Internet Class Warfare

My last column on broadband data caps rubbed the wrong way my old friend Brett Glass, an Internet Service Provider in Laramie, Wyoming. “Your most recent article regarding ISPs and bandwidth caps is misleading and inaccurate,” wrote Brett. “I hope you haven’t joined Bob Frankston’s ‘kill all service providers’ camp, because it sure seems like you have… Our bandwidth costs are $100 per megabit per second and are going UP due to increasing charges for middle mile bandwidth from Qwest/Centurylink and the FCC’s failure to act on special access.”

“My situation is absolutely the norm. Bandwidth is expensive, and anyplace you have to use the (monopoly) telephone company to get to it — which […]

By |July 30th, 2011|2011|60 Comments
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Brett Versus Bob: Taking Net Neutrality Personally

brettbob

Brett Glass (on the left) runs Lariat, a small wired and wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP) on the prairie in Laramie, Wyoming.  Bob Frankston (right) programmed VisiCalc, the first personal computer spreadsheet and for several years worked on home networking issues for Microsoft, somehow without having to move from his beloved Newton, Massachusetts.  Two nerds, a decade apart in age yet both vastly experienced, they have completely different views on Net Neutrality. Bob loves it. Brett hates it. Yet coming to understand each man’s position helps us better understand the whole Net Neutrality issue and what really matters.

Net Neutrality discussions usually come […]

By |November 3rd, 2009|2009|107 Comments
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