Saturday, December 30, 2006
It's the all-new private public sector!
Bob Frankston:
Power Distribution to be like Telecom Distribution. Specifically,
Inspired the the success of faux-ATT in its BS acquisition the owners for the power generating companies including Niagara, Quebec, TMI and others have opted out of the shared power distribution agreements and will build their own local distribution systems. They have watched as the cable and telephone companies have benefited from control and will now do their own distribution systems.
Relying on precedents from the FCC they demand the right to place their own outlets in each home on an equal basis. To avoid confusion they will color code each outlet so soon you’ll see a line up of power outlets and can choose who to subscribe to merely by plugging into the appropriate outlet. The colors choices are to be selected from the palette provided by homeland security as to take advantage of existing technology and protocols.
They will also offer Internet — the new outlets will provide not just 110V but 100V+I with I being Internet but only to the extent you use their power. No free rides they say, if you want high speed connection then you better have a honking big refrigerator or air conditioner or heat your house with all those bits. Since they can’t make any money on the bits they’ll be free — provided you use enough electricity. If you want IPTV then you better go out and buy a big CRT with lots of tubes in the circuits, otherwise you won’t be able to pull in enough bits.
Go ahead and laugh. Maybe that's where we're headed with this.
Reading Susan Crawford, looks to me like putting Ma Humpty back together isn't going far enough for the FCC. Richard Bennett has a different take. Read the whole things. Ain't nobody happy about this one. Except, I suppose, the fraction of AT&T that now alone bears the whole name.