Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

While standing around having coffee this morning before David Isenberg's Freedom to Connect conference, I had the chance to talk serially with Esme Vos and Dewayne Hendricks, both of whom said basically the same thing: The war for the Internet is over and we've won; we just don't know it yet.

Esme says the telcos are inevitably on their way to being profitable commodity businesses with little or no direct contact with end users. Dewayne told me about his project providing 100mb wifi to a county the size of Connecticut. He is disturbed that people don't know that county-wifi is happening from Washington State to Rhode Island. Both Esme and Dewayne think the debate over Net neutrality hasn't yet grasped the way in which abundance is outstripping such questions. (Forgive me, Esme and Dewayne, for getting you wrong.)

Because I get my connection through RCN, a cable company, I'm not getting the "real Internet," says Dewayne, because I'm not getting a fixed IP, ports are being blocked, my access is asymmetric, etc. Dewayne deplores the fact that I think this is an acceptable deal.