When you pay for Internet access, you pay for the utility of Internet. The ISP provides you with access to the Internet. This means that they provide you with a SPECIFIC bandwith. What BellSouth is doing is essentially not only make you pay but the organisation that is putting content on the Internet as well. So they make you pay twice because it is obvious that the organisation that is made to pay will increase your bill by that amount.
Until this time you pay for a service, a given amount of access to the Internet. With this proposal you do not get this service because additional tolls have to be paid.
Thanks, GerardM
On 1/18/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/17/06, Maru Dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/17/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Seems to me like they're just trying to offer an additional service (faster, more reliable) on top of the ones they already offer. I don't see the big deal.
Anthony
The way these businesses work things, the slippery slope argument is *very* applicable. Even if they charge for traffic, and they merely impose extra charges on all new services and speeds, eventually you will have no choice but to pay, because bandwidth requirements go ever up- analogously, if someone offered you a totally free 512 bps Internet connection, would you take it? What if "paying for premium connections" had gotten started when 512 bps were the norm for home users?
~Maru
I don't know about you, but I *already* have no choice but to pay for Internet access and other telecommunications services, so I really don't see what the big deal is. But maybe I'm missing something.
"analogously, if someone offered you a totally free 512 bps Internet connection, would you take it?" I'm not sure what the point of this question is, but if it was an always-on connection hell yeah I'd take it. I'd love even just a 1 bps Internet connection just so I could send a short message to my computer from some other location to connect for real (or to determine its IP address, or whatever). But I'm one of those poor souls who can't currently get DSL.
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