Overcoming Telecomm and Media Propaganda
Because of my interest in Telecomm and Media issues, I do a lot of reading of blogposts from those working in the industry, as well as the comments they receive. What I’ve come to realize is that, though people like Harold Feld and Om Malik and Art Brodsky et al are great at spreading the REAL word about the state of Broadband and Media in the US, unfortunately in the comments you see that ordinary people are parrotting Telecomm and Media arguments in comments to “refute” the blogposts.
Case in point: Om Malik wrote “A Man & His 100 Mbps Fiber Connected Life” a few days ago. The article is about what we’d do if we had the synchronous broadband speed and throughput that countries like Japan and Korea and Sweden enjoy. Now, some of the comments that are straight out of the Telecomm and Media Sock Puppet Astroturf Handbook:
Jon, bandwidth and QoS costs are very much an issue (peering agreements aren’t cheap, either); also, building infrastructure to handle the additional bandwidth isn’t cheap, either (look at how much Level-3 is paying to build their own national fiber network in the United States). by Christopher Estep on September 2nd, 2007 at 3:58 pm - #
The recent article on how other countries are dealing brings up that with TRUE COMPETITION and DUMB PIPES the infrastructure is being built, and NOT with taxpayer money. Articles here:
And another one:
I work a lot with networking infrastructure, and the reason the US is lagging behind is not because of the telecommunications industry but because of the size of our nation! Korea, Japan and all these other countries are much smaller and much easier to adapt to newer and greater technology, that is why now telecommunications in the us is looking towards wireless. It is cheaper, and easier to upgrade, no wire to replace every 20 years. Right now there is a big thing going on with lasers and that being the next big thing with the internet in the us. I know it would be great to have a fast wired connection in the us, but it isn’t tangible if you look at it from a longterm and economical standpoint. by Kevin A on September 3rd, 2007 at 7:15 pm - #
Other countries that have diffuse populations are building out broadband. This “size of our nation” excuse is a telecomm myth which has been debunked by FreePress in a PDF entitled “Shooting the Messenger“.
There have been other examples that have smacked me in the eye lately, re Media, Telecomm issues and other various Broadband stuff. The fact that these examples exist at all tells us how broken our current Mainstream Media is. The companies who own the delivery systems should not be doing the reporting on the issues affecting them, since it’s a blatant conflict of interest. Problem is that with the consolidation of Media in this country the only other way to get the word out is through the internet, and with the internet people have to want to find the info.
Technorati Tags: Media Consolidation, US Broadband Myths, Telecomm Policy
