I have commented before on the raging INTERnet-neutrality debate and how closely allied it is to the issue of LOCAL net neutrality - the focus of the OPLAN Foundation.

Well last week I was reminded again of just how much double talk some of the major vested interests in the telecoms and cable sector are engaged in on this issue. 

We already know the totally warped "let the market be free" argument of the likes of AT&T and Verizon who want to charge service providers and the likes of Yahoo and Google for use of the Internet on a differential basis - i.e. destroy 'net neutrality'.  The fallacy of their 'free-market argument' being that these major corporations would never exist as they do today, as vertically integrated behemoths, had they not been created as such through a century of state intervention, nationalisation and more recently, arbitrary sector-specific regulation.  Had the market been allowed to deploy the digital technologies of abundance free from state intervention and vested interest protection - then the likes of AT&T, Verizon, France Telecom and BT would have left the stage long ago.

Anyway, as we all know, given the fact that they are still with us, it is not surprising that large companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft having been denied the power of the free market to ensure the continued neutrality of the internet - feel forced to turn to legislators to prevent the artifically long-lived dinosaurs from messing it up.  "Foul" cry the dinosaurs - "...government stay out of this - let the market decide!".  Some market, I say!...

I have just returned from a week in New York and Boston - and the talk everywhere is about 'net neutrality' and how those who are advocating the importance of preserving this are just downright bone-headed.   The latest clever PR offering from the telco-lobby is an engaging short cartoon....

I started subscribing to The Economist (a UK weekly publication) over 30 years ago while I was at the Harvard Business School getting my MBA and was offered a heavily discounted student subscription.  I have subscribed ever since and every week, this ‘must read’ magazine drops into my mail box.  A fervent advocate of free-markets and competition, I love the way The Economist (from my experience) practices what it preaches.  When I graduated from Harvard I received a subscription renewal form indicating that as I was no longer a full time student, I would need to renew at the standard rate.  I responded that although I was leaving Harvard, I was joining the “university of life” and would only renew my subscription at the student rate.  A quarter of a century later, I still get the magazine at student rates!  That’s putting your money where you mouth is....

Today’s the day when broadband access became FREE!    Yes – FREE!!! 

Quite a joke really – it’s not broadband (in the proper use of the world i.e. 2 Mbit/s both ways) and it’s certainly not FREE.  But that’s what the clever marketing guys and gals at The Carphone Warehouse in the UK have come up with.   “Free Broadband … forever”.  And this magnificent ‘free’ offer only costs a UK consumer £20.99 a month.   You can’t get much ‘free-er’ than this in this days of high living costs!   It’s like taxis promoting themselves by offering “free petrol”.  Everything is ‘free’ if you pay for it as part of something else.  ...

 Surprise, surprise!   I hate saying, “I told you so!”, but when on 5^th April the US lawmakers refused to agree that the government should take steps to prevent telephone companies from establishing a two-tiered Internet by charging large content providers extra money for higher-speed delivery, it confirmed a number of things which I have been proclaiming for a very long time....

So the European telcos are now jumping on the bandwagon started in the US of crying “foul” to the consequencies of their flawed business models and seeking to charge ‘more’ for delivering high bandwidth content from the likes of Google and Yahoo.  Take for example Mr Kai Uwe Ricke, chief executive of Deutsche Telekom.  He says, “It shouldn’t be the case that infrastructure providers, like Deutsche Telekom are always having to make the investments, while other profit on the back of those”....