Re:Google and Verizon in Talks on Selling Internet Priority
by gojomo on Wednesday August 04, 2010 @10:59PM
(#1577019)
The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.
But it could also lead to lower charges -- if the content/advertising side of the net starts to subsidize the last mile via the carriers. Broadcast TV is 'free', after all.
And even if such agreements caused higher charges in the short term, if that prompted new entrants and the deployment of new technologies -- mesh networks again, anyone? -- then the medium-to-longer term trend could again be lower charges.
I could easily imagine a starter broadband service that is totally 'free' -- with bandwidth to participating sites as fast as those sites want to pay, and bandwidth to all other sites under some smallish rate cap (no good for video/p2p). The same arrangement could also work well for areas of 'free' wifi -- subsidized sites are fast at bulk, other sites work but subject to some per-person (or per all-users) caps.
That's different than what we're used to, but not necessarily worse. It could provide incentives for creating new avenues to the end-user and new service opportunities. (Consider: a VPN account that pays the preference fee, so that again 'all sites' are top-speed.)
But it could also lead to lower charges -- if the content/advertising side of the net starts to subsidize the last mile via the carriers. Broadcast TV is 'free', after all.
And even if such agreements caused higher charges in the short term, if that prompted new entrants and the deployment of new technologies -- mesh networks again, anyone? -- then the medium-to-longer term trend could again be lower charges.
I could easily imagine a starter broadband service that is totally 'free' -- with bandwidth to participating sites as fast as those sites want to pay, and bandwidth to all other sites under some smallish rate cap (no good for video/p2p). The same arrangement could also work well for areas of 'free' wifi -- subsidized sites are fast at bulk, other sites work but subject to some per-person (or per all-users) caps.
That's different than what we're used to, but not necessarily worse. It could provide incentives for creating new avenues to the end-user and new service opportunities. (Consider: a VPN account that pays the preference fee, so that again 'all sites' are top-speed.)