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| Killer Apps: Le Monde, Al Jazeera, ?Jerusalem Post TV |
| Thursday, 24 June 2010 21:36 |
Dan Moffat at GTA TeleGuam just added the French channel Le Monde as well as a channel requested by U.S. soldiers on Guam: Al Jezeera. Neither is available on the local MCV cable system. Nearly no systems in the continental U.S. carry Al Jazeera.
I was recently asked "Can you explain net neutrality in 30 seconds?" Easily. "Net neutrality means that I, not the head of Time Warner Cable, decides what I watch and what I do on the Internet." If neither Dan nor his cable competition chooses to carry Ivy League football, Al Jezeera, or Jerusalem Post TV I want be able to watch over the net. No one gives a damn about whether the net is neutral, not even Tim Wu who coined the term. Neutrality is just a reasonable way to write a law that prevents Glenn Britt of Time Warner or Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon from limiting my choices. Freedom of speech is why people are so passionate about NN, not some payoff from Google. ITE Guam's first round stimulus grant was probably a mistake because 95+% of Guam has two broadband carriers already and much of it is an overbuild. http://bit.ly/chv3zQ It seems highly unlikely that ITE's second round pure overbuild application has a chance, although folks on the island think that ITE's employment of the Governor's brother and his chief of staff's son will override the rules of the stimulus.
Prices on Guam are too high, especially for a mostly poor population. Giving money to ITE to jump in might sound like a solution to that but isn't. The local press reports that ITE is looking to buy either GTA Guam or MCV Cable, reducing the competition back to two. Competition is a great tool but often not enough. The FCC should find a way to bring prices down or shut up about "affordable broadband."
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