AT&T (formerly SBC) CEO Ed Whitacre has thrown down the gauntlet to Internet content providers, stating they "shouldn't get on [the network] and expect a free ride."
His plan? Make content providers pay him for "guaranteed" access to his customers. In a story at
The Financial Times' web site, he lays out a plan to force content providers such as Google to pay AT&T a fee for the privilege of allowing AT&T's customers to access their site.
Ok - let me get this straight. Companies like Google pay thousands of dollars monthly for large pipes to the Internet backbone. AT&T's customers pay a reasonable monthly fee for access to the same backbone, with the intent of accessing sites like Google. Yet ol' Ed here thinks that he should get a cut from Google as well for bandwidth
*his* customers have already paid him for!
I find that downright insulting. Thank God I'm not one of his customers - paying to get on the Internet only to find out that my eyeballs have been sold to the highest bidder. So what if I wanted to go to Google? Suck it up and go see Yahoo! -- they paid us and Google didn't!
Bite me, Ed.
You see, the success of the Internet has been on equal and open access -- packets go in, packets come out. The hops in between just hand things off like a bucket brigade of bits. At the most basic level, it doesn't matter if it's between two banks or you and your favorite search engine... open access ensures that your request gets through without middleman interference.
Now, with Ed's proposal, your packets may (or may not) get to where you want them to go - it would depend on how much the distant end pays to "guarantee delivery."
I don't know about you, but where I come from that's called a
protection racket, a.k.a.
extortion.
"...yeah, you see Google, we can't exactly 'guarantee' your packets will get back to our customers. However, if you kick a little moolah our way we might be able to 'protect' your packets and make sure they get there..."
Gee, Ed, you sure you aren't cousins with Tony Soprano?
Fortunately, Google has already
taken a stand on such ISP bullying. So should the rest of the Internet. You won't pass our packets back to your customers in a timely manner? Fine.
*You* can explain to your now pissed-off (soon to be former) customers why you won't let them get to where they want (and paid you) to go.
You don't own the Internet, Ed. You get to stay with the rest of us as long as you play nice. The net was founded on equal access and cooperation between all players. Rock the boat too hard and you're likely to see a grass-roots shitstorm that'll make
divestiture feel like a slap on the wrist...
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