Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Other times, you have to kill something in order to make it live. With Verizon and Google poised to sign the first of many content-to-connectivity digital media deals; it’s apparent that the future of network neutrality will lie in tiered pricing.
What this will mean will be that there will be network-neutral Internet access services. You know, the unlimited bandwidth usage, do-anything-you-want online services. I know, these are the ones we’ve had for the past fifteen years, but we won’t have them forever. These network-neutral services will be more expensive than their counterparts — the services sold within the triple-play bundle and elsewhere.
The less expensive services will have media-connectivity deals between an ISP and an ecosystem of media companies, offering some sort of trade-off between user privacy, online applications performance, and cost.
That’s what’s going to happen. If you want cheap Internet access, it won’t be unlimited in choice or bandwidth.
If you want network-neutral Internet access, prepare to spend more for it.
And don’t be surprised when most of your neighbors are willing to give up network-neutrality for 30 bucks a month, because it’ll happen.