Let the Traffic Shaping Battles Begin!
Traffic shaping is the practice of a broadband provider determining what data packets, if any, deserve priority. This is at the core of the battle with net neutrality. If providers are allowed to shape, then they will be able to put a throttle on traffic of their competition.
Let’s say that you have a Vonage VOIP service. What if Cox Communications decides that those packets deserve the lowest priority. What do you think would deserve a higher priority? Packets for the Cox VOIP product? Packets for the VOIP product who is paying Cox for the “fast lane” on their network? You bet and of course.
The first public volley was lobbed today (not sure why). Cox announced that they were going to experiment with aggressive traffic shaping. I have assumed that there has been experimentation with less “aggressive” traffic shaping for quite some time now.
This was followed hours later by a release that Google is going to provide tools, in partnership with Measurement lab, to let you check if your broadband connection is being ’shaped’. This could get interesting. In my opinion, the politicians would love to throw this one to the cable and phone companies who line their pockets. However, the outcry from the public, and the market should be loud enough to slow this practice.
Why do these battles generally mean bad news for consumers?
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MTB a BUY?
I might say that this post has nothing to do with being a better, or more efficient, webmaster, but as I type I have to believe that it does. If you are focused on building your business, site(s) or companies, you might be fortunate (hard working) enough to have put some $$ in the bank. If so, making that money work for you is wise. The markets have taken a beating which has, hopefully, made you work a little harder.
There are times when a local investor will see a story before (if ever) it reaches the mainstream news. My back yard bank is probably one of these stories. Conservative lending practices, in house underwriting, local focus.. M&T bank should be a great buy.
Call me crazy, but everything has been taken down with the markets. Don’t get me wrong, returns will be lower and profits thinner, but money is cheap and if a bank like M&T (MTB) stays true to its conservative roots, they should emerge from this recession/depression stronger than ever. They took down $600 million from the TARP program. That money can be used to lend or fund acquisitions of distressed assets. They already picked up Provident in a relatively small, but geographically significant deal.
I was a buyer at $57-$60. I feel like I should be a screaming buyer at $50 for the same reasons.
If you are considering a purchase, be sure you have a long time horizon ~3 + years and that you don’t exhaust all of your funds. If you want 100 shares of MTB, purchase 60 and keep some dry powder ready to rebuy if it pulls back more.
Not sure about the status of the dividend, but MTB has a yield of 5.2% right now.
Take a look for yourself. Do your research. I have to believe that MTB will out pace the indexes over the next 2 to 5 years.