Verizon CTO weighs in on Access Fees
Wegleitner (Verizon CTO): "We see no reason to prohibit a customer from accessing any lawful Web site."
Nice deflection, Bell-hack. We are not talking about just web sites. We are talking about all Internet based applications. This includes web, email, newsgroups, voip, iptv, p2p, and a whole host of other protocols and applications.
Wegleitner (Verizon CTO): "We don't have any desire to create any shortages of bandwidth... We['ll] provide four to five excellent experiences, and tell the sixth person, you will have to do yours another time..."
So you don't want to create a shortage of bandwidth and you aren't going to block websites, but you have no problem telling the people who don't pay your QoS access fee tax to "do theirs another time"?
That is exactly what the advocates of net neutrality have been warning about. You want to hinder the traffic of companies that don't pay your un-mandated tax.
Wegleitner (Verizon CTO): "The real issue is what do I need to do... to make sure the customer continues to be my customer?"
And there we have it. This isn't about QoS at all. It's about doing whatever it takes for you to keep your customers on your over-priced, often inferior products. And like history has taught us when it comes to monopolies, that method is through anti-competitive actions such as these QoS access fees.
Wegleitner (Verizon CTO): "[Content Providers] are paying some Internet service provider... DSL consumers are paying us. We are also a major tier-one Internet service provider... [a]nd we get some ISPs that pay us for Internet connectivity there. But there are a lot of backbone providers. Then there are peering and transit arrangements between carriers. So if you have a peering agreement between, say AT&T and Verizon, there is a traffic exchange. in some cases... money is exchanged... [others] without monetary compensation."
Exactly! That is how the Internet works. And the business model for ISPs has always been to charge their customers, both content providers and consumers, accordingly to support these transit agreements.
What you want to do is derive more revenue for yourself to build out your network to compete with cable MSOs and other independent broadband providers for consumers without raising costs to your customers, because you know full well raising costs would drive these customers to your competitors. Thus, you want to institute a QoS access fee tax so that you can get added revenue from everyone regardless of who they pay for backbone access, allowing you to keep your retail rates artificially low, harming competition in a manner only a company in a monopolistic position could do.
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