Tolls on the Internet
Try this concept on for size. In order for you to surf to Yahoo's rich media site, or Google's highly efficient search engine, a fee is added to your broadband monthly invoice -- or your ISP delivers a bill to Yahoo and Google -- or worse than those two scenarios, your broadband provider makes a deal with a media or search service, opens the tap their sites, while throttling back the pipe to the competition. Why, after all, should the ISPs allow unrestricted use of their networks, when they can make more money with restricted access?
It would be akin to taking your bandwidth hostage, and that's exactly what some of the new economy internet services fear, as pointed out in this BusinessWeek article. The broadband service providers deny they're even thinking about this -- but do you really believe them? Get ready for the end of the free for all on the internet. Coming soon will be a fragmented internet, where you will have to pay for speedy, unrestricted access.
It would be akin to taking your bandwidth hostage, and that's exactly what some of the new economy internet services fear, as pointed out in this BusinessWeek article. The broadband service providers deny they're even thinking about this -- but do you really believe them? Get ready for the end of the free for all on the internet. Coming soon will be a fragmented internet, where you will have to pay for speedy, unrestricted access.
Hi Andy!
ReplyDeleteI ran across your Blog in the wierdest way - through a related gaming blog, run by a bloke in Ireland, of all places. Check out my blog too, at http://fablesoft.blogspot.com
Toll-roads on the internet have already started. Rogers for example, has decided to implement new QOS rules on their internet services, and have decided to deprioritize P2P traffic. They are not just using port blocking anymore, they have evolved to using deep packet inspection to ferret out eMule/eDonkey and BitComet traffic, and reduce it to nothing more than a trickle. Understandable to manage upstream traffic, but strangely enough, they are throttling downstream traffic much more aggressively - which makes little sense.
Will we soon see a new tier of service offered (beyond Rogers Extreme) that offers unrestricted P2P service or other services for an extra price? Can't be too long now...
Kamal Syed
Thanks for the update. I don't rely too much on bittorrent, but this holiday, I got inspired and decided to pull some Linux distros ... I'm still waiting for the download to complete. It trickles in at 2bps. I hate Rogers. I think it's time to give Sympatico a shot -- hopefully they're now in my building.
ReplyDelete