“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a titanic clash between the internet and the telecommunications industry.” (Alec Saunders, Voice 2.0: A Manifesto for the Future).
In the last couple of months AT&T and Verizon started a tactical, low-intensity combat against the Internet giants. Some quotations to get you into the right mood:
AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre Jr.:
“What [Google, Vonage, and others] would like to do is to use my pipes free. But I ain’t going to let them do that”.
“Companies such as Skype should pay for the portion of the carriers’ networks that they use”.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch on the Internet. Providers of bandwidth-intensive Internet applications, including Google and Microsoft, should “share the cost” of operating broadband networks”.
This, of course, raised a great deal of tumult among the IFF (Internet Freedom Fighters 
), who abhorred these attempts to profane the sacred network neutrality. Actually, rumors claim Google is building a private, global, network infrastructure to make sure their services will remain neutral (i.e. not under-prioritized).
In this podcast, Om Malik and Niall Kennedy provide a simple and amiable introduction to this tactical, low-intensity combat, usually referred to as the “Two-Tiers Internet”. And if Om’s right, web2.0 startups might be affected as well.
Technopod Rating: 8
Winds of War 23:14, 10.8 mb, Dec 28th, 2005
Original Podlink: Towards a two-tier Internet
