One of my good friends, Ken DiPietro blogs quite lucidly on Municipal wireless, public policy and many other things. Ken's Blog covers many topics, but I was especially struck by one blog on Regulation as being very important and a potentially massive looming problem. The Telcos want to control the quality of IP traffic. Basically they propose their circuits to be a toll road. Nevermind that we the public are already paying for service. The Telcos have decided they want to offer prioritization and the FCC seems amenable to allow this. Why is this bad? Well on the surface it isn't necessarily. Many VoIP companies would probably do well to have their IP traffic prioritized on a network for example. Of course, what about smaller companies who could not afford this "prioritization", would they in turn be discriminated against or relegated to something less than they have now? One has to think yes. So structurally, would this mean that every network IP traffic would cross to reach a consumer would get its own little cut? I shudder to think how many hops I go through just to reach Google. How many times must Google pay for me to get free services from them? Ultimately, if this happens I pay or I do without or someone wealthier gets a better experience. What if we are talking online education or distance learning. Will poorer children or school systems be able to afford the educational content that wealthier patrons of the net will get? What about rural kids? I don't know. But it is a slippery slope.   Now, how this came about is straightforward enough. The Telcos have enjoyed a monopoly, albeit a regulated one for a long time. One could say that the regulation makes things inherently fair. Trust me, the Telcos learned to play the political game of regulation long ago. They get their way, just witness a Louisiana law forbidding the city of New Orleans from operating a broadband network. Remember the days when cable TV was illegal in bigger cities? The broadcast stations had a great lobby then. Now, for a long time Telcos have been content to deliver the content as they always have. It was no big deal, they had the pipes. The problem now is that innovation has exploded what was one of the truly stable business models in the US (along with electric power). Voice over IP by the cablecos and cellular service is rapidly stripping the incumbent Telcos of their cash cow, which is local service. I think they have few choices with the switch type networks most are operating. What are they going to do to ensure they maintain revenues? And trust me, we do need them to survive. They do operate most of the nation's backbone. So what is a happy medium ground? I don't know that I have the answer but I don't think giving them a regulatory win of such profound nature is the answer. I suspect what the Telcos must do is learn to compete as commercial companies do in the marketplace. The recent uptick in fiber deployments by AT&T and others is very encouraging because it means they are adjusting to offer new products like IPTV. I think this is the path of success. A positive one too. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com