| This is the first battle in the war To me it's pretty simple. Comcast and the other cable and phone companies want to block you from BOTH consuming bandwidth (costs them direct expenses) AND using their Internet connection to get services and content that you would otherwise pay them for (e.g. video, phone) (costs them lost revenue). Follow the money!
Of course they start with Bittorrent. The FUD that they spew about BT is mostly a red herring to divert people from the real issue. The prize that they are after is to deny customers the ability to get VoIP or video from anybody but themselves. BT is just a mosquito that they want to swat, and a tool to get a legal framework in place to reach the prize. Voice and video are the cash cow that they desperately want to hang on to.
BT users provide just enough legitimate network management concern on the ISP's part that they hope to use this to establish a legal precedent for denying service to customers. One they get the legal framework established to deny services to the customer FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE ISP'S PROFIT (not just the health of the network!), then they are home free.
Want to use Skype, Vonage, ekegia, or any other VoIP provider? Sorry, against the TOS; buy our VoIP product instead. We just can't manage our network if you bandwidth pigs use a competing service. We are innocent. We just happen to make a lot more money when we deny you these services.
Want to view Youtube or Youporn or CNN online? Sorry, against our TOS; buy our bundle of 99 crap channels to get the 3 that you are interested in. We just can't manage our network if you evil pirate bandwidth pigs use a competing service. We are innocent. In fact, we are the good guys, saving the world from evil pirates. We just happen to make a lot more money when we deny you these services.
I have been in the CATV industry for a while. They view the requirement to provide service to their customers as an unavoidable speed bump on the way to cashing their checks. ANYTHING that they can do to minimize the cost and maximize the revenue stream is fair game in their view. They see the end of the monopoly and they are terrified.
This contempt for their customers' desires will be their undoing over time, now that they are getting more and more competition. But it takes a generation to flush the existing tier of managers who have this monopoly mindset. By then FiOS and Google TV and Skype and others will have eaten way into their profitability. They have no answer except to go into panic mode and try to block services, in order to buy a few more days of monopoly before the implosion. Oh well! |
