A Web of fees? Critics say cos. will charge extra
By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald General Economics Reporter
Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - Updated: 02:42 PM EST
Enjoy those free Internet e-mails, blog sites and music downloads while
you can.
The largely free, open and Wild West era of the Web may be coming
to a close soon if large high-speed carriers consolidate control over
access, content and pricing on the Internet, critics from Google to
activists warned yesterday at a congressional hearing.
The net result, critics say, could be large cable and telephone
companies giving preferential treatment to their own content services
and other large customers. Meanwhile, they could charge others extra
fees for everything from sending e-mails to downloading music.
"Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do
online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the
Internet such a success," Vinton C. Cerf, a Google vice president,
told the U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and
Transportation.
The committee held a hearing yesterday to review a proposed
"network neutrality" rule, which would prevent high-speed providers
from giving special deals to preferred content firms.
Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable and
Telecommunications Association, said any new government regulations
could harm innovation over the Internet.
"Congress' policy of leaving the Internet unregulated has been
a resounding success," he said.
But critics say companies such as Verizon, Comcast and other
providers, while having spent billions of dollars to lay new
fiber-optic lines, are close to being able to call the shots on the
Web.
Last year, executives at BellSouth and AT&T indicated they should
be allowed to charge extra for firms that send large files, such as
video and music - in addition to charging them flat-rate Internet
access fees.
Meanwhile, AOL and Yahoo! recently acknowledged they're starting
a new service that would give companies special delivery status if they
pay an extra 1/4 of a cent to a penny for each e-mail they send.
Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital
Democracy, said the e-mail "postage stamp" could be just the
beginning of major changes over the Internet.
But Sharon Gillett, a principal research associate at MIT, said
online users better get used to so-called "price differentials."
The day could arrive when users not only pay for access, she said.
But they could also be charged for their broadband usage by operators
from small Web sites to large online businesses such as Amazon.com, she
said.
