Though not as essential as drinking water, I consider both electricity and Internet access to be core infrastructure, with high fixed costs and providing general purpose support for the requirements of modern life. As the Internet expands to include networked “things” as well as people, and electric utilities pursue a future “smart grid,” the scope of these two sectors’ activity seem likely to overlap more than ever in the future. One example of this is the widespread deployment by utilities of so-called “smart meters” connected via the utility’s own (usually wireless) network. Though it’s unclear how this strategy will evolve […]
Over the past several days I’ve seen a number of post-mortems on the decision by Comcast to drop its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable after it became clear regulators weren’t going to approve the deal. Two items in particular caught my attention over the weekend: a piece by Eric Lipton in the New York Times discussing Comcast’s not-so-successful lobbying effort in Congress, and an interview with Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts on Squawk Box, a program carried on CNBC, a cable network owned by Comcast since it acquired NBCUniversal roughly two years ago. One of the things that […]
