“There is no escaping the reality that we have evolved into a society in which electronic information represents the substrate of much of daily life…If we do not take this moment to secure our sovereignty over the choices that our information age has allowed us to enjoy, we cannot reasonably blame its loss on those who are free to enrich themselves by taking it from us in a manner history has foretold.” -Tim Wu, The Master Switch
For our regular readers of the BetterBlog, you know by now the concentration is generally on our customers, partners, BetterWork-related items, and such – once and awhile we dip into the other arenas, and the topic of Net Neutrality is way to close to home for us to avoid. Last week, we stopped by FCC Commissioner Michael Copp’s office to meet with his staff and voice our support for his views and the precepts of posing a strong stance on Net Neutrality at this juncture. We saw and heard from both sides of the issue…we were one of just a few telecom carriers that came down on the side of strongly supporting Net Neutrality and keeping the barbarians back from the gate and helping to protect this amazing global neural network, cultural phenomena and driver of freedom called the Internet, which was invented by the U.S. Defense Dept, btw, not by AT&T, Comcast and Google.
Click here for the CNET article and details of the FCC ruling today: FCC Makes Net Neutrality Rules Official
Personally, my tenure in telecommunications is now over 25 years, with a telecom degree from Indiana University (yes, I had a class titled The History of AT&T), to working for Ed Markey at the House Telecom & Finance Committee, and over 20 years in the telecom private sector in all shapes and forms, so needless to say I have a personal interest and POV on the subject…the important things we have realized as a team, is that telecom & the Internet hold the key to so many aspects of change in society and our impact on the environment. And if we can maintain the internet as an open platform, avoiding the consolidation that brought radio, media, TV, telephony, telegraph, etc. into relatively few hands of control, we can help transcend the job/economic/environmental challenges that we now find America. This is what we call BetterWork – read on…
So, weighing the pros and cons and considering a multitude of opinions, I can’t speak for all of our team – since we are a 100% democratic company and do not hold one common view – but I’m excited to see that there is at least a healthy standoff, debate and, for the moment, moratorium on consolidating control of the internet by a powerful few, for the benefit of the greater good.
If you want to read more on the essence of the debate, pick up Tim Wu’s latest book, The Master Switch – peace and love to all, we’ll be writing our annual signpost blog in the coming week.
Rockin' the telecom world,
Matt
Posted in: General Blog
