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| Internet by the byte..
Here it comes. In a bid to further increase profit margins, AT&T/Comcast is considering imposing data transfer limits, with pricing/penalty structures similar to those already in place in Australia under Telstra. Since the rumblings are far away, I've heard people state that this would be "crazy", and everyone would simply switch to "someone else" if this took effect. Reality check. Money talks, extremely loudly, especially in the telco/carrier arena. Bled to death by the massive dot-com boom that went bust, everyone is scrambling to pack in more subscribers while stretching their over-utilized networks, just have a ready crop of users that will accept new restrictions on data transfer. Make no mistake, once this happens with any carrier, it will spread like cancer. Also, there may not be a natural monopoly in the united states, but there is a very limited arena of choice when it comes to providers. Anyone claiming to be an "independent" carrier is usually working with the competition when they need to hook into the internet itself. Not to mention geographic restrictions that come into play when requesting service. I don't like my current broadband service, they charge by the byte. What can I do? If I'm too far from any other offerings, I'm locked in. Nice. So I can technically have multiple "choices" but I'm screwed. That is, if I wanted to completely disrupt my life and uproot to live somewhere else. But what if I join another carrier, they get bought out, etc.. by the same people who are charging by the byte? Yeah, you guessed it, I'm screwed again. Here's some prices from Telstra - get used to looking at it, you'll need it when you have to calculate all your downloads. 3 GB allowance a month, overages typically cost 13 cents per MB. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? How about if you're over by 650MB? Easy to do if you're downloading by the CD-Full, let's calculate the result. 650 MB x 13c per MB = $84.50 Ouch! I'd like to say that this is the inevitable effect of peer-to-peer abuse, but it isn't that simple. There are remedies and controls that can be put into place that would prevent those services from functioning without having to resort to draconian download controls. No my friends, this isn't about warez and p2p, it's about profit and control. It's about becoming powerful enough so the concerns of a free and open internet don't exist. The hippy-birkenstock-post-arpanet-dream of a free information system is dying, and you can hear each drop of its blood being squeezed out by commercial interests, bit-by-bit. Unlimited Internet? How about Unlimited Monopoly. desiato_hotblack @ hotmail.com |
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