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To: shrinkermd

If the government can set the prices for internet access today, it'll be trying to regulate content tomorrow.


2 posted on 01/02/2007 8:14:17 AM PST by CFC__VRWC (AIDS, abortion, euthanasia - Don't liberals just kill ya?)
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To: CFC__VRWC

it's not about government setting prices, it's about whether access providers can blackmail large companies by threatening to provide substandard service if they don't pay.

What some of those providers want to do is charge twice for the same bandwidth - and one of those parties isn't their customer. Instead of charging their own customers more for internet access, they want to be able to compete in that market on price while soaking places like amazon for the 'privilege' of letting the ISP customers get to their website normally. That's nothing more than blackmail.

Imagine you run a company that takes a lot of phone calls. You already have phone service you pay for. 50% of your incoming calls come from people with, say, AT&T for their home phone service. One day AT&T comes to you and says "You know, people are using AT&T lines to call you. We know you already pay for your own phone service. But you should pay us an extra fee because a bunch of those phone calls are coming through us. And if you don't pay, your connections with those customers might be really bad and you could end up losing business because of it".

That's mafia like activity. You can't go up to a non customer and threaten them. If they want to make more money, they should charge their own customers more, not shakedown big companies that aren't their customers via threats.


3 posted on 01/02/2007 8:30:01 AM PST by flashbunny (If the founding fathers were alive today, they'd be buying feathers and boiling tar.)
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