I noticed yesterday that there were at least a few people who voted on the poll without really checking to see if MSNBC has been placed on the same tier as FOX and CNN.
So I made a new poll.
Also, I'd like to throw in my 2 cents about what I believe really ought to be done.
This whole MSNBC problem is merely the symptom of a larger problem, which is that the media giants are in too many businesses. the same people who run the cables should not also be able to offer content.
Only a truly neutral networking model will solve this problem.
What do I mean by that?
Not only shouldn't cable and phone companies be able to offer TV and Internet service at the same time, I mean that there should be no radio stations as we know them, either. Instead, all that bandwidth should go to simple information infrastructure, and any radios that can transmit or receive on those frequencies, would simply be on the internet.
There would be no "internet providers" as we know them today, because each device would already be online, through the national information infrastructure.
Proprietary network protocols that only benefit cable companies, such as DOCSIS would not be allowed on the network unless every single user had full access to all the features of that protocol, which we do not, by any far stretch of the imagination.
This quote, from the NY Times in the last couple days, really got my hackles up:
Verizon has no plans to match Cablevision’s 101 Mbps speed right now, but a company spokesman, Eric Rabe, said it could. And unlike cable systems, Verizon’s fiber-to-home technology does not require it to reduce the capacity of its video system in order to expand its Internet service. In an e-mail message, he said:
We can go to 400 mbps with the technology we are now deploying -– without giving up TV channel space. We can add higher speeds at the time of our choosing, but no announcement to make today.
What they mean, which is true, is that it wouldn't cost them anything to seriously boost our speeds, up and down stream.
I just want to make it perfectly clear. When monopolies get to not only lay down cables, but also offer services that soak up huge swaths of bandwidth, such as phone, TV, and pay-per-view services, they are not going to lift a finger to make speeds faster for cheap.
We need a cohesive national information infrastructure that does not allow monopolies to have special privileges just because they so happen to also be the companies laying down the lines... lines that cross our public right of ways, mind you.
I foresee a future where we all have high speed up and downstream connections to each other, and anybody anywhere can make content that the entire world will see.
If we let the cable companies and phone companies dictate how the technology will advance, that just won't ever happen.
I'll be attending the free press summit on May 14 in Washington, DC, so if any of you plan to go, please let me know, and we'll get together.