A couple of months ago, UK's leading ISP (and the incumbent telco), British Telecom  began pulling the plug on around 4,000 of its broadband punters because of "excessive usage".   BT claimed that these net users  - making up less than 0.2 per cent of the company's 2.3m ADSL  users - were consistently using up more than 100 gig each a month.   According to BT, these "exceptionally heavy users" were in "consistent breach of their "fair usage policy" and have failed to respond to requests to contact BT to discuss the matter"!

The arrogance of this is breath-taking.  So the telco is the determinant of what is a "fair" way for men, women and children to use a new technology!  I am for ever saying that any business model in our new digital world that differentiates between "content creators" and "content consumers" is ultimately doomed!  Moreover it fails to recognise the true 'facts of life' - that we are ALL created with content creating potential and that these wonderful digital technologies of abundance, need to be deployed for OUR benefit (as in an OPLAN) rather than the benefit of an elite group of 'absent landlords' - the telco/cable-TV and ISP sector.

It is interesting that BT makes no mention of rapping the knuckles of "excessive uploaders" - not that it is much fun 'uploading' in the grossly asymmetrical DSL world they are cretaing in order  to eek further value out of their obsolete copper network.

The absurdity, if not immorality of this situation was starkly reinfoced last evening as I spent a pleasant time cruising the canals of Copenhagen with a hundred or so 'digital creators' attending the reboot8 convention arranged by that great networking community maker - Thomas Madsen-Mygdal.  Each person on the boat had the creative capacity of a whole industry in the old paradigm.   Cruising Copenhagen with a hundred Hollywoods, Madison Avenues and BBCs - and all less than half my age - the future is looking good!  But  the world is being deprived of an even greater influence and input from this digital generation of creators because of the telco (and often government supported) asymmetric view of the world that keeps them in business.  According to CacheLogic of Cambridge (UK) 60% or more of internet traffic is peer-to-peer.  Does that mean that only 40% is 'fair usage' - I think not!   The world is a peer-to-peer creation - and any human institution or construct that tries to pervert this by playing god will be short lived!