Give it Up! Your Internet or Your Life

The new iPad, Kindle, Nook e-Readers are the old books and soon, magazines. Mobile phones that act more and more like video monitors, with hundreds of thousands of software "apps" available, more every day.

Internet publishing needs a level playing field, or metered bandwidth usage, or access for paid premium content.

If all the previous methods of delivering content like movie theaters, TV over-the-air broadcasting, book publishing, Mobile, e-Readers, Netbooks, or libraries have been "technology disrupted" by the Internet, how do we get content paid at rates that will allow creative's to develop, produce, write, video or film, and otherwise "deliver" their content? How do we get AnyThing, AnyTime, AnyWhere (AAA)?

Books can be self-published, right? And the Internet and e-Reader technology seems to offer a "perfect storm" of opportunity for authors and all kinds of content creators.

Dan Brown could write Da Vinci Code II and self-publish through Amazon, maybe do as a revenue sharing deal. James Cameron could self-produce Avatar II, take the $300,000,000 risk personally, Internet distribute as a Pay Per View and maybe Gross 3 Billion, right? Even after allowing for paying for distribution through Cable and Telco, he might make a fortune.

The point of all this is that facilitating the production of content is one thing, distributing it is another. It can't possibly be fair or competitive for consumers, and businesses, if the pipeline for content and the content providers are owned and operated by the same persons and companies - the monopolies - WHICH IS WHAT WE HAVE TODAY.

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) as in Comcast, Verizon and others, IS the pipeline through which more and more content is delivered. Your content "charges" are currently covered in the fees you pay for Internet service, and you pay the same for whatever broadband/Internet content is delivered. The same Pipeline, the very same wires of Cable, Fiber, or Wireless may deliver your Television channels, your Pay Per View and Special Events like Concerts, Mixed Martial Arts and WWF Wresting Championships, and a rapidly growing selection of Content from a variety of sources. And yet they are both controlled by the same companies, and monopolized by them.

Think of Amazon as the retail bookstore, and Harper, or McGraw or others as the content producers. Amazon should have the right to charge whatever they want for the content, while Murdoch has the right to charge Amazon whatever he wants. Murdoch shouldn't have the right to set Amazon's price, however, and in fact anti-trust law (manufacturer control of reseller pricing) should prevent him from doing so.

All of this is tied up in the contest between content producers and the methods of distribution they choose to deliver the content.

A book printed and sold through bookstores? Delivered over Kindle or e-Reader or iPad? iPods through Macy's or Amazon? Content delivery devices to be sure, but shouldn't you have the right to shop for the best price? Movies produced for theater distribution, but delivered over the Internet (Netflix, Hulu, others), by CD, by Peer sharing websites as well.

It's all about maximizing profit on content through controlling distribution and in some cases price-fixing a No-No if ever there was. Okay, what should we have as a Content distribution method?

Content producers, whether print, video, radio, entertainment, movies, travel tours, whatever, should be allowed to gain access the Internet at competitive prices and charge whatever they want. But, and this is a biggie, if content producers choose to use others=third parties ("sell" the content to wholesalers, specialists, retail and online stores) for distribution, they should lose the right to control the third party resale pricing. The FCC, with input from the FTC (which currently appears to be ignored by the FCC) is reviewing issues around content, broadband distribution, universal access and other issues.

We must be absolutely sure that the solution arrived at is one which provides competitive access at reasonable and competitive rates for all content producers. To the extent that Cable, Telco and Wireless currently use their legislated monopolies to control access, charge monopolistic pricing for things like mobile, Internet service, and other "content" they must be forced to separate their content from pipeline delivery infrastructure, through forced spinoff and independent management if necessary, but complete independence of content of any type, from the delivery pipeline.

No other outcome will provide a competitive and level playing field for content producers to gain access to the consumer and business marketplace for products and services that are on the drawing boards and in the dreams of entrepreneurs everywhere.

That the U.S. is 13th-16th in world ranking of Internet broadband reach and speeds, and yet pays the highest costs, is prima facie evidence that monopolies have controlled the growth and capabilities of the Internet and communications marketplace for far too long, with the connivance of politicians and the FCC.

The right solution is one in which content producers of all kinds, including ISP's, should have a competitive marketplace to negotiate in, with reasonable access at reasonable rates. The Pipelines-Cable, Telco and Wireless? They absolutely have the right to build and offer broadband access to all content, at rates that allow them to earn a reasonable return of investment, not a monopolistic one. I expect that in an open and transparent marketplace,
content packages and Internet Service will be offered as Metered bandwidth usage, the fairest and most "Net Neutral" way, and possible in combination with Content packages, as well. Pipelines will be "encouraged" to stay competitive through evolving technology, increased bandwidth speeds and its capabilities, and the competitive market forces that have been missing from the U.S. marketplace.

We should all be active is pushing our legislators and state and local governments to be consumer and business friendly in the future of broadband; a future on which our economy and personal success are becoming more and more dependent.

Cloud Commuting - Fully collaborative work environment working from your Home "Office." All the bells and whistles of your away-from-home office including video and audio conferencing two to two hundred, white-boarding-mutual work on a project. Full suite of connectivity to work-related software and resources

Cloud Health - Devices at home with wireless connectivity to your Cloud Health Management Program. Scans for diseases and conditions, blood tests, eye scans, heart function and more coming. When fully implemented, Cloud Health could eliminate most visits to doctors for routine check-ups and in most cases management of disease and conditions. In the immediate future Cloud Health will enable widespread review of millions of health records anonymously to detect localized or widespread health alerts or disease causing factors in the environment.

Cloud Education - So exciting. Completely revamp the education model to allow children to home school with classmates in a Cloud Education Program. Artificial Intelligence assisted, monitoring by re-tasked teachers dedicated to helping those who need it, and encouraging-mentoring-those can advance more rapidly, (See "They can All Be Geniuses")

These are all potential services on the horizon, and more, which are Internet and broadband dependent for successful integration into our society and economy, offering the additional promise of hundreds of billions, even trillions in potential cost savings for everyday consumers and business.

Reduced pollution, less cars, less of the things that detract from our evolving society. More personal and family satisfaction, more productivity and worker satisfaction in business, more and better community participation in family and government are all positive potential outcomes from a successfully built and integrated broadband society.

But first, we have to make sure that all these content-based, free-market developed products and services have the opportunity to compete and deliver what we need.

If we don't get this right, America will continue to lag the rest of the world significantly in realizing the benefits of a broadband society.The rate of falling behind will increase as other countries develop new content-based products and services that could have been developed here, (As noted, more than thirteen countries already offer greater broadband reach and speeds than the U.S) and each of us will be robbed of the many, many opportunities broadband offers to improve our life and insure prosperity for the generations that follow.

We need to motivate out representatives and senators as never before to make sure this gets done so that American consumers and businesses can pursue the opportunities a competitive broadband marketplace will offer.