Kusari
2006-10-20 |  | A wake up call |  |
Let me first say in advance that this thread will be slightly political in nature. Please, please , please, refrain from spamming and flaming. Lets have a rational, respectful discussion and not let this degenerate into a shouting match over who`s favored political ideology is superior. Second this issue primarily effect those living in the US, but I still welcome input from anyone who has something to add.
Up until recently, the internet has had what is commonly refered to as `Net Neutrality`. It is the same basic principle that governers railroads, shipping, ect. Namely, that compnies that run these services are required to treat all their customers equally, it is illegal for them to charge differnt rates to different customers. If citezens in the US are not vigalent, the internet could those that protection very soon.
Here is the situation: The large telecom companies (AT&T, Verizon, SBC, Sprint, ect) want to have a system that allows them to `fast track` certian packets, while the rest of the net chiggs along at standard speed. It is essentialy a `fast lane` in the internet that companies can access by paying a premium fee to the telecom company.
While this doesn`t sound that bad on the surface, here is the catch: the decision about who gets access to this fast lane and how much each of them pays is entirely up to the telecom company. So lets say for example that SBC (who has a business partnership with yahoo) decides to cut yahoo a special deal on prices. Yahoo now has a major advantage, since all thier competitors like google have to pay a higher rate. Pretty soon Yahoo drives the rest of its competitors out and creates a monoply.
Not only could this happen in the future, it has happend in our past. At one time, Rairoad companies charged more favorable rates to shpipers whom thier owner had a stake in. By doing this, the railroad owners could create monoplies where everything from raw material to factory, to finished good was owned by one man. |
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Killer1700
99+ day(s) ago | telecom companies are dumb...why should i pay 40 bucks a month for sbc 756 kbps internet when i get a 24.99/month bill for my 3 mbps cable connection?? apparently they think i should switch for some reason... |
OnDante
99+ day(s) ago | Thanks for the post Kusari. The scary thing is this is seen as step one to government regulating the internet. If the government has the power to grant more favored access to certain companies, it is in effect a tax on the unfavored companies. Government could then step in and implement a national (or state) tax on transactions over the internet. In the words of Justice John Marshall, "The power to tax is the power to destroy." Whatever your political leanings, I think this is one we can all agree on. I also think we should all contact our U.S. Senators and representatives by phone or email to weigh in on this topic. |
Kusari
99+ day(s) ago | You are right Gormach. Most of the world has jumped way ahead of the US in that regard. Most people in the US pay upwards of $40 US for connections that will provide 1-10 Mbps at most if they are lucky. |
Gornach
99+ day(s) ago | Kusari here in Denmark the Cable we have comes from Hybrid-net and to what I know that is fiberoptics.
Gues there are already many deals made under the table and likely worldwide. |
Omegian
99+ day(s) ago | i have to agree with you and I dont like it ... I took a course in business about something similiar to this, thank god we correct our mistakes, thus if it does go down that avenue like the railroads, we just stick the antitrust stuff and break them up or declare the act voided after its term. |
Kusari
99+ day(s) ago | (cont.) goods were owned by the same person.
The phone companies promise that they would never do such a thing. Yeah, the same companies who `promised` to create a nationwide fiberoptic network 10 years ago in return for tax breaks. Raise your hand if you live in the US and you have access to a high speed fiber-optic network that wasn`t installed by your local government (Cable, DSL and T1 dont count, they still rely on traditional copper cable) raise your hand. Anyone? Anyone at all? I thought not. Inform yourself about this issue and watch the government. Let your represantaives know where you stand.
After all this, you may ask `what does any of this have to do with spacefed?`. The answer is that if the law goes in favor of the telecom. There will be no games like this. This gatekeeper system gives the advantage to large established companies who can afford to pay the large fees for high speed access. Small upstarts like spacefed will be unable to compete since they will not be able to afford the rates and be stuck in the slow lane. Remeber, every great business starts as a small upstart. |
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