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U.S. Carriers To Share Connection Fees To Oz
T J Quoll pointed us to this story from Australia's The Age announcing an agreement reached this weekend among telecommunications officials from Australia, the U.S. and other members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group. The officials, says the article, "agreed to scrap arrangements under which non-U.S. Internet carriers had to pay for the cost of links to and from the U.S., while U.S. carriers paid nothing." Sounds only fair to me. The article concentrates on Australia; can anyone enlighten us on how it will affect connections to other countries?
Simply, what it means is that right now, 30% of IP traffic between us and the USA comes from us to the USA, so the USA should have to pay for that traffic, just like we have to pay for the 70% that we get from the USA, it's just like paying for what you download. Currently, the fastest connection one can afford here in Australia is a 56K modem, that in most places the fastest it will connect at is about 36K. Telstra (Tel$cum) won't pass on this saving because just like banks, they are greedy and only answer to their shareholders now they have been privatised, but at least we're seeing prices for calls finally come down in price! (Even if a local call costs 22c as opposed to 25c) Until the day arrives that Tel$cum make xDSL affordable to the average bloke who doesn't have glorious co-ax running past his castle (thanks to the freak'n greenies - 'no more overhead cables!') I'm not going to be a happy chappy. Perhaps we need to organise a 'walk for cheaper bandwidth' over the Sydney Harbour Bridge to show just what we think of the outrageous telecom prices we've been paying for so long.