Re: Networks are for corporations and offices, right?

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Philip Friedman  on Thu, 15 Jun
2006 14:08:49 -0400 (EDT)


> the cable companies and telecoms [are] asserting
> that they don't owe anyone the right to free carriage...
> that is, they're asserting their right to
> charge differential fees for carrying websites at
> different bandwidths, and
> that's really going to change things

You're right, but again, that's different. Users pay differential rates for
their connection right now ($ at ISP A, $$$ at ISP B), for throughput rates,
etc etc.

I read recently that one downloaded movie, compressed, is the equivalent of
35,000 Emails. That's a lot of bandwidth. Yesterday I downloaded the drivers
for an HP 2800 series multifunction printer: not 50Kb or 300Kb or 1Mb, but 550
megabytes (which seems absurd)! Who can be surprised that carriers are
starting to object to flat rate fares? My main ISP (acedsl), while not
imposing any restrictions whatsoever on what I do (as long as its legal), told
me clearly that if my IPaddress started to consume huge amounts of bandwidth, I
could expect a phone call to discuss pricing.

The fact is that, in general, prices are falling, not rising -- and the big
telecoms and cable outfits have generally the lowest rates. What they really
want to do is cut out the little ISPs which, until recently, had a statutory
right to access the big carrier's pipes.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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