Gentlemen - Just some thoughts on your thoughts...
The reason that electricity became an undifferentiated commodity was precisely because it was regulated. I recall reading a post, recently, from someone in California, who was receiving 'deregulated' power, and was subject to brownouts.
And while the transport of bits may be likened to the transport of any commodity, it's a comparison that won't necessarily stand up, for two reasons that come quickly to mind. The first reason could be called the quality of transport; the second might be the quality of the content.
The first is fairly obvious, no sense in belaboring the point. For the second, well, given two providers, all other things being equal, one would choose the provider with the most pleasing content - whether that be a mix of services, or types of entertainment, or both.
If, at some point, the regulators step in, they will be able to standardize the variable called quality of transport; it is most unlikely, we hope, that they will standardize quality of content.
Even now, there is a question as to whether there will be sufficient demand at the Last Mile to light up existing fiber. In the future, the life of a fiber network may well lie in its ability to successfully differentiate itself. At the point where the infrastructure is paid for, this becomes less important. However, the present need for content to fill those big fat pipes, and pay the costs of laying and lighting up the fiber, is a major concern.
In the future, when the network has become paid-up legacy infrastructure, the roles of content carrier and content provider are stabilized, to interdependence.
But the networks, at that point, will have become what they replaced: demographics will reassert themselves as the networks continuously, necessarily differentiate: or else, become, themselves, commoditized: as indistinguishable as boxcars.
Also, FWIW.
Regards,
Jim |
