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Technology Stocks : InfoSpace (INSP): Where GNET went! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (6214)	5/26/1999 3:38:00 AM
From: RTev	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28311

I believe the issue is that the telecoms would have control of the internet backbones and be able to charge by the amount of data that is being sent... The backbone owners can already do that and they have been able to do it for years. The businesses that own the backbones are businesses somewhat like a railroad. They're not in the habit of giving away transport. I don't know enough about their contracts to know how the flat rate/metered billing would split among them, but however they bill, they'll try to maximize their profits on their lines. If you want to ride the light on their rails, you pay for it, but it is a competitive business that's about to become even more competitive, so rates are unlikely to rise much in the future. (To see just how competitive the business is, choose "Commercial Backbones" from this nifty map: caida.org ) Even individual ISPs today sometimes charge for the datastream. It's usually done by offering flat-rate service for a certain amount of data, and then charging a premium when the user sends or receives more data than allocated. That practice seems to have become more common with broadband connections. Some ISPs that offer DSL service here in Washington have such a maximum. As you suggest, those are business decisions. They're not regulatory issues in any significant sense (although anything to do with telecommunications inevitably becomes embroiled in a vast web of regulation).