British ISPs Embracing Two-Tier Internet

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 22, 2011 @04:04PM from the free-speech-as-long-as-money-talks dept.

Barence writes "Britain's leading ISPs are attempting to construct a two-tier internet, where websites and services that are willing to pay are thrust into the 'fast lane,' while those that don't are left fighting for scraps of bandwidth or even blocked outright. Asked directly whether ISP TalkTalk would be willing to cut off access completely to BBC iPlayer in favor of YouTube if the latter was prepared to sign a big enough cheque, TalkTalk's Andrew Heaney replied: 'We'd do a deal, and we'd look at YouTube and we'd look at BBC and we should have freedom to sign whatever deal works.' Britain's biggest ISP, BT, meanwhile says it 'absolutely could see situations in which some content or application providers might want to pay BT for a quality of service above best efforts.' PC Pro asks if it's the end of the net as we know it."

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Re:Shouldn't governments impose balance? by Professor_UNIX · 2011-01-22 16:59 · Score: 0, Troll

Capitalism naturally weeds out situations that are unsatisfactory to the consumer. If you don't like your ISP with its two-tier Internet approach, use another. If there are no other options, assuming there is no government-imposed monopoly in place, then petition companies to start offering service in your area. If enough people get pissed off with poor service then other companies will jump at the chance to fill the void.