The power of the people is in the Internet.

Having worked for a telecommunications equipment designer/manufacturer, I’m familiar with the “secret,” “behind doors” negotiations that define the high-level specifications for internationally-connected technology.

Although, sometimes, the definitions might as well have been written in gibberish, hieroglyphics or undecipherable cryptic code as in so-called plain languages like English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic and Japanese.

Many a technology geek, political wonk and freedom lover impatiently wait while committees and subcommittees meet to discuss changes to the ITU Code of Business Ethical Conduct.

In other words, a few select people decide the fate of our social lives, both formal and informal, as it pertains to communicating across a substrate we call the Internet.

Even fewer of them might actually understand the underpinnings — the bits, bytes, frames, error correction and other terminological terms of endearment — that make popular tools like the World Wide Web more useful than gossiping about the latest celebrity scandal.

Do you understand some of the potential consequences?

Information = knowledge = monetary transactions

To be sure, putting up imaginary tollbooths on the information superhighway allows tracking of who passes through the tollbooth, which can be abused by arresting those whose actions are deemed a danger to political entities in power.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING!

I agree we should avoid clamping down the freedom that the Internet provides us as a species.

But do you understand another argument for tollbooths?

Capturing income streams that have eluded local governments which have seen their tax revenues drop while virtual marketplaces allow the exchange of goods and services without collecting taxes from local/visiting citizens.

I try to avoid the whole doomsday scenarios that others are hard-selling for their benefits.

I hope I’m a realist as much as a fellow member of our species can be.

I have faith in us and our place in the universe as sets of states of energy with short attention spans and selective memory.

How can we use these virtual tollbooths to police transactions without becoming thought police?

Policy.  Polity.  Politeness.

Look at an Ethernet frame, an IP address, a data packet, headers and footers.

Tell me what you see.

Do you know what a femtocell is?

Can you see a future where the restriction of the Internet as we know it leads to more innovation while temporarily stifling telecommunications as we’ve grown accustomed to over the last couple of decades (or the last few years for some)?

Unintended consequences…sigh…

I just want AT&T to get me, a loyal customer, the latest Android “Jelly Bean” update for my Samsung Galaxy S3 while deploying 4G LTE technology in my area at a reasonable monthly cost for my family.

Wouldn’t I like really-high-speed Internet at much lower costs like some regions of Europe and the rest of the world outside the U.S.?

Sure, but like many Americans, I’ve grown used to the fact that the lack of real competition in the marketplace has stifled innovation at the expense of greedy stockholders who demand high monetary return on their investments in exchange for poor service from the companies in which they invest.

The Internet — like physical highway systems — is a mix of freeways and toll roads.

Always has been, always will be.

Would more tollbooths increase or decrease the number of virtual highway robberies on the Internet?

Would they increase the number of jailed/tortured/murdered political objectors?

Can the ITU create a more just global society by tweaking the definition of the Internet?

Let’s hope so, even if they have to keep using complicated jargon.