Reboot Alberta

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Pressure on Wireless Business is Mounting

The negative reaction to the big brother controllers of the wireless business is mounting. Look at this aggressive and political approach by CREDO mobile in the States. They are using Karl Rove as a hook to move customers away from providers like AT&T and Verison. Go to CREDO to see what I mean.

Even the business types at the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors are taking a poke at Bell Canada Enterprises on their website. They point out the privatization of BCE (2/3 of it now owned by a private US equity investor) so far has cut $1B in dividends to investors, axed 2500 jobs, wiped away another $1B in bondholder value, and paying $800m a year less in taxes. Ouch!

I love the marketplace - when it knows its place. The marketplace especially cool when consumers take back control by word and deed. The Internet is such a terrific way to take back control as shown by the examples above. No wonder China and big ISPs what to control what consumers and citizens see and do on the Internet. Don't let it happen - get serious about Net Neutrality.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous5:14 pm

    I agree with you on the subject of Net Neutrality. I'm normally pro-business but when the threat of ISP's trying to control what I see and do on the internet, I get my back up fast.

    The problem is that the the non-passionate (see Robert Scoble's blog post: http://scobleizer.com/2008/07/29/the-passionates-vs-the-non-passionates/ )is so casual in it's use on the internet, they don't care enough to keep up with the issue. If no one hears about it, no one will fight to keep the net open. The same reason bill C-61 will be revived and passed though. Unless of course there's an election call and they won't have time to pass it, but I know you don't want an election.

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