Toll Roads on the Internet
Jan 22nd, 2006 at 4:35 pm by Susie
This WashPo story says businesses will eventually be offered a different class of Internet service - and explains how that’ll affect the rest of us:
But lately the issue, a matter of heated debate on obscure blogs and among analysts like me, has begun to attract the attention of the mainstream press. There are a couple of reasons.
One is that Congress is taking first steps toward updating and rewriting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a key legal underpinning for media, telecommunications and Internet activity. This process, required by technological advances, will probably take a year to complete.
More dramatically, executives at AT&T and BellSouth got into the headlines recently with a series of audacious statements. In a November Business Week story, AT&T Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. complained that Internet content providers were getting a free ride: “They don’t have any fiber out there. They don’t have any wires. . . . They use my lines for free — and that’s bull,” he said. “For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!”
It was a stunner. Whitacre had apparently declared that AT&T planned to unilaterally abandon its role as a neutral carrier.
Whether or not you agree with Whitacre, you can understand his frustration. Companies like Google and Yahoo pay some fees to connect to their servers to the Internet, but AT&T will collect little if any additional revenue when Yahoo starts offering new features that take up lots of bandwidth on the Internet. When Yahoo’s millions of customers download huge blocks of video or play complex video games, AT&T ends up carrying that increased digital traffic without additional financial compensation.
But for public interest advocates, Whitacre’s outburst was a Clint Eastwood moment. “Make my day,” said Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge, which focuses on defending consumer rights in the digital world.
A case of buyer’s remorse? Whitacre was head of SBC until they bought AT&T and changed the name to AT&T.
“One is that Congress is taking first steps toward updating and rewriting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a key legal underpinning for media, telecommunications and Internet activity. This process, required by technological advances, will probably take a year to complete.”
. . . . .
I certainly don’t trust a Republican congress to do that in the public interest.
There goes the Internets!
Excuse me, but I think I already pay for access to AT&T’s wires via my fees to Verizon and my ISP.
But who am I to break up a fight between multi-billionaires? Go at it boys!
That’s correct! Last I checked, I am paying over $40 a month to my ISP provider.