War & Peace Quote by Steve Largent

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.