This is very important, so please take a moment to read this, because this could change the face of the Internet as we know it in America. Here's a summary, for those not in the know about how access works.
You pay your ISP each month for access.
A website pays a hosting fee each month to be on the Internet.
We want to see a website, we dial in the address, and we are there.
The website pays for their bandwidth each month, or pays for a certain amount of bandwidth (traffic).
Well, the telco companies (AT&T, Verizon, etc), want to charge websites an extra fee to allow people "full" access to the sites, otherwise the telco will meter traffic to a site. Imagine this. You call me long distance. I get charged. Under this new plan, we would both be charged for the long distance call, plus pay our normal monthly fees.
As it stands now, we pay for access and websites pay to be on the web. The telcos want MORE money, essentially telling websites that they will slow down access to a given site if they don't pay this "full access" fee. Don't believe me? Read here:
http://www.networkingpipeline.com/blog/archives/2006/03/fcc_chief_att_c.html
A quote from the article:
"By siding with telcos who want to be able to offer adequate bandwidth to sites that pay up, and to limit bandwidth to sites that don't, he'll help kill off new sites that can't afford to fork over the money."
And here, the guy contradicts himself:
http://www.networkingpipeline.com/news/183701554
Saying that customers that don't pay for high tier service should not expect fast access. No, really? I am already paying for the faster DSL service in my area, so this is already in effect. I could get the $14 DSL, which is like 512kbps, but I prefer the $39 for the 3mbps service. Tell me something I didn't already know chairman of the FCC, who I might add was appointed by Bush, and before being FCC Chairman, was a Bush campaign guy. Nice one, George. Maybe Halliburton can run the Internet for us.
How would this affect you? Simple, AT&T blocks Vonage, so amazingly no more Internet free long distance. Audioholics.com gets metered and refuses to pay...so the site comes to crawl. Google doesn't pay the extortion fee, and now Google searches time out and take forever. But Ask Jeeves did pay, so guess who's search engine will go faster. Another case of big business trying to get every last penny out of the consumer.
EMAIL your congressman/woman, the FCC, anyone. This cannot happen or the free, open Internet we know will become a paid advertisement for those that can afford to be online, and smaller sites will be pushed to the side of the bandwidth highway.
