Two Tiered Internet

Wed Dec 14 07:04:48 UTC 2005

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
> Thus spake "Christopher L. Morrow" <christopher.morrow at mci.com>
> > users might switch to alternate access methods. That works as
> > long as there are alternate access methods, and as long as the
> > telecom's don't 'cabal' and all do the same hideously bad thing...
>
> Congress appears to be working hard to make sure that happens.

I hope that congress doesn't allow all the telcos to decide to do the same
bad thing at the same bad time... I suppose they might though :( They've
been known to do some stupid things with respect to 'Internet' stuff.

>
> > I do think it'd be funny for SBC or BS to do this sort of thing and get
> > massive customer loss when their customers defect to cable
> > modem networks.
>
> Do you really think the cablecos will be significantly less evil than the
> telcos?  I'm not as optimistic about the result of a legislated duopoly.

So far they seem to be not quite so evil (minus their port blocking for
some services, and rate-shaping for other services)... I used them as an
example though, really so long as there is another game in town
(competition) think the SBC/BS proposals will not last very long. At the
very least I'd bet that they won't garner the profits that the SBC/BS
execs are hoping will arrive.