I was reading this article about how Bellsouth, my beloved and reliable provider of broadband access to my apartment, wants to charge companies extra for using their bandwidth.
I must admit, I do not like where this is going, not one bit. Bill Smith, CTO at BellSouth suggested that Apple So, Computer might be asked to pay a nickel or a dime to insure the complete and rapid transmission of a song via the Internet, which is being used for more and more content-intensive purposes.
Basically, this is giving a higher priority to internet traffic to those who can afford it. The new “mob” of the internet is forming, and their business is still that old cliche of “Importing and Exporting”, but now, it’s packets instead of “da moichendise”.
For example, take Papa Cass™. I’m slowly in the process of setting him up with his site to sell his t-shirts, designs, etc. from. But being an individual, small vendor, he wouldn’t be able to get in the same area of high-bandwidth availablity, due to their proposed new charges and fees.
Now, I know what I am saying can be seen as alarmist and pre-emptory, but it all starts somewhere. If I want a faster line, I’ll pay more for the T-3, the OC-x, etc. I shouldn’t have to pay extra “Priority Routing Fees” to other ISPs.
Are we going to have a ClearChannel of the web, where if Bellsouth doesn’t want me to use another Internet Provider, they might drop the traffic down further in priority or deny it all together?
Are we forgetting the spirit of the internet? Need I remind you that it can be summarised in one word?
I guess so. Well my friends, that word is porn er, I mean, Freedom of Speech.
Well, maybe three words. Perhaps that isn’t the spirit of the ‘net, but it should be.
So, in conclusion: Boo-fuckin-Hoo, BellSouth. I pay you for net access. Apple pays their plethora of providers. Route my packets and stop crying about it. Malware in general and Microsoft Update cause more problems than anything else, anyways. Try and charge me a “packet-fee” and watch me drop you faster than I dropped Cox Cable for phasing out my TV Guide Channel. I’ll do it too. I am that bastard.
I can’t wait to see how cranky you’re gonna be when you’re old ;-)
Well, considerin’ that I’m only six years old, you have a long time to wait, my dear.
I’ve been thinking about this lately. What would it take to create a new cable or fiber system. Is there some kind of lockdown on who can put wires on what poles? What about some kind of mesh networking.
You’ve already dropped Cox. If you drop BellSouth, as far as I know, that leaves you with dialup around here.
Now that I mention it, the mesh networking is quite intriguing. WiMax and friends will certainly help with that.
This is a dubious practice and I think that the FTC will shut it down pre-launch. If it does launch it will mean the end of web democracy and the beginning of nightmarish service problems.