Tim Pozar writes: > On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 04:53:17AM -0500, Kragen Sitaker wrote: > > Several ISPs have enacted policies to stop their customers from > > sharing their network access with others, but this seems reprehensible > > to me. I hope these policies become illegal. > > As a co-founder of an early ISP (TLGnet), I had originally defended > these appropriate use policies as the low pricing of residential > broadband supports it. Up until recently[1], wholesale broadband > costs were at $200-500 per Megabit per month.
I don't mind bandwidth throttling, but I don't think an ISP should have the right to dictate what applications I use my bandwidth for, simply because I buy that bandwidth from them. As you know, Verio now owns TLGnet, and they cut off John Gilmore for running an application they didn't like: an open SMTP relay. Too, companies like Excite@Home have ulterior motives for forbidding certain applications: peer-to-peer media distribution networks, for example, compete with their other businesses. I don't want regulated cable monopolies to leverage their monopoly on last-mile connectivity to preserve their otherwise noncompetitive content services, and I hope that such immoral conduct does not remain legal for long. (By the way, I don't condone the copyright infringement currently rampant on peer-to-peer data distribution networks, but I do not regard this as a reason to condemn peer-to-peer data distribution, any more than I regard it as a reason to condemn the Internet.) -- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Kragen Sitaker <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/> Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002. The world has lost a great man. See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details. -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
