"This is going to become a battle for access to your home and office plus mobility. It's about who can provide the biggest and least expensive and fastest pipe to your home and office and offer you a mobility feature"
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A retired NFL star talking like a telecom strategist is the point: Largent’s line captures the moment when “sports celebrity” slid into “policy voice,” and the stakes shifted from gadgets to gatekeeping. The language is blunt, almost locker-room utilitarian - “battle,” “biggest,” “least expensive,” “fastest” - because the fight he’s naming isn’t about innovation theater. It’s about control of the on-ramps to modern life.
“Access to your home and office plus mobility” is a quiet map of the mid-2000s convergence dream: broadband at the house, broadband at work, and the then-new promise that your connection would follow you. He frames connectivity as infrastructure, not entertainment. The subtext is regulatory: once the “pipe” is the battlefield, whoever owns it can tilt everything upstream - pricing, competition, what services load quickly, which startups can reach you without paying tolls. The consumer-friendly phrasing (“least expensive”) masks a harder reality: markets for last-mile connectivity tend to produce bottlenecks, not endless choice.
The word “pipe” is doing cultural work, too. It reduces the internet to plumbing, a neutral utility that someone simply delivers. That metaphor conveniently sidelines questions about power: who gets wired first, who gets left with slower options, what happens when mobility becomes a feature bundled, rationed, and surveilled. Largent’s intent is to make the competition sound like a straightforward race. The context suggests a more consequential contest: not just for customers, but for leverage over daily movement, work, and private space.
“Access to your home and office plus mobility” is a quiet map of the mid-2000s convergence dream: broadband at the house, broadband at work, and the then-new promise that your connection would follow you. He frames connectivity as infrastructure, not entertainment. The subtext is regulatory: once the “pipe” is the battlefield, whoever owns it can tilt everything upstream - pricing, competition, what services load quickly, which startups can reach you without paying tolls. The consumer-friendly phrasing (“least expensive”) masks a harder reality: markets for last-mile connectivity tend to produce bottlenecks, not endless choice.
The word “pipe” is doing cultural work, too. It reduces the internet to plumbing, a neutral utility that someone simply delivers. That metaphor conveniently sidelines questions about power: who gets wired first, who gets left with slower options, what happens when mobility becomes a feature bundled, rationed, and surveilled. Largent’s intent is to make the competition sound like a straightforward race. The context suggests a more consequential contest: not just for customers, but for leverage over daily movement, work, and private space.
Quote Details
| Topic | Internet |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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