[governance] Meanwhile, back at Our Space

[Ian Peter]

Serious enough I think Norbert, and I'm sure others can give some good
evidence here.

The simple fact is that the mobile business model is a good one for telcos,
and the Internet model has much lower margins (can't charge premium content
or by the minute). So given the imperative to greater shareholder returns
the best return for shareholders comes from expansion of the mobile model.
Nothing technically stops all internet services being delivered by this
model - so it's a pure economic argument for higher shareholder returns.
Telcos have been preparing the groundwork on this for some time and there
are numerous statements arguing the need for premium content.

The mobile model makes economic sense for telcos. If regulators don't see a
principle or reason for preservation of net values (net neutrality has been
a part of this debate) it wont be hard to morph the Internet into something
entirely different.

I think the threat is real enough. People like Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee
have thought it serious enough to speak out. But it doesn't seem to rate in
internet governance forums.

Recent court decisions in USA which were not supportive of net neutrality
seem to indicate a growing trend in this direction. Add to this the capacity
to "create" the new safe for kids internet, the secure internet etc and
charge a premium for it. Solve all the Internet's talked about problems and
make big bucks in the process. 

Oh, the net will survive if this happens. It will just lose its impact and
customer share as a media form over time. Innovation and major applications
will move elsewhere. 

That is, unless something in internet governance and what we do creates a
compelling argument for protection of some of the basic features that make
the Internet what it is today in order to maintain the social benefits which
flow from the current model. And unless some more specific and directed
effort is devoted to addressing the major problems the current net has.


Ian Peter




PS on the other issue I raised, check www.smoking-models.com and tell me the
tobacco companies don't support that!

-----Original Message-----
From: Norbert Bollow [mailto:nb at bollow.ch] 
Sent: 27 September 2007 19:51
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Meanwhile, back at Our Space

Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

> At the same time, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the telco giants
> who control so much of Internet access now are much more attracted to the
> mobile business model - pay per minute, and pay per content source. Now
how
> do we apply that to the Internet, they ponder. And how soon will they
> succeed given their economic power and ability to influence regulators?
> 
> Or aren't these the sort of issues that internet governance should
consider?

I think that creating effective protections against this kind of
attack on the freedom of the internet should be considered _the_
most important internet governance topic _if_ there is a real
danger that such attacks could otherwise succeed.

How serious is this threat?

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                      http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG    http://SIUG.ch
Working on establishing a non-corrupt and
truly /open/ international standards organization  http://OpenISO.org
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