Mobile internet access while traveling abroad is expensive and unreliable because it's new. Yes, there are commercial forces that try to maintain high prices as long as possible, but short-term profits never hold up forever. Fifty years ago, every phone bill in the US was payable to AT&T, and long distance calls could cost dollars (not cents) per minute. Thirty years ago, we gained multiple long distance carriers and prices fell quickly. Twenty years ago, we cut the cord, but cell phones charged by the minute and came with draconian contracts. Today it's common to lease a service with an near-infinite supply of minutes, that lets you call anywhere in the country for a flat rate. It's incredibly cheap compared to long distance of twenty years ago. All this, despite the evil resistance of profiteering corporations.
Sure, Microsoft laughed at Apple and Sun when they approached to develop a common standard platform. Times change, and high profits are constantly under attack. Microsoft completely missed the internet boat -- not a single protocol in use on the internet today comes out of Microsoft. Google and many other corporations offer free products that compete favorably with Microsoft's expensive products of yore. It must have sucked to compete with Microsoft in the 90's, but here we are, and where is Microsoft? Sinking billions into R&D in the race against Google.
Over and over, new technologies lead to incredible profits for a few, controlling corporations, but inevitably these situations aren't permanent. Our internet faces censorship threats from governments and exclusivity threats from corporations, but these controls, like others before, won't last.
So what is Mr. Norman going on about? Short-term profiteering? That's what covers my paycheck, and makes all this possible. Privatization of the internet? Maybe temporarily, but if that doesn't truly benefit the public then it simply can't endure against technological advancement.