enough, the most vulnerable companies are the cellular carriers, since they don’t yet have a real foothold in the data communications space. The general consensus is that in a very short time voice will simply become another form of data on the Internet.
They are fighting back, though. The article described their efforts and potential plans to block data traffic from applications such as Skype through packet inspection technologies. The excuse for doing this is that such applications use too much bandwidth, which can prevent their customers from reading their email. This argument is so self-serving and transparent that it doesn’t even deserve consideration, but it is the case they are making to the FCC. The heroes in the article were the cable companies, who cautiously defended the right of their customers to run these applications.
Their caution is very telling. The next ox in line to get gored is cable television as network-based video content delivery systems come on line. These are not the lame postage-stamp streaming feeds, but instead download content to user hard drives that handle the decode chores under local control.
In the late 90’s there were predictions of tremendous upheavals in the content creation and delivery systems, and that is exactly what is gradually unfolding around us. The Internet revolution is far from over.
Larry Mittag
They are fighting back, though. The article described their efforts and potential plans to block data traffic from applications such as Skype through packet inspection technologies. The excuse for doing this is that such applications use too much bandwidth, which can prevent their customers from reading their email. This argument is so self-serving and transparent that it doesn’t even deserve consideration, but it is the case they are making to the FCC. The heroes in the article were the cable companies, who cautiously defended the right of their customers to run these applications.
Their caution is very telling. The next ox in line to get gored is cable television as network-based video content delivery systems come on line. These are not the lame postage-stamp streaming feeds, but instead download content to user hard drives that handle the decode chores under local control.
In the late 90’s there were predictions of tremendous upheavals in the content creation and delivery systems, and that is exactly what is gradually unfolding around us. The Internet revolution is far from over.
Larry Mittag
