Telcos marketing false scarcity to create support for new Internet fees

Techdirt has a fascinating analysis today about why the telcos want to develop a two-tier billing system: Business Week claims that Verizon is reserving 80% of its fiber bandwidth for their must-lose-money TV services. Because it is compressing all Internet traffic into the other 20%, it expects there might be some bottlenecks, hence the creation of premium-delivery (and premium-priced) Internet service. As Techdirt notes, this probably isn't what the FCC expected when it granted huge financial incentives to the telcos to create an open fiber infrastructure for US homes.


Network neutrality is going to be debated February 7 in the Senate for an upcoming telecom bill. The question is whether Congress will continue to ignore this attempt to create monopolies over last-mile Internet access. Fortunately, cable companies like Comcast and Cablevision will probably send Senators Bruce Kushnick's book, The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal.

Technorati Tags: Broadband, Fiber, Internet, Marketing, Telcos, Telecom, TV, Verizon