Get Your Internet Dividend (Freedom-to-Connect)
By Micah L. Sifry, 03/30/2005 - 9:42am

Do you think the issue of telecom regulation has no effect on your life? David Isenberg, the ebullient and cherubic force behind this year's Freedom-to-Connect conference taking place today and tomorrow in Silver Spring, MD, just opened the event with this startling vision:

The people of the world just got an "Internet dividend" of $1 trillion (that's $1,000,000,000,000) a year, thanks to the efforts of "six guys in Europe" (i.e. the Skype VOIPers, who are blazing the path toward universal free connectivity). This is money that "we don't need to spend on telephone service any more." David asks, "What will we spend it on? Ending hunger? Buying the pharmaceutical companies?"

Now I see why David started his rant by referring to unnamed parties who told him that they couldn't sponsor his conference because the topic was "too political." The Democrats, he said, are in the pocket of Hollywood. The Republicans are in the pocket of the telcos. Too much money is at stake in this debate, if we the people figure out what's fully at stake.

A trillion dollars. David asks: "Would you march in the streets for a trillion dollars?"

If you want to tune in to the conference, go to http://www.freedom-to-connect.net and follow the links at the top of the page for the audio stream and the backchannel chat.

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A Trillion Bucks, eh?

Just wondering if the cherub provided a basis for this figure. Does it represent the total amount of money that individuals around the world switching to VOIP will save? Does the amount refer to this year's savings or savings in some other year down the road when and if VOIP proliferates?

Also, how does he make the leap from individuals saving a little dough each year to a pool of money we can all benefit from? I can see if organizations, governments and businesses switch to VOIP, this theory could play out; but when it comes to individuals and families, we can count on the savings being frittered away on Big Macs, plasma TVs and Viagra.

Kate Kaye
Associate Editor
Personal Democracy Forum

By Kate Kaye at Wed, 03/30/2005 - 16:06 | email this page

Freedom to connect

I think the first thing to be defined is the real meaning of the sentence:
Freedom to Connect

where the word freedom is used in my opinion in an unappropriate way.
I am talking about Europe/Italy which is where I live, but it can be applied to the US.

Here there is no problem regarding the "Freedom", on the contrary, you are really welcome when it comes to connect.
The problem is that a freedom is not free anymore when you have to pay 1 Euro per minute to talk.
In that case the really only free connection is the one you have with somebody who is in front of you listening what you say.

All the rest is a freedom reserved to the lucky ones who can afford.
And that is even more the case when it comes to places like Africa or similar.

So Welcome to VoIP if it means so much saving.
But we are still so far away from real freedom.
Skype is a great invention, but you are free as long as you belong to the family, the moment you have to call somebody out of the family, the freedom is not so free anymore.
It is another kind of Monopoly, may be much cheaper, but it is not what we are really looking for.

What angers me most is the fact that everybody agrees it is time to stop with this monopolizing way of catching the consumer and then the only thing they propose is another kind of Telecom in a reduced scale.

We want to create a global network, where people can talk to each other and then we have to subscribe to a miriade of small VoIP network providers which are not even talking to each other.

If you belong to Skype you have to use Skype out and call a PSTN number if you really want to communicate with the world.

Of course we could all subscribe to Skype (but there are million of other small problems I do not want to go into) but who tells me that one day Skype won't be the next monopoly?

Aren't we fed up with big monopolizing corporations (dynasours) didn't we agree it was time to begin real communication?

Do You think that passing from one monopoly to another is the right way? Or do you think it is good that we have one million small networks not communicating?

I read some time ago about "Customers' owned network" and it fashinated me in such a deep degree that I thought of nothing else for a long time.
Why don't we build a big VoIP network, as big as the whole Internet, where every internet user is connected to the same Network, not only, but he connects the other Internet users to the PSTN with his own private connection?

IT IS POSSIBLE, and I know how.

This could be the real "Freedom to Connect".

Patrizia from a World on IP

patrizia@worldonip.com/community

By Patrizia at Wed, 04/13/2005 - 07:42 | email this page

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