03-05-2006, 01:33 PM
Quote:Large phone companies and telecom-equipment makers are developing plans that would blow up the flat-fee structure for high-speed Internet access and instead charge customers different rates based on how much bandwidth, or Internet capacity, they use.
Some phone companies, including BellSouth Corp., are considering "pay-as-you-go broadband" plans in which a consumer would pay more for streaming video, for example, than for mere Web surfing. Most current plans charge subscribers a monthly flat fee depending on the speed of their Web connection...
The plans, even though they are still in their nascent stages, are already drawing criticism from Internet content companies and consumer groups, which argue the new business models could create a tiered system and impede full access to all aspects of the Internet...
full article: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB11...jIwWj.html
related topic: BellSouth Executive Wants to Charge Web Sites for Web Speed, Access Preference http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...523.0.html
s. They want to charge extra usage fees to both the content provider and the content user? :