Skip to comments.The End of the Internet?
Posted on 02/06/2006 10:06:27 AM PST by gooper
The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
FreePress has a campaign on this issue here: NetFreedom Now!
OH NO SAY IT AIN'T SO, PING!!
I'd have internet withdrawals, this is for sure.
I smell government imposed "Fairenss Doctrine" brewing for the Internet.
If a single company attempts this nonsense, its competitors will destroy its market share. If two or more companies collude to do this, the Sherman Antitrust Act, state antitrust laws, etc. will be used to squash them like bugs. Under either scenario, those engaged in the practice are going to find considerable increased costs of doing business thanks the warfare that hackers will unleash on them.
I do not see how they could possibly get away with it.
they can't. Who thinks up this stuff? don't they have some dishes to wash, or something else to do?
Seems like a real threat to me.
I'd cancel my ISP service the second anything like that ever happened.
We'd both have withdrawls buddy.
I posted this on another thread today, its sort of related to the issue.
GOOGLE'S WEB OF SPECULATION
February 6, 2006 -- Concerns that cable and phone companies want to charge Google and other new media companies for use of their networks are fueling continued speculation that the search giant is looking to build its own Internet.
A report in The Times of London this past Friday cites unnamed sources who claim Google is developing a network of its own that would allow the company to bypass the existing Internet.
Under the plan, people would be able to connect to the Google-owned network with a cheap PC that retails for less than $100, the paper reported.
Rumors that Google is setting up a global network have been around since 2000 when it began buying up miles of previously unused fiber-optic cables and building myriad server farms in New York City and elsewhere.
More recently though, the cable and phone companies have begun making noise about charging not only subscribers for Internet services but also companies like Google and Yahoo! that send music, video and other large files over their networks.
Right now, the Internet companies get a free ride, but they could be facing higher costs if phone and cable companies succeed.
Google is notoriously tight-lipped, leaving industry watchers to come up with their own theories about the company's plans for the future.
At least one analyst believes Google may be engaging in the equivalent of digital saber-rattling by toying with the idea of building its own network.
you, me, and a few million other folks.
The fact that someone's not making money off our posting is killing people.
They almost got away with it last time, with regard to media consolidation rules. The only reason they didn't was because grassroots activists like the NRA fought like hell and got congress to act against the FCC.
I figured it was only a matter of time until companies tried this. So many are getting into (or wanting to get into) selling "Voice over IP" telephone service, but they are hampered because the quality of the calls decrease as network/server traffic increases.
Isn't the UN going to take over the internet? That should solve any potential problems.
Like most things from 'The Nation', I don't think this passes the smell test.
LOL!! Good point.
Exactly. You already pay your ISP for bandwidth - some have 56k dial-up for $9 a month, some have DSL for $25 a month, others use cable for $50 a month, and others use T1 and other much higher-end ISP service for larger installations.
They already give "premium service" to their customers depending on your cost for desired bandwidth.
Sheesh - this writer has no idea what he's talkig about. It's always a call for regulation.
I think you're wrong. What they are trying to do is create "priviliged" lanes that will increase the speed for corporations that pay big bucks, and relegate everyone else to the slow lane.
Bear in mind that consumers already pay extra $$ for high speed downloads. What this will do is slow down traffic for sites like Free Republic that don't pay the premium charge.
We don't want the same thing to happen with the internet that almost happened with TV/Radio/etc. in 2003:
The current FCC rules "have prevented media giants like AOL Time Warner, Viacom/CBS, and Disney/ABC from silencing your NRA when we've needed to take our message directly to the American people in critical legislative and political battles," wrote LaPierre, President of the National Riflemans Asscociation.
The FCC can promulgate regs to its heart's content. It won't trump federal antitrust law. There are arguably First Amendment issues too. Remember that the government owns the 'backbone' of the Internet (despite the best efforts of the UN). Regulations fattening the wallets of government licensees is to going to get some heavy scrutiny by the courts. Regardless, I suspect that for every company that tries this nonsense, there will be 10 who refuse to do it in order to gain market share.
I would too with a lot of others, however, my life wasn't dull either before I had a computer and the Internet.....the only thing I would detest would be the MSM / LSM (lame - stream - media) regaining a toe hold of filtered news to the public. Regardless, I'd not have Internet access at home anymore.
Telephone companies have been dying for the past 7 or 8 years. By 2020 they'll be like those companies that still manufacture television antennas and sell them at Radio Shack.
If you read the article more closely it is basically implying that the Telcos wish to charge for QoS services to individuals AND companys to be able to get their services delivered at higher speeds.
Which, in my opinion is a load of crap. You already pay for the internet, why pay more so you can view your video at a faster rate when before it was 'free' (ie: You recieved content as fast as your connection would allow) In their new model, it wouldnt matter how fast of a connection your company (or home computer) has to the backbone because the Telcos that own the wires in-between will be throttleing the connections to/from your server (or home computer).
Basically, the Telcos want more money (and soon Cable companys will as well..) I think at the moment they are testing the waters to see how the public reacts.
"If a single company attempts this nonsense, its competitors will destroy its market share. If two or more companies collude to do this, the Sherman Antitrust Act, state antitrust laws, etc. will be used to squash them like bugs. Under either scenario, those engaged in the practice are going to find considerable increased costs of doing business thanks the warfare that hackers will unleash on them."
***Yeah, yeah! There are about 5 mega entertainment monopolies who own MEDIA sources. ABC/Radio was just sold -to what interest entity? George Soros? CAIR? ACLU?
Consumers already pay extra for high speed access. Web sites like Free Republic already pay extra for bandwidth to connect to the web at high speeds. What the telcos and cable companies are trying to do is the equivalent of putting a toll booth at each of their networks that forces us to pay a third time to access the internet.
Imagine if you had to pay an additional surcharge, on top of your long distance fee, for each and every network that your telephone call routed through. This is the same thing.
You already have to pay for the internet. This is just going to make it more expensive.
Personally, I hope that the junk mail is the first casualty. Also viruses and adware.
The internet? Is that thing still around?
Homer J. Simpson
Just wait until the UN manages to take jurisdiction over the Internet and then levies a tax on your usage. My phone bill is already made up of taxes and fees more than anything else.
Unless it has been repealed, up until a couple years ago we were phone paying taxes that were designed to fund the Spanish-American War (1898). Wonder how many times we paid for that war over a century.
If it's a bad idea then the market will kill it, and if it's a good idea, then the market will reward it.
More legislation will only screw it up faster and more permanently.
"OH NO SAY IT AIN'T SO, PING!!"
It ain't so. Just the usual hysteria from the Hate Capitalism crowd. The same people screaming in fear at the Nation where utterly silent when the UN tried to take over the Internet in Tunsia a couple of months ago. Just masking the real threat from the UN by manufacuring a fraudlent threat of "Big Business". Hey morons. WHO do you think provides all the servers etc that make up the infastuructre of the Internet? GASP! The Horror! Big Business all ready RUNS the Net!!!!!
Let's all panic over nothing.
"As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!" "
Has this weiner ever heard of cable or satellite? We don't need his "pipes" for the internet.
Not a bad point. The phone and cable companies developed an infrastructure designed for one type of information flow and others have piggybacked onto that infrastructure, essentially using it for free.
For example, long distance over internet not only adds to the bandwidth going over the "pipes," but also reduced the income from long distance phone bills that traditionally helped to pay for those pipes.
The threat from government is choking taxation. Look at your phone bill and add up all the taxes and fees...mine amount to about 40% of the total cost. State legislatures in particular are salivating over the prospect of taxing Internet access, downloaded music or videos, e-mails, domain names and any e-commerce. Taxation is what will raise the price of access not corporations.
Why, I'll bet they're working on a strategy that will be as successful as the one the newspapers have used to shut-down the Internet!
The GOP will likely cave in to their corporate masters on this one, as they did on the disgraceful bankruptcy bill. McCain is the Chief Whore for the telecoms, so I expect him to carry their water on this issue.
I blame Al Gore.
Yeah. They even have it on computers now.
You don't want the government involved? Fine.
BTW, Comcast, Tom's Cable Company, Dick's Cable Company, and Harry's Cable Company are going to be laying lines alongside those ones where you used to have a government monopoly, starting tomorrow....
They're not "your" pipes. You rented them to your customers (and thereby ceded control over what is sent through them).