Today the National Journal published an excellent overview of the thorny net neutrality issue. If you're interested in this topic (and any news/media organization should be, since this affects our financial future and competitive landscape), then "Tangled Net" by Drew Clark is a must-read article. (Note: That link points to excerpts published on Clark's blog. The full text is available online only to National Journal subscribers.)
This article gives blow-by-blow coverage of how this controversy developed, and who the major players and stakeholders are.
I've written earlier about media organizations' stake in the net neutrality issue. But I didn't realize that a news organization, Business Week, actually lit the fuse under the now-furious controversy over net neutrality. Clark wrote:
"Over the weekend of October 29-30 [2005] Business Week published an interview with [SBC Telecomminications CEO] Edward Whitacre on its Web site. In the interview, which had taken place back in September, Whitacre displayed his usual aggressive style. Asked about Google, Microsoft, and Vonage -- all big Internet companies that use broadband to transmit video, software, and telephone calls -- Whitacre said, 'They don't have any fiber out there. They don't have any wires. They don't have anything. They use my lines for free -- and that's bull. For a Google or a Yahoo! or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!'
"For the first time, Whitacre was talking publicly about charging the Internet companies a fee to reach an SBC customer. And if Google or Yahoo didn't pay up, he implied, they would presumably find their Web sites more difficult to reach."
...That's the power of a good interview, and a good quote: Shedding light on previously hidden power dynamics.
(Thanks to The Rural Blog for the tip about Clark's article.)
...Which is why, in my previous Tidbit item on this...
