Britt has a well-written piece about Arrianna Huffington's infatuation with bloggers. The part that caught my eye was the about the "disruptive bandwidth upgrade" that the colonies experienced in the form of post roads that suddenly made it practical for the colonies to talk to each other in a peer to peer fashion rather than relying on the hierarchical communications structure between the colonies and London. The hierarchical communications infrastructure was necessary when the colonies were separated by impassable wilderness, but too slow and inflexible once intercolony communication was possible. Revolution was born of the post roads, the printing press, and leisure time to read, think and talk.

As I read Britt's article, I couldn't help thinking that UTOPIA, Utah's community sponsored, fiber to the home broadband project, represents a similar disruptive infrastructure upgrade. Rather than being at the mercy of Qwest and Comcast for whatever broadband services they think we need, new businesses will spring up to provide them. One example I thought of: video blogs. Not reasonable in Qwest's DSL world with their slow upload and restrictive rules, but maybe someday soon.