The Corporate Toll on the Internet

THE CORPORATE TOLL ON THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Salon, AUTHOR: Farhad Manjoo]
AT&T is back, it's big, and according to consumer advocates and some of the nation's largest technology companies, AT&T wants to take over the Internet. To understand why critics worry about the future of the Internet in the absence of what they call network neutrality, it helps to look at the underlying philosophy of the ubiquitous network. Engineers are fond of describing the Internet as a "dumb network," a designation that's meant to be a compliment. Unlike other large communications systems -- phone or cable networks -- the Internet was designed without a specific application in mind. The engineers who built the network didn't really know what it would be used for, so they kept it profoundly simple, making sure that the network performed very few functions of its own. Where other networks use a kind of "intelligence" to define what is and what isn't allowed on a system, the various machines that make up the Internet don't usually examine or act upon data; they just push it where it needs to go. Today's largest broadband firms, though, aren't accustomed to running dumb networks built on the end-to-end principle. At firms like AT&T and Verizon, both of which have roots in the monopolistic old AT&T, there's now an effort afoot to reengineer parts of the Internet by introducing more intelligence to manage and control data. Expensive as they may be, the new network schemes will allow for myriad moneymaking opportunities. The new technology will allow AT&T and company to reserve the fast lane for the highest bidders. And AT&T says such a plan is perfectly fair.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/04/17/toll/index_np.html?source=s...
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