One Step closer to "Net Neutrality"

Today, a Congressional House Panel voted to allow "Net Neutrality", which is great news for content providers (think: Google Videos and Apple Itunes) but bad news for broadband providers (think: AT&T, Qwest, Cablecos, etc...)

I'm guessing a few lobbyists are going to get fired for this one. After all, much of the Bells' investment strategy relied on getting both you and the content-provider to pay at the same time. Now, they have to let Google pile on all the high-broadband content they want, and invest in the infrastructure to carry it.

Of course, Google would argue, they're doing the Bells a favor: After all, DSL is plenty fast for e-mail and other now-low-tech-apps. If someone, like Google, doesn't dream up new high-bandwidth IP-based applications, then no one will care how much FTTH (Fiber to the Home) Verizon invests in.

Verizon may think: "Build it and they will come", but Google thinks it can help with a few high-bandwidth digital apps to serve as a carrot.

In the end, they need each other, I guess.

A new BPL player gets ready

We've made the case before here that even though the cost of "retail" voice minutes is plummeting, the "intercarrier" complexity remains. For as far as the eye can see, who gets to carry traffic along portions of a call's route will remain at least as important as what the customer pays for the call. And, as long as these turf wars remain, there will be handoff issues as well --- all of which means that intercarrier compensation schemes will only get more - not less - complex.

This morning's Wall Street Journal reports on the progress of Current Communications, and their foray into Broadband over Power Lines (BPL).

A new choice for the consumer. A new method of providing Broadband service. And a new connected party to the PSTN.



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Current Communications Gets New Funding
By AMOL SHARMA

Current Communications Group LLC, which is offering Internet access over power lines, plans to announce $130 million in new equity funding, including backing from General Electric Co. and EarthLink Inc.

The start-up, whose other investors include Google Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has developed a technology -- available in Cincinnati and soon in Dallas -- that offers consumers high-speed Internet access using small adapters that plug into an electrical outlet. Utilities also can use the network to monitor the security and efficiency of their grids.

Broadband-over-power-line technology, known as BPL, has been identified as a potential threat to the cable and phone companies that dominate the market for high-speed Internet access, but there have been few examples to point to thus far.

The infusion of money from well-established companies shows that Current's efforts are gaining traction. The recent funding also came from Texas utility TXU Corp. and Sensus Metering Systems Ltd.

Current is controlled by a partnership of chairman and co-founder William Berkman and Liberty Media Corp.