The Internet as you know it is in serious, serious danger. Some of the most powerful communications companies in the world have been involved in negotiations and have been making agreements that would throw net neutrality out the window and would move us toward a two-tier Internet. So exactly what would that mean? It would mean that the big corporate giants that have a virtual monopoly on other forms of media and entertainment would be able to buy access to the blazing fast "next generation" Internet that communications companies are developing and the rest of us (like this site for example) would be stuck on the decaying "gravel roads" of the old Internet. The threat that this poses to freedom, liberty, Internet commerce and the free flow of information should not be underestimated.

Over the past few weeks, I've been getting a lot of calls from folks asking about Akamai's (AKAM) CDN business and how they are doing in the market along with questions on the stability of CDN pricing. As I wrote in January, due to Akamai getting aggressive with their CDN pricing at the end of last year, in 2010 I have seen Akamai win and retain a lot more business than they did in 2009. Akamai's CDN business appears to be doing pretty well and there is no question that their reduction in pricing is making it harder for their competitors. At the same time, pricing is very stable in the market and I expect it to remain that way for the next few quarters. On average, CDN video pricing should be down about 25% this year for the average customer compared to being down 40% last year.

In general, Akamai's CDN business shows no signs of slowing down. While competitors like Limelight (LLNW) and Level 3 (LVLT) are still serious competitors for products that Akamai gets 45% of their revenue from, no one has yet to truly compete with Akamai on any scale for the value add services they sell. That's not to say that Akamai will be the only game in town for services like dynamic site acceleration [DSA], application acceleration and services for the retail vertical, but they are still the clear leader, and will be for some time to come. Other companies will challenge Akamai for these services, but it will be a few years before these competitors are at scale or can compete with Akamai on product functionality.

Disclosure: Short CRM

Reasons why you should consider buying Level 3 (LVLT) :

1) The current stock price for Level 3 is just $1.08. It should be much higher given the fact of the many recent revenue generating contract wins and direct open market stock purchase from a Level 3 insider. In a recent form 4 filing dated August 10th, 2010, an insider buy of 100,000 shares at $1.14 on the open market. There hasn't been a direct insider buy in many years. This is great to see as this insider clearly believes Level 3 is undervalued.

Angry mobs showed up outside Google 's (GOOG) facilities last week to respond to the deal with Verizon (VZ). AT&T (T) has also chimed in supporting the deal. AT&T and Verizon agreeing on something must be good, right? I generally like to point out instances where the general consensus is missing a minority point of view but I think in this case, the torch laden villagers hunting down the Frankenstein (Google in this case) are right. Why?

The statement from Google that explains their side is below with a direct link here...now let me dust off my old torch....:

Last week, a firestorm erupted after Google (GOOG) and Verizon (VZ) jointly proposed new rules to lawmakers for protecting the “open Internet” and net neutrality. When Google and Verizon professed their love for the open Internet (“Google cares a lot about the open Internet,” said CEO Eric Schmidt), they left out the future of the Internet, the wireless Internet. Instead, they would only apply to the wired Internet.

Plenty of people called Google out for its hypocrisy. Either you are open or you are not. There is no such thing as being half-open (it’s like being half-pregnant).

Cisco (CSCO) competes with Juniper (JNPR) and Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) in the router market. We currently have a Trefis price estimate of $25.58 for Cisco’s stock, 5% above the current market price of around $24.

Trefis members have created forecasts for two key drivers of Cisco’s share value over the last week: (1) Enterprise Router Market Size and (2) Routers Gross Profit Margin. Their forecasts suggest that Cisco’s enterprise router market size will trend above the Trefis forecast, while the company’s router profit margins will trend roughly in line with our forecast. These projections indicate a combined upside of around 1% for Cisco’s stock.

Ikanos Communications Inc. (IKAN), is a bargain-priced broadband semiconductor company. It is trading at just $1.10 a share and I have been accumulating a sizable long position while taking advantage of the current price drop.

Ikanos' revenue for the second quarter of 2010 was just below our guidance. Overall, Ikanos' revenue continued to be well diversified by region. Our core VDSL business also saw double digit sequential revenue growth from first quarter to second quarter 2010....Ikanos is debt free and has a book value of $1.73. Institutions are holding 30% and insiders hold 44.5%, which indicate the company is very closely-held. Ikanos is trading at a price to sales ratio of only 0.3 and trades with a forward P/E ratio of 7. I expect the stock price will rebound to the $1.40 area in the very near term and $1.62 in the next 3 months. Investors buying now have very limited downside risk with decent upside reward.

The Information Age is hardly out of the womb. It’s still gasping for first breaths while we clean it off to get a better look.

However, many people and businesses act as if the Information Age is ready for Long Term Care Insurance. Don’t buy what they’re selling.

Interesting piece on the Google (GOOG) decision to do a deal with Verizon (VZ). Wired Calls Google a "Surrender Monkey" (see below). A few reactions:

Competition is always a much better solution to regulation which the carriers will figure out how to avoid anyway. New entrants (wireless carrier startups like Clearwire (CLWR)), are agile but are not as good as Verizon and AT&T at getting past FCC regulations. In short, regulations often designed to protect startups just end up making it harder for them.