By now everyone is buzzing/blogging/bitching about this article where VirginMedia's CEO claims to be negotiating secret deals to have his content delivered, undermining so-called "net neutrality" principles. Money quote:
Calm down, everyone. This is bloviating with no concrete effects. Wait and see.
Just a bit of fact-clarifying for everyone:In an interview with the Royal Television Society's Television magazine, Berkett said that "this net neutrality thing is a load of b****cks", and revealed that Virgin is already in talks with unnamed content providers about paying to have their content delivered faster than others.
- Virgin Media is in the UK. The UK has a completely different infrastructure for content delivery than the U.S. does.
- Because there is much more state-run media in the UK, their regulator "Ofcom" has far more authority to regulate content delivery systems.
- Despite Ofcom's previous statements to be "hands-off" I suspect that these types of comments will probably inspire some kind of action.
- None of this has anything to do with the U.S. where the largest Cable provider is a known enemy of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin (aka K-Mart) for their refusal to acquiesce to his desire for "a la carte" programmming.
Calm down, everyone. This is bloviating with no concrete effects. Wait and see.
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