----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2002 9:18 AM Subject: Re: corporations
> On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 09:39:17PM -0500, The Fool wrote: > > > To achieve this, the cable industry, which sells Internet access to > > most Americans, is pursuing multiple strategies to closely monitor > > and tightly control subscribers and their use of the net. One element > > can be seen in industry lobbying for new use-based pricing schemes, > > which has been widely reported in trade press. Related to this is the > > industry's new public relations campaign, which seeks to introduce > > a new "menace" into the pricing debate and boost their case, the > > so-called "bandwidth hog." > > This is a GOOD thing. Bandwidth costs money to provide, and is a limited > resource. It makes perfect sense to charge based on how much bandwidth > is used, that is how a free market works. If you try to suppress the > law of supply and demand, you get shortages and outages, much like what > happened with power in California. LOL......I never thought I'd see Eric take the side of authoritarianism. Right now we have an extreme bandwidth glut with about a third of all fiber sitting in the ground "unlit". Any bandwidth shortage is entirely manufactured and is a symptom of "Debeers" type cartelism. Now there were some real problems in California, but certain greedy individuals took advantage of the situation to line their pockets. Would anyone like to see the same thing happen to the Net? > > This essay is misguided, and the comparison to the airwaves is false > (cables and routers cost money to install and maintain, unlike > "airwaves" which could be used in peer-to-peer fashion without any > expense by a 3rd party). The problem you should be worried about is > ISP's who try to control content of the bandwidth used, not ISP's who > want to charge market rates for bandwidth use. I see both as being problems. ISPs are selling you a service touting certain capacities and then want to charge you extra if you actually use that service. How disingenuous! I dont have much respect for companies that modify contracts in order to maximise profits rather than upgrade their systems to provide the services they initially advertised. >Already most cable modem > companies prohibit running certain services on your computer, such as a > web server or some peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My previous ISP, > Optimum Online, actually blocked port 80 so it was impossible to run a > web server. Some ISP's even forbid you to run SMTP (email) services, and > Earthlink recently stopped accepting email from people who run their > own mail servers. These are the types of things you should be worrying > about. None of my ports have been blocked and I can run any service you have mentioned, but I need to look at my terms of service to see if SMTP services are prohibited. The Earthling news does indeed suck! xponent Theres Contracts And Then Theres Contracts Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
