Telecos And The Race For The White House
August 26, 2008
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...The future of Telecommunications hinges on the impending presidential election. The next four years will either promote a new age of Telecom competition and services via the Internet or possibly cement the current power players as the gatekeepers of a more closely controlled Internet and delay the conversion of services from the old copper phone lines to newer Internet offerings.
While the former Bell Companies - like the mammoth AT&T - continue plugging along with their wireless offerings, they are not moving quickly toward the roll out of faster and cheaper broadband services throughout the United States. This has hampered efforts of would-be competitors to create new features, services, and affordable alternatives to AT&T, Sprint, Verizon via the Internet.
Vonnage, Skype, Jajah, Plumble, and others have sought to offer services which compete with the Baby Bells or even turn the business model on its head by offering cheap or free service.
Since many broadband/Internet carriers are also the incumbent telephone companies, they would like nothing less than the authority to restrict these upstart offerings by controlling network speeds, blocking traffic from certain sites, or by charging tolls in exchange for access to faster network speeds.
For these telecom start-ups to compete and for innovation to continue, they need consumers to have two key things - affordable high speed Internet connections throughout the US and universal access to any site or service on the Internet.
But Internet in America isn’t cheap and isn’t available everywhere.
Heavy usage content like phone over the Internet (VoIP), Video, and file sharing services could become limited or even blocked if Internet carriers are able to push through new legislation in the next year or two.
Those who champion consumers, small business, and competition have been pushing for “Net Neutrality” to ensure that all internet traffic is handled equally, they are also pushing for expanded speed and availability of high speed Internet.
Both John McCain and Barack Obama support universal broadband coverage. That is a definite step in the right direction as America has seen its lead in High Speed Internet coverage slip over the past eight years. High Speed Internet allows users quick access to information, video, music, and data services (such as file sharing or Internet phone service). However, on the subject of net neutrality, John McCain is vehemently opposed to equal access of content on the Internet. He would presumably allow telecoms to charge tolls and restrict traffic on the Internet as they wish. Barack Obama is in favor of equal access on the Internet.
Aside from all those sexy issues that usually define a presidential race, such as which First Lady is the best dressed, or how silly a candidate looks riding around in a tank, there are real issues which affect not just the average citizen’s access to the content they want on the Internet but also your ability to start a next generation company on the net.
This shouldn’t be a Republican Vs. Democrat issue. Had Ronald Reagan not allowed the break-up of Ma Bell over two decades ago, there would be no Sprint, Verizon, Vonnage, or possibly even an Internet as we know it today. Had he allowed the Baby Bells to refuse to let their customers accept calls from competing carriers, none of the start-ups could likely have competed fairly. But that same situation is about to play out on the Internet today. Only this time, it is the Republican trying to stop competition and protect the powers of the ever growing AT&T. Ronald Reagan broke up Bell but John McCain may unwittingly put it back together again.
The future is calling, will we be able to answer?
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