The End of the Internet?

[GT98]

Wow this is pretty ugly if it does happen:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester

[VJ]

I thought it was this:

http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm

Seriously, it does sound like bad news if it were to happen...
(but I doubt it is possible to reverse the internet as we know it)


Jörg

[Ghostman]

I hope this never happens

[Marshmallowman]

Don't worry I downloaded a copy and have printed out a copy for safe keeping

But yeah, all the corps/govs in the world are trying to circumvent the basic revolution of the internet..that is the costless reproduction and diseminaion of information

[Technoid]

Urghhh....

As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"

Typical Idjit comment from someone who should know better....

There's no "unpayed" access, all net use is payed.

Even tho I do not pay AT&T directly for what info might have traversed their net when I downloded it, I will definitly have indirectly payed for it.

Its just that its an "indirect" payment method...

I pay my ISP, wich in turn pays their suplyer, wich inturn pays their etc etc ad nauseum.

Same thing with Google, yahoo or Vonage ect etc

[Wombat]

Plus, they have no basis for these charges in the US. They're common carriers. They've been granted a monopoly, and this is part of the cost. If they want to charge for "using their pipes," then it's time to start digging their fibre out of our yards and removing those ugly telephone polls.

[schmosef]

I was reading something just the other day that said the US government has given the phone companies something like $200 billion dollars in grant money for infrastructure and network investment. The package comes to something like $2000 per household. The goal was for 45Mb internet access to be ubiquitous. It's not. Meanwhile, the cost for access to the internet is going up, not down, another part of the plan.

[schmosef]

here's the link

'Broadband Scandal': How the Phone Companies Screwed Us All

[Jon P. Inghram]

I was reading something just the other day that said the US government has given the phone companies something like $200 billion dollars in grant money for infrastructure and network investment. The package comes to something like $2000 per household. The goal was for 45Mb internet access to be ubiquitous. It's not. Meanwhile, the cost for access to the internet is going up, not down, another part of the plan.

They were hoping for another Shakespeare's Theatre, but they forgot that once electricity was discovered you're screwed and have to deal with the unhappy people.