What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [88]
Page was in the capital to lobby the government to take the so-called white spaces between TV channels—which become available as the U.S. switches to digital television—and make them freely accessible, like frequencies used for wi-fi. The move would enable the creation of “wi-fi on steroids,” which proponents say could give us speeds in the billions of bits a second versus the millions we get now. We could watch, make, and transmit video anywhere. It would goose America’s shameful broadband penetration, which in 2007 stood 15th in the world, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. U.S. users pay roughly twice what the Japanese do for access that is, on average, 10 times slower, OECD says.
Others don’t like Google’s idea for the white spaces. The National Association of Broadcasters fought it, saying the plan could interfere with their signals. I’d say they also don’t want to make it easy for yet more competitors to grab more of our attention. Cable companies don’t like Google’s idea; they’re making margins as high as 40 percent on internet access and don’t want more competition and disruption. Phone companies don’t like it as they’re just getting into the cable business. Mobile phone companies don’t like it, for once we get broadband on any device, we can use it to do anything, even make phone calls from the web without paying for minutes. With open devices—the ones Google insisted on with the FCC and the ones Google is enabling with its mobile operating system—on open networks we can kiss our two-year contracts and early-cancellation fees good-bye.
Telecommunications is a perfect arena for Google because it’s ripe for disruption in business models enabled by technology—Google’s specialty. Google doesn’t want to be in the wires-and-pipes business, but if our connectivity were freed from its constraints, Google would benefit. We’d spend more time online. We’d create and consume more. Google would have more to search and organize. Google would serve more ads. It would make more money. We would spend less money. It’s a magnificent conspiracy of Google and everyone who opposes telecommunications oligopolies.
Who wouldn’t like to stick it to the cable guy? The American Customer Satisfaction Index from the University of Michigan said in 2007 that cable and satellite TV suffered “the lowest level of customer satisfaction among all industries covered.” The survey attributes some of the problem to the monopolies these companies held and the pricing control that allowed: “Comcast is one of the lowest scoring companies in ACSI. As its customer satisfaction eroded by 7 percent over the past year, revenue increased by 12 percent. Net income went up by 175 percent and Comcast’s stock price climbed nearly 50 percent.” Let’s replay those numbers: Even as we hated the cable company more, its revenue, profit, and stock price all climbed. That might work today. But Wall Street must someday learn that angering customers is not a sustainable business model.
Advertising Age’s Bob Garfield got angry at Comcast over his simple effort to get service at home. Garfield—who has confessed to envy of my Dell hell—launched a crusade against Comcast in a screed in Ad Age, in a podcast, and on a blog called Comcast Must Die, where he urged customers to share their nightmares. “Congratulations,” he told them. “You are no longer just an angry, mistreated customer. Nor, I hope, are you just part of an e-mob. But you are a revolutionary, wresting control from the oligarchs, and claiming it for the consumer. Your power is enormous. Use it wisely.” Comcast responded by assigning a vice president to read blogs and Twitter and deal with complaints and problems there. That helps, but it doesn’t solve the essential problem: Cable companies exist to frustrate us. I responded to Garfield on my blog, suggesting that a more constructive approach might be to help Comcast reinvent itself.
What would an ideal cable and telecom company—Google Telephone & Telegraph—look like? First and foremost,