I am often asked to explain technology to friends, to say I can get esoteric is to simplify the point. I have turned whole tables of dinner party guests into zombies. Their eyes roll back in their heads, and silence fills the room. I am often asked the question. What is net neutrality? It has been difficult to get people to truly understand what it means to them personally without putting them into the zombie trance. On May 18th, there will be a vote to repeal net neutrality from the rules set forth in the Obama administration. These rules were adopted under the leadership of Tom Wheeler, who was a former lobbyist for the cable companies, and not one who would be considered “consumer friendly”. I was at an outdoor party this weekend, and at one point I slipped off to the side to check the website of a contact who I had just met. I live on a small island where wireless data speeds are highly dependent on location…. and almost all locations are bad. As I was waiting for the website to come up a friend came up and asked me what I was looking for. This is the same friend who had asked me recently why his internet connection (DSL go figure!) was so bad. He is an artist, of a certain age, and a basic luddite. He asked me about his improving his internet connection again. After answering his question for the umpteenth time, the geek in me launched into a jargon filled, prognostication of what the future held for us. I could not get to the site I wanted and I was frustrated. I opined on how in the future it was going to cost more, and we are going to get less in terms of connectivity, speed and choice. At some point during that conversation his eyes rolled back. When I awoke from speaking in tongues I realized he had left. A plane came overhead just at that time taking off from Providence airport and most likely headed to Philadelphia, Charlotte or some other midway point on the passengers hop, skip and jump to where ever they are going. A light went off in my head. How do you explain net neutrality to 99.9% of the population? Airlines! When I started flying it was a wonderful experience, far removed from the packed meat in the aluminum sausage tube that we experience today. There was a price, will you be flying first class or coach sir? Mostly pleasant people, and you were treated like a human being. Now packed tubes of people traverse the hub and spoke system, people running to make connections, angry people stand at gates while their flight has been delayed, ticked off at the lack of alternative. Smart phones are at the ready, poised like a coiled spring to become 60 Minutes in real time. Landing gates are expensive, no one is giving them up to a competitor, and there are no new airports on the horizon. Laying fiber optic cable is expensive, and no one is building out new networks soon. In travel today, the .1% jump on their own private Bombardier Global Express and Netjet share. They hop, skip and jump from continent to continent, city to city with ease. The merely well to do grab a driver to the nearest metropolitan city, and jump on a direct connect flight. The rest of us hop, hop, hop though the nation on predefined routes that strain our patience, and our blood pressure. Welcome to the new dawn of internet surfing. The internet of tomorrow will resemble this travel metaphor more and more. Delays, lines at limited gates, and a hub and spoke system are the future of the internet. We will surf and wait for content to pop into our browser. This site or app usually popped up in a millisecond, now latency by design will help to direct us to content more advantageous to our ISP’s bottom line will built in. You can’t get there directly from here anymore, traverse our hub and spoke system of gates. For many the easiest alternative will be to watch or read the content that the service provider wants you to see. Sound interesting? Bandwidth providers like Comcast, have vertically integrated content (NBC), and are launching their own apps to direct you to their preferred sources of information. They salivate at the comparative (price earnings ratio) sky high value of Netflix as a company, and scream “but they own nothing!!!… how dare they drive on my roads without a toll”. If the stock market valued them that way they would be worth almost ONE TRILLION DOLLARS! This is what the telco’s and cable providers always wanted the internet to be, steady predictable cash flows, limited opportunity to get up and surf around the county, without cost and pain. It is all about limiting your choice and fattening their bottom line. All options for consumers and providers are a la carte! Do you want Netflix in 4k? That will be an extra two bucks a month, and they will charge Netflix a penny a user to get to them! It’s all about choice, it’s all about “freedom” they say. Welcome to internet 4.0 the prequel, where your service providers provides paid to play service for outsiders, laden with advertising focused on your needs and desires generated from their latest algorithmic iteration, or some juicy clickbait from Outbrain. You will see what we want you to see at our pre-determined speeds, through our hub and spoke system… or you will suffer. Internet travel in 2025, enjoy your flight, those peanuts will be four bucks… Tom Chiginsky is the host of the podcast “It’s When Not If”. You can find it on iTunes, Stitcher or Google Play. His website is: It’s When Not If . Follow him on twitter @itswhennotif
