I was devastated last night when I found that our Smartbro internet connection was not working. I am in kind of a conflict with Smart regarding their Fair Usage Policy which is in practice a straight volume limit on their unlimited plans and I had just send another (still nice) e-mail to them with regards to what to me is plain fraud as they advertise 2Gb/s unlimited internet where in practice after reaching a certain volume limit the connection becomes practically useless at speeds around 0.1Gb/s which is not enough for even normal internet browsing or using Skype as many connections time out (= are cut off)..
So somehow I feared that they had cut me off because of my complaints about this volume limit which would put me in even greater trouble than I already had with only having proper internet access during the first half of the month or so. And as my basic business is still building websites and internet marketing being cut off from the internet is a big thing. But looking at my experience of the last few days, weeks, months it’s even worse, as I, and not only I, am using internet for so many things. And indeed, internet traffic is increasing at very high speeds and in very weird ways as because of the very low speed of the internet I am experiencing after reaching the volume limit everything, including my local development environment and even my local internal network slows down. As many, many programs that are installed are doing all kinds of internet requests and not only programs on computers, but also TV’s, DVD players, mobile phones, game devices, etc.
But I didn’t want to talk about that. I wanted to talk about how much I was affected with my mind going around in all those negative thoughts, those negative experiences that I would encounter if my internet would indeed be cut off. And the next thing that indeed is kind of scary is that I, and I guess with me many other people, would really be affected a lot if they wouldn’t have access to the internet. One of my problems e.g. was that I couldn’t check was a plane ticket that I booked earlier yesterday as that is being confirmed by e-mail. And this might even mean that I wouldn’t be able to fly as I wouldn’t be able to print my ticket. I also couldn’t check if my hotel booking was confirmed as again I couldn’t read my e-mail. And I also couldn’t plan my trip properly as I couldn’t check the ferry or plane schedules or even book another ticket if I would want to. I also was not able to send the daily quote and write my daily post in Inspiration for Success and for my personal blog. And yes, many people have mobile devices now that can also connect to the internet through the mobile phone system and yes, I could use the personal hot spot from the phone of my partner. But still.
But the most scary thing is that in my location, and I guess that I’m not the only one, there are only two Internet Service Providers that can provide me internet access. And they are both private companies and cannot be forced to give me internet access. So if I have some disagreement with one of them, which I currently have, and if they would cut me off, which they legally probably could, there is only one left. And that made me realize that the whole internet, similar to the electricity system, is pretty much a monopoly, but without the government regulation, as I presume electricity companies are obliged to deliver electricity to all citizens where Internet Service Providers are not. So pretty scary, as related to my lifestyle, the social class I belong to, I can’t live, maybe even survive, without internet. And this whole thing brought me again to the fact that the whole capitalist system that we still have in most parts of the world, does not always work, is not THE solution for all human needs. And that yes, government regulation is a necessity. And looking back, that there was a reason that electricity systems and phone systems were ran by the government in maybe all or many countries. I never really understood the complexity of ‘private’ and ‘public’, something like ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’, but I do more and more. And it is not easy to find the right balance between these two as governments are not good in running efficient businesses. They seem to create very inefficient systems when it comes to business, to producing stuff and give service. So yes, governments should put rules and regulations around businesses, around industries. But again, I recently encountered a very weird issue with some private company I was dealing with. I had some financial problems and couldn’t pay my bills, so I called them and tried to make a deal with some payment plan or something. But they couldn’t as it was against the law. Which was very weird, as in this case in my opinion everybody lost: I would lose the service and the company would lose a customer, where a simple payment schedule would have just solved the issue very easily.
Ah, there is so much more in my mind about this subject, as one of my main goals with Inspiration for Success is to make the world more human again, spread the wealth better among people. I mentioned it before, we, as humanity, can produce virtually everything for everybody’s needs. And somehow we can’t, as capitalism mostly seems to end in greed (for the shareholders) and communist/socialist type systems tend to be very inefficient.
So let’s find a better way, a better way to distribute products to all people in the world who want them and provide services in a better way so we won’t be scared the service would be cut off if controlled by some large monopoly type company.
Ah, and my internet was just working again today, so it was probably a small hick-up and had probably nothing to do with my problem with Smart.