ISPs Seek to Create Classism on Internet

Rob Updegrove (GHoosdum) AT&T and Bellsouth are lobbying the US Congress for permission to create a 'two-tiered' structure of information delivery speeds on the internet.

December 19, 2005 2:42 PM ET in News,

AT&T and Bellsouth are lobbying the US Congress for permission to create a ‘two-tiered’ structure of information delivery speeds on the internet.

The proposal supported by AT&T and BellSouth would allow telecommunications carriers to offer their own advanced Internet video services to their customers, while rival firms’ online video offerings would be transmitted at lower speed and with poorer image quality.

AT&T and other telecoms want to charge consumers a premium fee to connect to the higher-speed Internet. The companies could also charge websites a premium to offer their video to consumers on the higher-speed Internet. That could mean that a company like Yahoo might have to pay AT&T to send high-quality video to AT&T subscribers.

Source: Boston.com

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7 Comments:

  1. RWB
    19 Dec '05, 2:46 pm

    BOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

    That is so ghey of them.

  2. profdlp
    19 Dec '05, 2:49 pm

    It's bad enough that they have a virtual monopoly on the connection itself, this is just too much...

  3. Leonardo
    19 Dec '05, 5:00 pm
    AT&T and Bellsouth are lobbying the US Congress

    That's not a good sign. There are very few congressmen who understand technology very well. They are even more ignorant than the mainstream press.

  4. Black Hawk
    19 Dec '05, 8:44 pm
    Quoting Leonardo

    That's not a good sign. There are very few congressmen who understand technology very well. They are even more ignorant than the mainstream press.

    They're gonna play the politicians in so many ways, it's not funny.

  5. stabface
    21 Dec '05, 2:01 pm

    yes this very bad, lets find the petition and sign it or throw a brick

  6. Armo
    21 Dec '05, 2:30 pm

    I KNOW! get jack johnson to tell them what it is

  7. jradmin
    21 Dec '05, 4:02 pm

    This has got to be teh dumbest thing ever. I sware, is there no way to live without someone squeezing you for every friggin penny you make?

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