Tim Wu had an OpEd published in the Wall Street Journal this weekend: In the Grip of the Internet Monopolists.

There are commentaries on the piece on The Technology Liberation Front and TechCrunch. The more I thought about the OpEd, the more troubling it seemed.

Looking at the size and influence of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Skype, Apple, eBay and Twitter, Wu asks how hard it would be to go a week without these “dominant” applications.

The Internet has long been held up as a model for what the free market is supposed to look like—competition in its purest form. So why does it look increasingly like a Monopoly board?

Wu posits that each of these companies control a sector: search, social networking, retail, online content delivery. The criticism by Adam Thierer at The Technology Liberation Front addresses the imprecision by the Columbia University law professor.

He has intentionally watered down the term “monopolist” such that it now means any combination of big firms he personally doesn’t approve of in markets that he has defined far too narrowly. That’s not a proper understanding of the term “monopoly” and it most certainly isn’t an accurate representation of the real world of exciting digital innovation and ingenuity that we live in today.

It’s a shame Tim Wu continues to adopt such a hyper-pessimistic worldview and take such static, myopic snapshots of the state of the Digital Economy. We should be celebrating the world we live in today, not bemoaning it.

I found Wu’s concluding paragraph especially troubling, in that I just don’t get any part of what he is trying to say.

The Internet is still relatively young, and we remain in the golden age of these monopolists. We can also take comfort from the fact that most of the Internet’s giants profess an awareness of their awesome powers and some sense of attendant duty to the public. Perhaps if we’re vigilant, we can prolong the benign phase of their rule. But let’s not pretend that we live in anything but an age of monopolies.

Try to parse the paragraph and see if it holds together. None of these companies are monopolies despite each of them being extremely successful. They are indeed powerful and aware of their power, but what is the evidence of “some sense of attendant duty to the public”?

The OpEd may be the kind of speech that gets believers to stand up and applaud, but it doesn’t seem to hold up to analysis. Besides driving sales of his new book, what is behind Wu’s thesis?

A new report [pdf, 4.2MB] was released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of the US Department of Commerce.

This report presents the most accurate statistical profile of U.S. broadband Internet adoption currently available. The report features new analysis of “adoption gaps,” i.e., the differences in average broadband Internet adoption at home among different groups after controlling for demographic and geographic factors.

It is a 68 page report with a wealth of data to help understand the factors that differentiate levels of adoption and to try to understand the reasons for non-adoption of residential broadband.

In the US, people who don’t use the internet represent two thirds of non-users of broadband. A quarter of all American households reported that no one in those households used the Internet at any location. Looking at the data, about 20% of these explicitly blamed the price, about half said that they don’t need it or aren’t interested and another 20% said they don’t have a computer (or their computer is inadequate).

I suspect that this actually could be interpretted as cost and financial aspects keeping 90% of the people who aren’t using the internet from getting on-line. “Don’t need it” may mean that they have better things to do with their money, like feeding their kids or getting them warm boots.

The NTIA study is based on the US Census Bureau’s Internet Use Supplement, which surveyed 54,000 households in October 2009. There is a wealth of information to inform policy makers in countries developing a national digital agenda

It should be a guide for the type of data that countries should be gathering to understand their own unique factors.

I had a communications industry blog post ready to go, but I decided that it can wait a day.

Today, November 11, is Remembrance Day in Canada, Veterans Day in the US. I decided to set aside my usual theme to honour the sacrifices of those men and women who have served and who are serving now to defend and protect the values that we take for granted.

I have close family and friends who have children serving in three armies, all allies. Kids who are just out of high school are serving as soldiers and commanding others at war. Despite the risks they take by just getting out of bed, they’re still at an age that doesn’t let them order a drink in many jurisdictions.

Early in my career, I worked with a company that actively recuited from veterans. It was partly because their military training developed leadership skills that transfered well into their business. We need more companies to consider this kind of program.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.   Laurence Binyon: For The Fallen

A moment’s silence once a year just doesn’t seem to be enough.

For the past couple days, I was in Ottawa, attending the Experts Forum associated with of The Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA). The conference started with a powerful speeches delivered at the opening reception by Governor General David Johnston and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. Monday’s formal program opened with strong commitments to zero tolerance by Prime Minister Stephen Harper [videos of the major speeches are available on YouTube].

Tuesday’s Internet Hate session was moderated Christopher Wolf, a partner at a Washington law firm. He had an Op Ed in the Ottawa Citizen, New media, old hatred, that is worth reading. It opens with:

Suppose Osama Bin Laden wanted to hold a worldwide rally in Toronto to condemn Jews, promote his extremist ideology and recruit a new generation of terrorists.

First of all, it is unlikely he would venture out of his cave to make the trip, given his guaranteed arrest or assassination. And it is also unlikely the rally attendees from abroad would make it across the border, given their purpose in visiting Canada and immigration rules. Even assuming that municipal authorities would issue a rally permit, no right-minded vendor would help with the logistics of video screens, microphones, speakers and the like.

A global rally to promote anti-Semitism and terrorism, fortunately, is a far-fetched notion.

Or is it?

It has been a number of years since I have focused on the issue of illegal content on the internet, but perhaps it is timely to return to this issue. As I have discussed recently, we have new anti-spam legislation that is seeking to ban electronic communications that are perfectly legal in printed form.

Why would we have a digital exemption for publications that are banned by Canada in print form? The Canada Border Services Agency is charged with the responsibility to prohibit the importation of materials that contravene its policy on Hate Propaganda, Sedition and Treason. It is a starting point.

As reported by The Gazette, among the commitments to emerge from what is being called The Ottawa Protocol:

Establishing an international task force of Internet specialists comprising parliamentarians and experts to create ways to identify and monitor anti-Semitism and other hate crimes online and to develop policy recommendations on how governments can address the problems.

There is much more work to be done.

On Friday, I had a chance to tour Ericsson’s Ottawa facility, housing their CDMA and LTE research and development labs.

The Ottawa labs are responsible for a sizable global mandate for the networking equipment giant, evidence of Ericsson’s continuing confidence in its Canadian operations. We were able to see how researchers in Ottawa collaborate with their counterparts in Stockholm, ‘following the sun’ to extend the work day.

The tour provided more than just a view of wireless development at play, which would have been impressive in its own right. There were demonstrations of some of the applications that are driving the insatiable demand for spectrum (a subject that will be explored at The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit).

Among the interesting demonstrations was the ability to show the variations in quality of different bit rates of encoded high definition video. Many people don’t have equipment (or eyes) that can easily differentiate between 2 and 4 Mbps encoding, perhaps helping Atop Broadband’s plans for over the top IPTV that we wrote about a few weeks ago. Although, Ericsson had a flat panel screen that upon close examination showed that my Super Bowl party might be slightly enhanced by up to 8 Mbps, if you want to count the hairs on the forearm of the wide receiver.

As we looked at LTE data rates, one of the reporters asked what speeds end users would receive, as more smartphones are in the field contesting for that capacity.

It started me thinking about what kinds of applications might actually need more than about 4Mbps in throughput. Certainly, a computer that is downloading very large files in the background while watching a video in the foreground has the ability to consume whatever throughput is available.

But in terms of real-time throughput requirements, 4 Mbps delivers high quality video and any concurrent voice or messaging is almost trivial incremental demand. If we want users to be able to access streaming HD video, then average throughput of 4Mbps should suffice. Keep in mind that the flow of a streaming video is dependent on more than just the final connection. The source and the long haul network are susceptible to hiccups along the way as well. As a result, most applications use ‘buffering’ techniques that allow for variations in network delivery. 

Ericsson also spoke of tests of boomer cell sites in Australia, that permitted ultra-high speed mobile data connectivity up to 200 kms from a tower, under ‘very ideal’ topographic conditions.

Coincidentally, the tour took place on the opposite side of the river as the CRTC wound up its hearings examining, among other issues, universal access to broadband connectivity. I’m sure there is a message in there as the CRTC looks at setting aspirational targets for Canada’s broadband infrastructure and whether to mandate a new service obligation on carriers.

It appears that competition is being aided by continually evolving technologies.