The country that is already trailing the rest of the developed world in Internet Usage has now taken even more steps backward.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2008/tc2008063_767960.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_news+%2B+analysis Time Warner is putting in place a Net Metering system, where their most expensive package is capped at 40GB per month for about 50US$. While other countries are offering 30MB/s download speeds unlimited, and have far higher broadband penetration, these US Providers seem intent on stifling the growing Multimedia usage of the Internet. You have one set of companies on the one hand seeking to leverage the Internet for High Definition TV viewing (HULU etc.) and doing your work online (Google Apps, Online File Storage etc. ) and then you have the providers seeking to cut back on customer capabilities. This will have a net negative effect on all these new and innovative services! The holy grail of television - IPTV....might never happen. If there are no customers , then these innovative business ideas such as YouTube, Second Life, Google Apps, Hulu, Direct Software Downloads etc. aren't going to go anywhere, and most would never have started. A Game bought Legitimately from EA Online Store, or Direct2Drive.com is about 12GB now, that's almost HALF of your monthly allotment for bandwidth at Time Warner's maximum. Couple this with an almost psychotic focus on the so called losses caused by Piracy related to BitTorrent and the billions that these companies seem prepared to spend on packet inspection systems to stop the protocol, and it makes it seem that the only thing that runs the US is Corporations and Capitalist interest - "What do we have to do to make the most profit. Period." The RIAA and MPAA lobbies are hard at work pushing their false information to the public that they lose oh so much money from online movie downloads and music downloads although Movie purchases actually INCREASED last year! Purchasing and developing systems to stop SPAM which accounts for more than 90% of email traffic, Virus propagation through the net in attachments etc. would help far more people than spending billions to stop BitTorrent. But there is little to no interest by these same providers in such technology.Why? The plan is utterly ridiculous, and these companies are simply trying to insulate themselves and milk the public instead of improving their networks to meet customer demand and changing usage of the Internet, while making gross profits. This is also spreading to ...guess where? The UK ! GAH! The article doesn't note if tier pricing to offshore providers is going to change as well as a result of this, but I sincerely hope there is no trickle down effect. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:261250 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
