December 16, 2008 9:34 AM
VidChat: Exploring Open Networks and Competition With Christopher Mitchell
After too long of a break, I'm happy to share the latest App-Rising.com VidChat.
This time I sat back down with Christopher Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance to discuss open networks: what they are, how they're different, and how they have the potential to drive competition.
It's a fascinating, wide-ranging discussion that touches on a lot of points. It's a bit of a longer one but I think it's well worth the time.
Attempting to summarize the points made herein would probably take at least a couple thousand words, but I think the gist is that when you start talking public investment and set the goal of full fiber networks, you have to include some level of openness in order to protect the public interest and preserve competition.
Ultimately, full fiber networks are naturally monopolies, but they can also be the greatest enablers of competition the telecommunications world has ever seen, where consumers can make decisions based on the merits of services rather than the limitations of last mile access technologies.
To be honest, I'm still not 100% sure how we can achieve this ideal in the real world given how much the establishment is against this new paradigm. But just because it's going to be hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try. And the deployment of new, publicly supported, full fiber networks provides the perfect opportunity to establish this new paradigm.
