The internet is over!

[tw]

From CBSMarketWatch on 9 Mar 2007:

Tech giants' lobbying effort at a crucial turning point
Allied Microsoft-Google group sets key test in bid for free U.S. Internet access

MSFT prototype, delivered on behalf of the group, is a wireless device that could provide the public with free and more widespread access to the Web instead of relying on networks owned by big telecom and cable firms.

That breakthrough, tapping into an unused part of the nation's airwaves, is politically charged because it threatens to shift the Internet-access business away from telecom and cable companies that are historically well-connected in Washington, throwing open the field to a brand new batch of competitors. ...

The telephone companies are terrified they'll lose 40% of their wireless minutes, because you'll be able to connect from work or home and bypass their wireless networks," said J.H. Snider, research director of the wireless future program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based policy institute that has long advocated to allow use of white spaces.

Every Congressman in PA gets a 'contribution' from both Verizon and Comcast so that WiFi - as Earthlink has installed in Philadelphia - cannot be installed in any other PA city. Net neutrality?

Officially, the telecom companies and other established Net-service providers stress that they're less concerned about new competition than they are about preventing interference in their service quality.

And officially that is a load of bull.