Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

George Bonser gbonser at seven.com
Fri Dec 17 16:40:44 UTC 2010


> What I think George's
> comment
> does not completely appreciate is that (ideally) cities are imposing
> such requirements at the behest of and for the benefit of the (local)
> public, whereas private constraints on local access are (by design)
> motivated by profit.

I wasn't really talking about franchise agreements as those are
different and in many cases stipulate things like there can be no
monopoly, etc.

What I was talking about was what if a city simply decided to charge an
Internet provider an "access fee" to the city's people.  An "eyeball
fee".  The city says, "hey, you are making millions selling ads that
these people view and the more eyeballs you have the more money you
make, so we are going to charge you for those eyeballs".  Which is
basically what Comcast is doing ... charging content networks for access
to eyeballs.  What if they themselves got charged for the same thing.
Would they think that is "fair"?  And what if the city had its own
community high speed internet that paid no such charge?


> 
> Regards,
> Steve

Thanks, Steve.




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