Winsor Crosby wrote:
> If you were hoping for continued cheap or cheaper access it may not
> happen. You might want to find out more about it and take the action
> you think is appropriate.
<cue Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want">I don't think
this is going to happen. Whitacre and Seidenberg don't seem to
understand that "bits is bits" and that it does not matter if the bit in
question belongs to a phone conversation with Grandma or a post to the
OM-List. Either way, the companies these men supposedly "lead" are in
the business of providing the infrastructure and charging appropriately.
If there were more demand for voice calls to Grandma, they'd build the
capacity and raise their price if they didn't make the money on volume.
So if they have to build more infrastructure for digital data, they
should build it and charge what they have to to the people using it if
they can't make the money on volume (which indicates that they're _very_
poor businessmen). The Googles and Yahoos and Vonages of the world buy
this capacity and, if they have to, can sell more ads or premium
services or subscriptions or whatever they find saleable or feasible.
The idea of singling out Web traffic or voice-over-IP is a nice ploy,
but ....
... then we get to Smith's assertion. If Smith got his way, BellSouth
would then be in a position to strongly influence (read: get a kickback
on) the services offered quickest. Smith needs to remember that an
increasing number of people are turning to cable modem (_much_ faster
than the fastest DSL he can provide) or satellite for Internet and media
access and to cellular/mobile phone companies for their telephone
access. (I myself dumped Qwest a few years ago because it was not
economically competitive with cable and cellular.)
And, if Smith got its way, don't you think that the service providers
who got aced out could identify traffic carried by BellSouth customers
and slow _it_ down or outright deny it? Do you think Smith wants to get
calls from angry customers that don't want BS's Hotmail and find that
they can no longer get to the Yahoo! account they've had for years?
There are too many alternatives to the "Baby Bells" for them to slit
their own throats like that. It would be a short term bonus and a
long-term slide to insignificance.
In addition, people (at least in the U.S.) have gotten used to the idea
that most Internet content is free once they pay the freight to get
online. And if someone is going to go to the trouble of maintaining
informational sites like several on this List do, why should you pay for
the privilege of providing that information? Why bother providing it at
all? If many people think that way, the interest people have in
connecting to the Internet will dwindle. Charging for stuff that used to
be free is a good way to start reducing one's customer population.
These guys talk a nice game, but I really don't see it happening quite
the way they think it will.</cue Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get
What You Want">
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