Tolls could dot the Internet highway (if you pay you go faster)

[rodeodance]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/02/27/net.neutrality.ap/index.html

Tolls could dot the Internet highway

Monday, February 27, 2006; Posted: 11:51 a.m. EST (16:51 GMT)



NEW YORK (AP) -- On the Internet, the traffic cops are blind -- they don't look at the data they're directing, and they don't give preferential treatment.

That's something operators of the Internet highway, the major U.S. phone companies, want to change by effectively adding a toll lane: They want to be able to give priority treatment to those who pay to get through faster.

Naturally, consumer advocates and the Web companies that would be paying the toll are calling it highway robbery.

"Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success," Vinton Cerf told a Senate committee recently. Cerf, who played a key role in building the Internet, is now the "Chief Internet Evangelist" at Google Inc.

On the Internet, information is carried in "packets," small chunks of data. An e-mail might be divided into several packets and travel different routes to the destination, much like cars have multiple ways of getting somewhere. The packets may arrive out of order, a few even late, but data can be reassembled to reconstitute the e-mail.
.....

[China_cat]

1. Aren't we already paying for this

with fees to ISPs, cable companies, DSL and other providers?

[sui generis]

3. exactly - but like anything that "regulates" flow of a commodity

it has to have access to all of the information about that commodity. Therefore, saying that some information can flow more quickly than other information means that they have to be able to "see" that information and determine for themselves whether you should see it too, under any pricing structure.

Not a good thing for "free speech" America. Not at all.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. The questions is will businesses or individuals get socked more

Businesses won't like it. Individuals can't do much about it (and still have access). Publice access such as libraries won't be able to offer it without increased or user fees. And frankly, I pay through the nose now for highspeed. :grr:

[Selatius]

4. It's a deadly threat to freedom of speech on the internet.

All it will end up doing is pricing the voices of the poorest people off the internet. By putting up toll booths everywhere, they can arbitrarily deny people access even if they have the money to pay, so if you have the "wrong" political ideas, for instance, that's tough luck.

If companies like Verizon or Qwest Communications want to essentially gain total control over the flow of information on the internet, then I think escalation is in order. I believe if they succeed in basically destroying the last frontier for freedom of speech by buying the votes of politicians, then we should demand that the major backbones of the internet located within the US be nationalized and taken away from corporations and put under a public trust as a form of retaliation.

[Savannah Progressive]

5. Not surprised after all Trolls already dot the Information Superhighway

:silly:

[applegrove]

6. I thought we paid for telephone service when we pay our monthly

bills?

[SoCalDem]

7. I already DO pay to go faster :)

$58.95 per month to Adelphia :grr: