Forum Moderators: phranque
The threat that I am reading (but would like to confirm from people more enlightened about the issue) is that companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast would create tiers that would put emphasis on certain parts of the net (in regards to both speed and even the very concept of access itself).
From my understanding that would allow two owners of the OC pipes in example to charge their customers extra for normal speed or even any access at all to their competitor's pipes which in effect would create alienated portions of the internet or multiple internet networks.
There is an online petition though I'd rather hear what others have to say first before signing it as the issue is too foggy at this time.
The Petition [commoncause.org]
John
Aren't large corporations who tap into the Internet backbone already doing this?
For example, UUNET/WorldCom/MCI, Sprint, AT&T, and Qwest, all are connected to portions of the backbone. These companies provide connections to regional providers, who then provide connections to local ISP's.
As a result of different types of connections, (i.e. dial-up, ISDN, DSL, Cable, T1, T3, etc.)... people get charged accordingly.
I may be totally off-base with your post, but is that similar?
I'm going to make up an example...
Lets say WebmasterWorld's host is on AT&T's backbone.
Both you and I are ultimately connected to Sprint's backbone.
You and I use Sprint's backbone to connect to the backbone AT&T owns. We both either get a slower connection (because Spring competes with AT&T), we get charged (either we have to pay an additional monthly fee PER competitor in example), or we get no access at all. In fact with the internet divided you could theoretically register google.com on different petitions of the internet.
That would be devastatingly difficult for consumers who already have to either pay a large monthly bill for cable or deal with DSL issues (like myself).
Again this is my understanding and I'm curious as to what I'd be signing. I know there are lots of lobbyists and I'd rather not sign something that would advoate something that would split the internet in to petitions in any sense.
John
I'm guessing the larger, regional entities that hold parts of the backbone (i.e. AT&T, Compuserve, UUNet/MCI, etc.) would fight it out and eventually pass the costs down to local ISP's, who would then pass it further down to home-based users (us).
So let me get this straight:
You're thinking that if AT&T delegated a portion of its backbone to 20 regional companies, who then split it between dozens of local ISP's, restricting them to only the AT&T portion -- AT&T could charge those regional/locals more for accessing any portion of the backbone owned/operated by other large entities (i.e. MCI, Sprint, Qwest, etc.)?
I looked at the petition, but I'm not sure if it will help anything.
