Service Provider Journal: "...the high-speed Internet needs now is its own lobby of customers."

I agree that this needs to happen, but it should be a lobby of networked users, not a lobby of sort-of-high-speed users. The difference, although slight, is important. Networks deal with peers. High-speed internet in the U.S., thus far, deals with subscribers.

Subscribers don't get to pick which ports they get to use on their network. Subscribers don't get to send mail out from their own systems, they have to use the flaky one that comes with their service package. Shortly, subscribers will find it increasingly tough to use Vonage and other competitive VoIP applications - only the one supported by their provider will be allowed. In the future, you can count on controls like this being extended to instant messaging applications, music stores ("Sorry sir, you can't use iTunes. We only support MSN Music.").

Peers, on the other hand, get to make choices about which services they want running on their own small plot of the internet.

Bring back the peers.

(note: Scott has a wonky link in his entry and I can't find what he meant to point to. I'll assume he has a proper source for the above data until I hear otherwise  )