All Your Broadband Are Belong To Us

[SOURCE: Digital Divide Network, AUTHOR: Timothy Karr]
[Commentary] Karr highlights a quote from SBC CEO Edward Whitacre: "How do you think they’re going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. 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!" Americans take for granted the diversity of information and services they find at the click of a mouse. Whitacre is working to change this. His company -- along with the "duopoly" of cable and DSL providers that provide access to more than 90% of Americans -- are working overtime to horde your access to high-speed Internet.
http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/TimKarr/view?PostID=7344