Bloomberg terminals and telco policy arguments
Earlier today, I was at a midtown restaurant that caters to business and media tycoons. In the lounge area, one man had drawn his two small children (probably 3 and 6) to the Bloomberg terminals in the corner. They sat on his lap, staring at the screens.
“See?” he said, “There's the price of oil.”
To his credit, or theirs, the children remained fascinated with the rows of colored numbers for some time.
If you were working in Hong Kong today, you weren't able to access Bloomberg terminals. According to the Wall Street Journal, traders were getting their stock prices from local data providers instead. Today's earthquake off the coast of Taiwan caused breaks in as many as eight undersea data cables.
Prediction: the stated need to invest in more undersea data cables (the vulnerabilities of which were revealed by today's incident) will be used as yet another argument against network neutrality in this country and others.
Whatever the incentives were that caused groups of companies to get together and invest in the cables that wrap around the world, they already existed before this earthquake took place — indeed, Verizon recently announced that it would be joining up with five big Chinese telecom companies to build a cable system between China and the U.S., at a cost of $500 million.
We clearly need these cables. But investing in them appears to require calculations that are separate from whatever last-mile vertical integration receipts the telcos expect. Nonetheless, I think we'll be hearing more about this issue.
Net neutrality roundup
Nice end-of-year summary by news.com here — particularly useful for links to stories about various bills that didn't pass.
I'm working on a comparison between the arrival of cable (regulatory response: “we must protect broadcast!”) and the advent of the internet (regulatory response: “we must protect telephone companies without appearing to!”), and it's quite entertaining.
In other news, Joi Ito is on a diet. He seems pretty excited about it and I'm rooting for him.