My mind got ta thinking after reading Cringely’s Piece on the future of broadcasting. I think it would be awesome to have all of our media come through one high-speed line for cheap.
I mean, think about it: what if by getting a $40-$50 DSL/cable connection, you could have: free long distance calls, free phone, cable (actually, any broadcast station in the world), ‘radio’, and internet access all in one line?
A friend of mine, Steve Cook, once said that instead of breaking up the Bell Monopoly in the 80s, the government should have given Bell a choice to either break up OR finance about 10 strands of fiber-optic cable to every house in the US.
Instead of forcing companies, including Microsoft, to break up, maybe the governement should give them a choice to ‘do the right thing’. Could you imagine the shape of the internet and media today if every person had a much-faster-than-LAN speed connection? Could you imagine being able to have enough bandwidth to do whatever you wanted PERIOD and not have to worry?