August 01, 2006
Telcos Keep Castigating the "Free-Riders"
GigaOm’s Katie Fehrenbacher attended today a speech by AT&T Chairman Ed Whitacre before the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and reports that he’s as hard-line as ever about network neutrality. Here’s what he said:
“Some companies want us to be a big dumb pipe that gets bigger and bigger…No one gets a free ride. The American economy doesn’t work that way…We are not going to build this with no chance for a return. Those that want to use this will pay.”
This comes on the heels of Mike McCurry’s much-derided op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun. McCurry claims that companies like Google don’t “want to pay a dime” for their bandwidth usage.
The “neutral” proposal that companies like Google are touting will ensure that they never have to pay a dime no matter how much bandwidth they use, and consumers who may only use their computers to send e-mail and play Solitaire get to foot the bill. That is not very neutral.
This contention (and the fact that McCurry didn’t clearly identify himself as a paid spokesperson for the telcos) got Mike at TechDirt steamed.
That’s a flat out lie. Google pays tremendously large bandwidth bills, and the more they use the more they pay. However, if McCurry is going to pretend Google “never [has] to pay a dime no matter how much bandwidth they use,” let’s see him put up or shut up. If McCurry really believes that, will he agree to pay Google’s bandwidth bills for the rest of this year?
This flurry of renewed public posturing on net neutrality coincides with the possibility, although it seems a remote likelihood, that Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) might bring his telecom reform bill up for a cloture vote this week. There’s a lot going on in the Senate, including a defense appropriations bill and legislation that would allow for offshore drilling.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at August 1, 2006 04:57 PM