Friday, January 06, 2006

WSJ.com - Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees

WSJ.com - Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees: "Large phone companies, setting the stage for a big battle ahead, hope to start charging Google Inc., Vonage Holdings Corp. and other Internet content providers for high-quality delivery of music, movies and the like over their telecommunications networks.
...
'They want to charge us for the bandwidth the customer has already paid for,' said Jeffrey Citron, chief executive of Vonage. Customers who already pay a premium for high-speed Internet access, he said, will end up paying even more if online services pass the new access charges to consumers. 'The customer has to pay twice. That's crazy.'"

I agree, and I'm glad my broadband service provider, Comcast, isn't referenced as one of the oligopoly players trying to exploit its customers in this context.

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