By Tom Collins, Director of Sales
& Marketing, Atlantech Online (Published January 5, 2006)
Could you be cut off from the Internet? I'm not talking about your
employer unplugging your computer or your CFO canceling the DSL
by mistake. I'm talking about being unable to reach Web sites and
other networks from your Internet Service Provider. Sound like it
can only happen in China or Saudi Arabia? It could happen here in
the USA and anywhere the Internet is.
As telcos, cablecos and Internet companies such as eBay, Google
and AOL continue their death march for supremacy on the Internet,
there is a very real possibility of networks cutting off each other.
"Carrying someone else's water" is the center of the current
and brewing controversy. Companies like Google, eBay and AOL have
their content accessed by millions of DSL and cable Internet customers,
but they don't pay a dime to Comcast, Verizon, SBC, or others with
the pipe going into homes. As most publicly traded companies will
do, these cablecos and telcos are trying to figure out a way to
get per-bit payments from the Internet companies.
Says Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC, "They use my lines for free,
and that's bull. For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody
to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts."
Now, I know what you're thinking... these providers get paid by
their users to access their network. While that is correct, they
are selling DSL for $14.95 per month or FIOS for $34.95 per month
when it is costing them $29 or $99 per month to deliver those respective
services. It’s not a long-lasting business model, so they
have to get more blood from the stone.
We've seen this issue raised before - John Sidgmore of UUNet threatened
in 1997 to cut off other networks from the UUNet network because
he felt that it was unfair that they carried more than 50 percent
of Internet traffic. And we are seeing it now - just as Fox or Discovery
pays Comcast to carry their "programming," perhaps Google
or Yahoo! will have to pay Verizon to deliver content to the carriers’
subscribers. And it is all of us who will pay as the costs are passed
along to consumers. If the content providers don't pay, the carriers
will cut them off because there will be no such thing as network
neutrality.
So what does the future hold? Even if your wi-fi is getting good
signal, your Firefox browser is keeping you bug-free and your network
is uncongested by SPAM, you may find yourself unable to access the
parts of the Internet that matter to you. Surfer beware.
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