🚀 go-pugleaf

In <4k766t$t2m@piglet.cc.uic.edu>, Tommy the Terrorist <u58563@uic.edu> writes:
>In article <4jsr1q$osr@eve.enteract.com> Chun Hsu, hsuc@enteract.com
>writes:
>>In general, I agree that this is a bad thing.  However, has anyone
>>looked at the flip side of the matter?  What I am wondering is what
>>will happen to internet providers if hordes of people start using the
>>internet as their primary source for phone service.  Yes, the audio
>>quality may not be ideal now, but assume that it improves.
>  The point is that we don't NEED anyone to "look at" the matter.  If
>your Internet provider starts giving you  r e a l l y   s l o w  access,
>you are likely to complain, right?  And if they have any decent sort of
>relationship with their customers at all, they're going to put up a
>little pie chart on their Web page and say, look, we've leased a feed
>with capacity X, and now with Super-I-Phone the bandwidth has doubled, or
>rather, degraded performance.  And they'll ASK you, as a customer,
>whether you'd like to keep the old rates, the old untimed service access,
>but accept a ban on telephone-like communications enforced at the server
>(and it wouldn't be *that* hard for the ISP to tell, after all, since
>they can see all the data).  Or maybe you'd rather go with the new
>technology, support purchase of more bandwidth, and pay higher rates.  Or
>maybe you'd rather have access that charges by time or by data
>transferred.  And they'll look at what their users have to say, and try
>to keep as many of them as possible with the decision they make.  
>  Some may not do it that way, but somehow, they'll decide, and every
>possible decision will be made.
>   By contrast, any sort of imposition of bogus censorship authority is
>not only the door to worse things --- it ALREADY IS major damage to
>Internet.  Now that this little headline has come out, do you think
>anyone is going to start work on a better version of I-phone?  Are they
>going to slave away to put out some new freeware audio transmission
>scheme of ANY sort, whether it's for radio stations over the Net, or more
>integrated sounds with your browser, or _whatever_?
>   The freedom of speech is ESSENTIAL to Internet.  There can be no
>compromises on this principle --- and there is no end to the cost of
>defeat, or the potential benefit of victory.

This is not about freedom of speech, its about MONEY.  Currently internet
providers take advantage of a provision in the law, which exempts them from
paying the access fees which IXC (Long Distance) companies pay.

Thats what the complaint is about, that you can use the internet as phone
service, without paying the fees to the  phone companies.  The long distance
companies _really_ want the fees killed, and this is just the first battle in that
war.

                                                           -john