Google & Verizon Team to Become Satan Twins of the Internet
Posted by Matt Kolowski on Thu, Aug 12, 2010
So long, mobile internet, it was fun while it lasted.
Google, of “don’t be evil” fame, is entering a partnership with Verizon that hopes to ensure the “openness” of the public internet. What the “public internet” is, I have no idea. They hope that other carrier and companies will join them in what, they say, will guarantee that broadband internet will never be bogged down by internet companies cutting deals with video providers and such that would enable the speediness over other websites. (Like Hulu loading quicker on Verizon than Comcast)
This partnership should prevent any rumors of Verizon allowing faster access to YouTube to its own customers and preventing access to others. Both Google and Verizon say they want to prevent that from ever happening. Great!
Or is it?
They specifically rule out these provisions for wireless networks. Meaning, Verizon, ATT, T-Mobile, Sprint and others are not going to be regulated by their proposed “openness” rules. Smell that? It’s fear.
Right now, Google Android is a big operating system across multiple carriers. Skype is an app that lets you make VOiP calls that don’t count across your ATT, Sprint or Verizon minutes. Want to use Skype for Android on T-Mobile? Tough. You can’t. Verizon has a deal with Skype for Android and Blackberry. This is setting a bad precedent.
Let’s rewind and pretend that Google and Verizon made this agreement 10 year ago, before broadband internet was as prevalent as it is now. Let’s pretend their agreement was for an open 56k Modem network which utilized your phone lines but which didn’t included Broadband, because that was too new and had different rules. We’d be so screwed.
We’d be living in a world where Microsoft could have cut a deal with Comcast/XFinity so that you could only use Skype on a Windows 7 computer hooked up to XFinity internet. Had a Mac on Verizon FiOS? Tough. You can’t use Skype. Imagine a world where if you had a Windows 7 laptop using FiOS and you wanted to watch some YouTube videos. Oops, Google cut a deal with XFinity, so you can’t watch any LOLcats today.
What happens in 10 years where the wireless internet is more prevalent than ever, but is bogged down by deals like that?
This is like Terminator 5 stuff.