The internet is over!

[Undertoad]

If it's determined that a Comcast is doing this, the resulting bad word of mouth could literally destroy them as a company. Providing IP service is the only business that matters. In 10 years cable TV may be dead as everyone will be able to broadcast over IP. No more channels, buy your basketball from Google to play on your video ipod connected to your home monitor.

And market perception is the biggest differentiator. The only differentiator. Anyone can move bits; depending where you're sitting, you may be bombarded with them. You can get broadband wi-fi at your local coffee place, for example.

Cisco has far more sway than any two-bit network-sniffing company and could well treat such packet warfare as network errors in the future, and try to route around them automatically. Remember the axiom, "the Internet treats censorship as network failure and routes around it." Voice is about 64k of bandwidth at the most, trivial to route around. That's why Vonage has a market to begin with.

New phones will even be wi-fi enabled, so if your own bandwidth doesn't match the bandwidth you get at work, or at McDonalds, providers will get complaint after complaint until they get it "fixed" and inferior service will clearly be the road to failure. Even management will understand because of how quickly it will effect their bottom lines.

We are in charge.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If it's determined that a Comcast is doing this, the resulting bad word of mouth could literally destroy them as a company.

If such were true, then APC, Belkin, Tripplite, and Monster Cable would have been out of business long ago - all marketing power strip protectors that do nothing effective and can even contribute to damage of attached computer. This demonstrated in another series of posts. And yet still, naivety lives on.

If your Skype phone does not work on Comcast, but your Comcast provided phone does, then who will most people blame? Comcast? Of course not. Blame will fall on Skype who in turn loses customers to Comcast. Unfortunately I have seen this too often - market forces punishing the innocent because 'so called' experts (power users) did not first learn basic technology. This is the power behind packet skewing. Experts (power users) will only see what they observe rather than first learn the underlying technology - therefore blaming Skype rather than Comcast.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Providing IP service is the only business that matters. In 10 years cable TV may be dead as everyone will be able to broadcast over IP.

Long ago on The Cellar, I noted this fact in a series of posts about DSL and the reason for 'the bottleneck'. Back then, I noted copper wire was not a bottleneck - as so many others blindly believed. Bottleneck was circuit switching computers - the Central Office.

Also in that discussion was what DSL could have provided. No need for an ISP. A mailbox is a tiny server in your home. Central Office only provides a copper wire connect (or fiber) to the home for a fixed monthly charge. This (back then) scared the Baby Bells who had just finished upgrading all their CO switching computers. Upgrading computers based upon 'circuit switched' technology rather than 'packet switched' technology. IOW Baby Bells should have been selling only IP service. What Isenberg called a "dumb network" - which was superior to the "intelligent network".

Well we still are not there. Meanwhile, legacy service provider (ie AOL, Comcast, etc) will do everything to stifle the above business model. They want your VoIP business and may do whatever is necessary to stifle upstarts - as they did to new DSL providers back when the Baby Bells would not install even in 1990s that 1981 DSL technology.

I don't believe for one moment that market forces are that informed as to identify games played by 'packet skewing'. I do not have enough faith in consumer being technically literate. Why? How many power strip protectors do you see out there? Wasted money. But the consumer still spends tens of times more money for devices that do nothing effective. Therefore how do we expect the consumer to understand that Comcast is doing 'packet skewing' to make their own services more desireable?

Neither Comcast nor the Baby Bells have any interest in only being IP service providers; leaving others to provide 'next layer' services such as 'on demand movies' and VoIP.

For that matter, how many here really understand what I have posted? Posted was a so simplistic overview of the Internet. And yet those same consumers would see through this big business trick of 'packet skewing"? I seriously doubt that consumers would be sufficiently informed. Everytime I see a power strip protector, then I suspect naviety is widespread.