novelnext Chapter 102 096 Free to Fee
Chapter 102 096 Free to Fee
The Flashpoint Company team that Nan Ma had assembled now numbered less than fifty people. Aside from the ten individuals who were elite members of Country C's IT industry, the rest were mainly Iridium Star people and Bionic Humans.
Liu Zhe did not consider himself particularly special among the Country C nationals working at Flashpoint, as he discovered that the company even had mid-to-senior level staff from domestic internet giants, holding a substantial number of shares in their original companies, with personal fortunes even exceeding a hundred million.
These new colleagues were people he could not have hoped to associate with before, people he would not dare to strike up a conversation with if he saw them at some summit. But now, they were his colleagues.
He was not surprised by their choices, as many in the IT industry are innovators who seek new experiences and thrills, full of longing for the superior technology of Iridium Star and everything about Ruyi City, the space city. Moreover, money was not a major issue for them, so naturally, they chose to come here for the experience.
These employees, each with their own experiences and strengths, also enabled Nan Ma's Flashpoint Company to develop at an extremely rapid pace.
Bai Zhongqi also kept up with the development of Flashpoint, and was simultaneously laying the groundwork and making preparations for this Iridium Star company to enter Country C's market.
"Flashpoint will become an excellent opportunity for the people of Country C, and even those of Earth, to understand and accept Iridium Star," Bai Zhongqi told his cabinet members during a routine imperial court meeting.
Bai didn't hold these meetings often, as Iridium Star had a mature and effective administrative system capable of implementing various policies. Whenever Bai had ideas, he mostly directed the Supreme Command to carry them out, informing the relevant parties.
The imperial court meetings now served more as summary and guiding sessions, and were also opportunities for Bai to listen to the opinions of his United Empire cabinet members.
Bai Zhongqi was rapidly becoming a leader, mastering more techniques of command and deployment. He controlled the broad direction of Iridium Star and the Star Alliance's development and also paid attention to some details.
Naturally, this was a direct work-around of the main root servers of the internet currently controlled by Americans—a "backdoor version." However, it is expected that it could directly replace the existing internet in the future.
Sky Net could be seen as a major welfare benefit closely related to ordinary people's lives—under the Sky Net era, there would be no issues like video buffering or network disconnections, allowing people to freely and conveniently make use of the information network.
At that moment, Du Peng explained, "Our original plan was to provide services directly within Country C once Sky Net was set up. Because to us, the cost of this system is negligible, and it doesn't take much to maintain it—no need for any ground infrastructure either.
We just need to adjust the user agreement and limit the transmission speed, then present internet users in Country C could directly connect to Sky Net via WiFi. However, according to our information, Country C is indeed very interested in Sky Net, but they are attempting to control the network's rights within their own hands."
Bai Zhongqi shook his head, "They are asking for the moon. Sky Net is an internal civilian network of the Star Alliance and will be regulated directly by the Star Alliance's future telecommunications coordination department. Such demands are unreasonable and should not be considered."
Du Peng nodded, "Yes, we also judge this to be a negotiation attempt by Country C's side without much significance. What actually delayed the negotiations was how to achieve the transition from Country C's existing telecommunication services to the era of Sky Net."
Bai Zhongqi immediately understood what was at stake and asked, "Is it the domestic telecom service providers who are resisting the entry of Sky Net into Country C?"
"Exactly," Du Peng replied, "With the implementation of Sky Net and its being completely free, all telecom service providers will be rendered obsolete without exception—even telephone services can be replaced by internet calls.
Nowadays, telecom operators primarily earn revenue from so-called 'telecom value-added services.' Full coverage by Sky Net means no one will need data plans anymore, and value-added services surrounding technologies like 3G and 4G will be completely phased out. Even home and business networks will have no need for existing telecom services."
Bai Zhongqi asked, "What solutions are these people providing to not block Sky Net's entry into Country C?"
Du Peng answered, "They propose extending the transition period and turning Sky Net's free service into a paid one."