The Time Is At Hand For The Rape Of Broadband

Internet metering could be at hand. What that means is rather than paying a monthly fee for unlimited access/bandwidth, there could soon be a pricing model to replace it that will reap huge benefits for the corporations providing access (Comcast, ATT, TimeWarner, etc) but that would be a total loser for the end user. It's class warfare once again. There would be pricing models sort of mirroring what you have with cell phone companies. Higher rates equals more bandwidth per month. One low tier might start at 5GB per month. If you exceed that you'd be hit with overage charges, which will be huge. 5GB is not very much for anyone who downloads any kind of files whether it be music, or whether it be the exchange of graphics files for business reasons like I do. And it wouldn't matter what kind of files. This is in response to a small minority of users out there who have their computers set on constant download. Movies, music, etc. It's a bit of an addiction as anyone who has toyed with it knows. Essentially 5% of the users using 50% of the bandwidth. This costs the providers money. For some users metering might not matter at all. But it's just another step towards regulation of the internet which is ultimately negative for everyone. Rather they should be looking at ways to bring free wireless to all public locations and even faster broadband to our homes. The US ranks 24th in broadband connectivity in the world (according to Newsweek). That's embarrassingly bad. If this new pricing scheme is allowed to take place it will be bad for business and bad for the free flow of information.