I usually refrain from blogging much but stupidity overwhelms me. WHAT BANDWIDTH CRUNCH?!!! I live in a rural area that has T1’s all over that aren’t used. The ISP’s won’t even let end users get connected to them. $70.00 a month for 512mb down on DSL and you actually see 35mb down on downloads. ISP’s are making millions and wanting more! We can’t even get Digital Cable service and live less than half a mile from an Interstate with multiple T1’s going down both sides. We’re even relegated to a extremely small Telephone COOP that serves 2 counties in the corner of my state. 12 miles away and running on the same T1’s is SBC Yahoo with 512mb down and getting 100mb + actual down and costs $35 a month. So who’s getting screwed us or them?

This is stupid. Is everyone ignoring the fact that if new subscriptions are coming in every day, there must not really be a bandwidth crisis? I mean this crazy-ass idea of mine is kind of supported by the fact that instead of just capping bandwidth to save us all from the shortage they’re actually wasting time figuring out how to make money on their big scary internet apocalypse.

Ha! So bandwidth DOES grow on trees. Stupid global warming!!

First, really, we don’t need to compare the Internet to water or electricity because we have an even better parallel: Telephone. Now that we can look back on the telephone as a fading technology we can ask such questions as “Why did we pay more to talk to family three states away than we did to talk to our neighbors?” the circuit may be longer, but the over-all cost of both phone calls is the same. The lines to and from both points have already been lain, and any extra switching costs nothing. In the early 90’s consumer backlash and competition from the wireless industry struck down outrageous pricing schemes and proved out that ‘premium features’ like long distance were in no way premium. The biggest draw for early cell phone adopters was a pricing plan based on minutes, not distance.

How does that compare to today’s internet industry? Glad you asked. There are just as few players in the broadband provider market today as there were for phone service ten to 15 years ago. They have the same level of collusion, strange ideas about what constitutes access and the same transparent contempt for anyone who asks for more. In the case of the Internet however, they have managed to find a nice little straw man that the like to call the “bandwidth crunch.” but the bandwidth is a lie. It always has been a lie, and always will be.

The chosen pariah in the bandwidth crunch is the massive downloader. It’s been said that 20% of users use 80% of the bandwidth. I say: “OK. And. . . ?” That has always been the case. From the days of the dial-up BBS until today there have always been power users who make the most use of the technology that is available to them. Metered bandwidth, pay-as-you-go access plans failed even before the widespread adoption of broadband. It died before the sun set on the telephone modem, at time when there were actual limits to the number of connections an ISP could accept. Metered bandwidth died at that time specifically because of those 20% who used the most bandwidth and stayed connected for days, rather than hours, and there is no need to resurrect it, because even if we did, it would change nothing.

Metered bandwidth died because the bottom 20% caught up with the to 80 when it came to data consumption. Once more and more people heard, and finally understood, what this Internet thing was all about they began to jump onto the Information Superhighway in greater numbers. Almost immediately they began to bitch about the speed and mileage limits imposed by their ISPs. The thing is these two groups of people, the 20/80 split, will always make up the users of the internet. That top 80% introduces to the rest what is available and possible with any communications medium. This action is not cyclic in nature though, it is a straight line. Bandwidth will always get faster, consumption — bigger. And that’s what the ISPs are really afraid of. They sure have done well in pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes though. The ISPs are not afraid that their networks will be filled to capacity. What they are afraid of, is that when it happens, they’re going to need to take money out of their profit margin and actually apply it upgrading their aging equipment. Their unwillingness to deploy new equipment for the benefit of their customers is only eclipsed by their willingness to do so to stifle competition, and increase the size of their coffers. Even when AT&T, for example, decided to deploy new equipment they tried to do so through subterfuge as to avoid regulations placed on them by local and state governments. Then the ISPs tell us that they need to raise prices to compensate for the roll out of any new equipment. HA! That would be the same as telling your boss that your company should be required to pay for your car, because that’s how you get to work! Yes, that’s the real fear the ISPs are feeling. Not just that the 20% is consuming more, but that the 80% are too, and there are no signs of them ever slowing down.

That is why all of the ISPs are scared. They are scared that they will actually need to allocate funds to building out their network, and they are scared that once they do they will miss out on what they wrongly believe to be an opportunity to create partnerships with media companies and make more money. I suppose they didn’t pay attention to what happened with AOL, CompuServe, Cox@home, et al. They have built their future on the hopes that they keep pushing upgrades further and further out that the money they spend on buying congressmen and women will pay off with an Internet and media delivery system where they have 100% control and 100% profit.