Wealth TV HD or saving lives? What’s it going to be Verizon?
I’m still a bit pissed about comments made by Verizon before congress last week regarding Net Neutrality. Verizon said that congress should be concerned about the impact a Net Neutral internet would have on such important services as home health care and communication for the disabled.
I started to think about how much of that precious bandwidth that could be used to advance "the widespread availability of such innovations as home health care monitoring and diagnosis, online education, telecommuting, and communications services for the disabled." (Testifying at a hearing on the Communications, Consumer Choice and Broadband Act of 2006 May 21 2006, Tom Tauke, Verizon executive vice president of public affairs, policy and communications) Verizon is using for their television offerings. I’m no hard core network tech so maybe I could get some help from the readers. Aren't Verizon's TV and internet services sharing the same wire?
Taking a look at Verizon’s channel lineup tells us that there is enough bandwidth on Verizon’s fiber for hundreds of sdtv, digital music, on demand video and HDTV programming. I wonder if Verizon VP Tom Tauke would be willing to trade the bandwidth used by channel 821, a high definition channel called Wealth TV HD for the sake of saving lives. (via their website: WealthTV delivers to viewers informative shows that provide invaluable insights on what every American dreams of – from travel secrets to fast cars, from better etiquette to better investing, and much more)
Come on, isn’t anyone else mad or insulted that a major executive from a huge corporation could stand before Congress and in effect say “think of the little people”. Heaven forbid that the free exchange of ideas on the internet bog things down to the point where we couldn’t get Verizon channel 430 or 431, Playboy TV or Playboy TV en Español.
I hope that bit of pandering pissed off some Congressional members the way it pissed me off.
