Matthew Ingram says Bell South is making good on telcos’ threat to start charging both ends of the broadband cable. They’re crying poverty.
I don’t buy it. Last I heard — and I would love someone to give me fresh numbers — cable broadband services operated at better than a 40 percent margin. Now I’m not one of those who believes that regulating profit levels is necessarily good. But since broadband providers operate at best in a duopoly — since they benefit from regulation in government-granted franchises — the least we should have is transparency: How much do you clear on broadband, boys? Off with the hairshirts; they’re unbecoming.
This is REALLY
short-sightedstupid (Are they borrowing management from the music industry?).Are they ready for the lawsuits? And not just from upset customers (”Whaadaya mean I can’t conect to itunes?”). If the telcos play with traffic shaping, lawyers will argue that they’re responsible for every packet that they carry, with interesting consequences re: copyright violations, defamation, and the like. (Why bother with some teenage downloader or blogger when I can make much more $ by suing Bell South?)
And I hope they have an explanation ready when their customers encounter messages like: “Don’t like the way this page loads? That’s because Bell South is screwing up your connection. Get a Real ISP, like XYZ.”
And speaking of competition, I’d just love to be XYZ’s ad agency!
Finally, are they ready to have the regulators step in and define quality of service standards for “internet service?” (Limited latentcy, guaranteed connectivity, and fixed IPs for all!) Internet has been exempted from most regulation by calling it “information service,” but if the telcos are going to start censoring the information, then it needs common carrier status.