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To: tech101 who wrote (13043)	1/19/2006 8:38:51 PM
From: ftth	Respond to of 46821

Bandwidth tiers, which are VERTICAL tiers of transparent capacity, are quite a lot different than the HORIZONTAL tiers (i.e. silos for google, another for movies-r-us, another for videoconferences-r-us, etc) that Bell South, AT&T/SBC, etc are talking about. Horizontal tiers are absolutely not neutral. They are applications discrimination by design. Tiers for fears... "Bandwidth tier" is probably too simplistic a description and it needs other bounds like max bits per hour/day/month and other stuff but let's not get bogged down in that at the concept level. The definition of the bandwidth tier is essentially an interface spec. A data sheet for the serivce. Without that, you have ambiguity, and it can be defined as anything that is convenient for the argument-of-the-moment. Every other communications product has interface specs. That how complementary products and service develop...how the rest of the market "uses" it. Bandwidth tiers are good for the whole marketplace. They remove the root problem--platform ambiguity. They would be good to standardize, industry-wide and nationwide, even if we had 50 broadband providers to choose from. See my previous post for electricity analogy, which I think is relevant even if not perfect (no analogy ever is) Message 22011318