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SBC CEO: Pay up if you want to use our pipes

Posted by Hemos on from the the-next-battle-royale dept.

acousticiris writes "If there were any delusions that Ma Bell Wasn't Back, SBC CEO Edward Witacre has cleared that up in an interview with Business Week Online. When asked about Google, Vonage and other Internet Upstarts he responded in typical Ma Bell Style: 'How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?'."

5 of 613 comments (clear)

  1. so? by CynicalGuy · · Score: 0, Troll

    We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using.

    makes sense to me.. what's the problem?

    1. Re:so? by inventor61 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Why was this modded 'troll' ?? Gee whiz, at least TRY to demonstrate SOME kind of objectivity, people. This isn't NBC or CBS News.

  2. Why such surprise? by inventor61 · · Score: 0, Troll

    And, moreover, why such an outcry? The fact that collecting revenue on the use of somebody else's capital hasn't been the case, is the anomaly. Bandwidth, despite what you've been led to believe, isn't free. The RBOCs and others just LET it be free (as in beer...) to see what kinds of applications, and therefore business models, would pop up. Since we have an answer to that now, it's time for fee-based sensibilities to return to the market. maybe, if we're lucky, the new AT&T will buy Bell Labs back from Lucent, and start funding it the way it used to be. It's the best thing that could ever happen, IMHO.

  3. Re:You don't remember Ma Bell, do you? by shrubya · · Score: 0, Troll
    mom, who's in her 60s, wishes we could go back to those days because it was so much simpler than having all these different companies

    ... and I suppose we can guess who she voted for last year... Always scares the bejeebus out of me how many of "my fellow Americans" not-so-secretly long for a comforting authority figure to tell them what to do. Perhaps someone like a watchful older brother, if you will.

  4. Re:Somehow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    yes however. his problem is not being able to keep track of an ip address that does not stay static
    once the subdomain domain name tied to his changing ip via clever script works he can easily "ssh userfoo@subdomainfoo.no-ip.com" after he has set his *NAT* ruoter to forward the ssh port to his home machine which runs the ssh server daemon.

    you're too smart for your own good.

    that is, you went off half cocked and madea complete ass of yourself.