AT&T calls for end to free internetPeople should pay for the use of our pipesBy Nick Farrell: Wednesday 01 February 2006, 07:24AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre has called for an end to the free Internet which he says is costing coms companies a fortune.According to the Financial Times, Whitacre said that content providers should be paying for the use of the network which is effectively being delivered for free by the coms companies.He said that web providers could pay the comms companies by charging their customers for visiting their pages. "That ought to be a cost of doing business for them. They shouldn't get on [the network] and expect a free ride." It is the second time that Whitacre has mooted this idea. Late last year he told Business Week that he didn’t think it fair that Google, Vonage, and others were using his pipes for free."I ain't going to let them do that….Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?" While we agree that a man’s pipes should be his own, we would have thought that the comms companies were getting paid by their customers for their pipes already. Charging web companies, who your punter’s visit, is getting paid twice for the same service. However we can see why Whitacre is so keen on the idea.Whitacre and his ilk have been frantically lobbying their powerful mates in Congress lately to bring about such a plan.Already one website alarmed at this lobbying work has gone up in an attempt to counter the whole thing.The way we understand it, the comms companies are not advocating cutting off services to websites who do not pay them to use their pipes. The will just put such sites on an internet slow lane.Of course it will only US companies who suffer. Companies using Euronet or ChinaNet will be doing quite nicely thank-you Mr AT&T. More at Ars Technica. µ
