I've been bad again!

Between life and work I’ve been so busy, I have neglected my blog.  I’ve tried to calendarize it, prioritize it, and maximize my effort to it.  To no avail. 

So the president thinks we should make the internet a public utility.  Somehow this will ease pricing and increase speed.  What might the reality of it be?  Let’s look at public utilities.  Two that come to mind are electric and natural gas.  So when was the last time you were pleased about your natural gas bill?  Yah, me too.  But what about electric?  It has been said for decades that the power grid is dangerously antiquated and in need of updates.  The innovation isn’t exactly flowing out like a river from energy groups.  So why would you want to take possibly the single greatest innovation since electricity and turn it into a bureaucracy?  Do you think the munificent folks at Google would run all that fiber if it was capped on pricing? 

People are worried about ‘fast lanes’ being created and them being left outside with dial up speed.  But fast lanes are not about how fast internet comes into your home.  It’s about how fast Netflix and other internet dwellers get on to the internet.   

Another argument that is with ISPs getting larger, innovation will somehow be stifled.  Yet with Amazon, Hulu and Netflix taking more than their fair share of bandwidth, where do the smaller operators fit in?  Especially when there is no incentive to improve speeds because everything is set and mediocre might just be good enough.  I think there’s a better way.