Companies trying to get larger and larger profits out of consumers. They're just trying to hide it in more creative ways. They realise there is far more money to be made by charging for usage than charging for access.
It's not for what they're charging, it's whom they're charging. The consumer broadband market is pretty competitive - if BellSouth raises their rates to the consumer, they risk raising the ire of the consumer and convincing him to buy service from a competitor. However, if BellSouth attempts to bully content providers into paying for transit, the average consumer will see this as a business dispute that does not concern him, as his perceived cost of internet access remains static. By spinning it as a fairness issue, BellSouth is positioning themselves to claim bad faith on the part of any content providers who refuse to pay. Of course, if they're successful, they will force content providers to increase prices in order to pay the new transit fees.
That's the true beauty of this scheme - BellSouth is setting up a unilateral price increase that ultimately will be paid by the consumer, but for which the content providers will take the blame. Conversely, any content providers who refuse to pay, and consequently have their traffic capped, will be blamed for failing to pay what BellSouth will surely refer to as "fair and reasonable fees for use of our costly infrastructure". I'd be very surprised if the major content providers didn't spend some serious time and money fighting this, both in court and in the media.
Slashdot Mirror
Companies trying to get larger and larger profits out of consumers. They're just trying to hide it in more creative ways. They realise there is far more money to be made by charging for usage than charging for access.
It's not for what they're charging, it's whom they're charging. The consumer broadband market is pretty competitive - if BellSouth raises their rates to the consumer, they risk raising the ire of the consumer and convincing him to buy service from a competitor. However, if BellSouth attempts to bully content providers into paying for transit, the average consumer will see this as a business dispute that does not concern him, as his perceived cost of internet access remains static. By spinning it as a fairness issue, BellSouth is positioning themselves to claim bad faith on the part of any content providers who refuse to pay. Of course, if they're successful, they will force content providers to increase prices in order to pay the new transit fees.
That's the true beauty of this scheme - BellSouth is setting up a unilateral price increase that ultimately will be paid by the consumer, but for which the content providers will take the blame. Conversely, any content providers who refuse to pay, and consequently have their traffic capped, will be blamed for failing to pay what BellSouth will surely refer to as "fair and reasonable fees for use of our costly infrastructure". I'd be very surprised if the major content providers didn't spend some serious time and money fighting this, both in court and in the media.