[Latest draft of Internet regulation bill]

Mon Nov 14 22:24:43 UTC 2005

On 11/12/05, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:
> Google is calling their offering "basic Internet access" and "premium
> service."  Is "basic Internet access" different than "internet access?"
> Google doesn't really define what they mean by these terms.

The article in the Palo Alto Daily News had the amount of technical
precision you'd expect from a non-technical free newspaper (:-)  It
said that for Google's proposed service in Mountain View, free service
will be limited to 300 kilobytes/sec and you can get faster service
for a fee, and if you want to use it inside your home you'll probably
need a $100 exterior antenna.   I'm guessing that the Google person
actually said "kilobits", but I'd be pleasantly surprised if I'm
incorrect.  It also didn't say anything about terms and conditions
(I'm guessing spamming isn't permitted) or how much privacy you'll get
(vs. data-mining) or about whether it's real internet service or just
the kind of couch-potato information-consumer imitation Internet
service that most of the cable companies offer, which doesn't let you
run servers or send email directly.