| What is the Internet? The author wrote, "In the end, tiered services, or quality of service (QOS), is inevitable. It's not a dirty word. And it won't threaten democracy. Surfing the Web has already been established as the baseline for Internet service – which is in fact a best-effort service that shouldn't require any special engineering or fees."
Really, the web is the Internet? Here I was thinking my email is the Internet, my VoIP, my Newsgroup service, my instant messaging, my streaming audio. My first suggestion for this author would be to learn what the Internet is before writing a story about whether or not access fees are extortion.
Although the author seems to get that both sides (consumers and content providers) pay for access. He fails to find extortion in these access fees comparing them to the price of a seat on an airplane. But his analogy is misplaced. His airline doesn't make his flight stop in mid air so that a flight with QoS can go by.
He seems completely unaware that content companies are forced to enter multi-year contracts (typically 3 yr) for their backbone connections to guarantee pricing. These contracts keep Bell from raising rates on their content customers. So to circumvent these contracts and subsidize their well below market price of $12.99 for DSL they want to levy access fee taxes.
If bell needs to make more money, than they need to raise their rates to end users or to content providers at the backbone connection level. QoS will do nothing but create a new digital divide that puts giant corporations that are able to absorb their un-mandated taxes and an unfair advantage over smaller independent companies and stifle investment.
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-----»hotcarl.diaryland.com |
