I don’t know how many times the ridiculous argument that “charging for content won’t work” can be thrown out and still get traction. Let’s look at the history of “free” versus “pay” and see where it takes us.

High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Status as of December 31, 2008
Federal Communications Commission
Industry Analysis and Technology Division Wireline Competition Bureau
February 2010

It took 90 minutes but Tuesday evening’s panel discussion about the future of news ultimately devolved into a predictable attack by media “reformers” on commercial media and communications companies that see the Internet as their “plaything.” Robert McChesney of Free Press whined about having to battle “King Kong and Godzilla on steroids,” and Jane Hamsher of the blog Firedoglake accused telecom and media companies of cannibalizing the Internet.

Google was quite upset that Apple didn’t approve of their Google Voice application on the iPhone due to the fact that Apple didn’t like Google replacing some core Apple iPhone functionality.  Now it seems that Google has just bought one of the best email applications on the iPhone called reMail only to kill it on [...]

Network bandwidth costs can vary tens or even hundreds of times depending on various factors. These factors must be taken into account for any comparison of broadband to be useful.

By urging a move from non-discrimination to unreasonable discrimination, NARUC recognizes that “big dumb pipes” are a model for the Internet that was abandoned years ago. NARUC also realizes you cannot have a neutral internet if only one side of the content/access equation has to abide by those rules.

Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world
Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society
February 2010 Final Report

The main argument for this type of a network is to give high bandwidth applications a home to be tested because the theory was that broadband networks in the US were constricting applications to very low bandwidth. But does broadband really lag applications, or is it really the other way around?

Following the announcement last week that Google is looking for community partners to develop a 1-gigabit test bed network, Om Malik asks, “Where Else In The World Can You Get 1 Gbps to the Home?” He points to a couple of rural telephone companies here in the US that are supposedly offering such service.  I [...]

The Internet has two billion global users, and the developing world is just hitting its growth phase. Mobile data traffic is doubling every year, and soon all four billion mobile phones will access the Net. In 2008, according to a new UC-San Diego study, Americans consumed over 3,600 exabytes of information, or an average of 34 gigabytes per person per day. Microsoft researchers argue in a new book, “The Fourth Paradigm,” that an “exaflood” of real-world and experimental data is changing the very nature of science itself. We need completely new strategies, they write, to “capture, curate, and analyze” these unimaginably large waves of information.