- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
re: Obama's plan to save the internet draws bold reactions
Posted on 11/11/14 at 10:15 am to Oenophile Brah
Posted on 11/11/14 at 10:15 am to Oenophile Brah
quote:
But the Internet cannot function as a public utility.
quote:
First, public utilities don’t serve the public; they serve themselves, usually by maneuvering through Byzantine regulations that they helped craft.
quote:You know what also kills real price discovery? A market with only one seller.
Utilities are about tariffs, rate bases, price caps and other chokeholds that kill real price discovery
quote:Oh, well, if he would know then I guess it's settled!
I would know; I used to work for AT&T in the early 1980s when it was a phone utility.
quote:What?! I guess I should expect this sort of bullshite from a WSJ writer trying to write about technology. AT&T's "Mobile Telephone Service" was basically a walkie-talkie, only 3 people in a city could use the service at the same time, and the equipment weighed 80 fricking pounds. Not so "mobile", huh? Yeah, it took nearly 4 decades to make it portable. Not because of "utility follies", but because it was a gigantic technological leap made up of thousands of smaller leaps that took a long time to develop. And the DynaTAC is only "comically unwieldy" compared to today's phones. At the time, the DynaTAC was a technological marvel that was 40 years better than AT&T's "mobile telephone service".
More utility follies? The first cellphone call was made in St. Louis in 1946 with AT&T’s Mobile Telephone Service, but the company let the innovation wither. It took until 1983 for Motorola to introduce the now comically unwieldy DynaTAC
quote:So, if I follow his logic here, if we classify the internet as a utility, then companies will focus on ways to bill us, and his example for that is that wireless companies, which are NOT classified as utilities, do it? What a fricking hack.
If the Internet is reclassified as a utility, online innovation will slow to the same glacial pace that beset AT&T and other utilities, with all the same bad incentives. Research will focus on ways to bill you—as wireless companies do with calling and data plans—rather than new services.
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News