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Another Aardvark prediction come true?

Over four years ago I wrote a column in which I expressed my fear that the new UFB network would be crippled by the effect of IP-based video entertainment services.

Will IPTV cripple the UFB network(23 March, 2011).

Oh dear... it seems my concerns were very real and valid, as reported in Stuff's Businessday section last week: Evening broadband hit by 'Netflix effect'

How wonderful it is that while the government is investing huge amounts of taxpayers' money on creating a world-class digital communications network throughout the country, consumers are turning it into little more than another way to get their "fix" of reality TV.

As someone who uses the Net as a tool for earning a living, the fact that in recent weeks I've been faced with speeds that, at times, are little better than dial-up is intensely frustrating.

So what is going to be done to remedy this situation? Again, I have a prediction and it's not one that many folk are going to like.

In that original column I mooted the prospect of license-fees being applied by government to recoup what will eventually become a loss of revenue due to a shift away from expensive radio-spectrum allocations and ubiquitous IP connectivity.

I'm picking that internally, the government will be cheering this congestion of the interweb's pipes. They'll likely use this as further justification for signing away our rights to the TPPA.

Under the diktats of the TPPA, Kiwis would find it illegal to directly access such services as the US version of Netflix or other off-shore streaming services which do not have the "rights" to deliver their content into New Zealand. It would be an easy justification for our politicians to tell themselves that, therefore, signing up to the TPPA is "good" because it will save our internet from evening melt-down.

The other thing the could do, even outside the provisions of the TPPA, is pass a law (perhaps under the guise of anti-terror or as a measure to reduce "kiddy porn") which prohibited access to any streamed video service that wasn't on a white-list published by government. Of course the enforcement of such a law would require that monitoring of our internet use be stepped up and that would also put a smile on their faces because it becomes yet another justification for widespread snooping on the online activities of "the great unwashed".

Call me a cynic or a conspiracy theorist but I honestly believe that these ideas will (if they haven't already) be discussed within the halls of power and they will gather quite a bit of support from those who didn't read my 2011 column and its prediction of cyber-doom :-)

However, the most likely outcome would be some type of "tax" on internet use over a certain number of gigs per month.

This tax would be simple to impose and would allow the government to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, they'd effectively reduce the amount of video data bouncing around the Net and on the other, they'd generate extra revenues to cover the various junkets and perks that make being an MP such a great job for some.

The sad thing is that the ISPs would see none of this "excess consumption" tax yet they would be required to collect it on behalf of the government (as they do with GST).

How ironic... our governments have touted the UFB as a giant step forward for this nation and something that gives us a competitive advantage over other countries -- yet instead, we choose to use it for wasting our time vegging out on the sofa of an evening. What's more, instead of improving our ability to compete -- it leaves export earners like myself significantly *disadvantaged* because now, my evening broadband speed makes it hardly worth trying to log on.

Sigh!

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