"Fee violates the principles of an open Internet."

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Web Delivery Firm Says Comcast Charging Unfair Fee For Data

WASHINGTON — Level 3 Communications Inc., an Internet backbone company that supports Netflix Inc.'s increasingly popular movie streaming service, complained Monday that cable giant Comcast Corp. is charging it an unfair fee for the right to send data to its subscribers.

Comcast replied it is being swamped by a flood of data and needs to be paid.

Level 3 said it agreed to pay under protest, but that the fee violates the principles of an "open Internet." It also goes against the Federal Communications Commission's proposed rules preventing broadband Internet providers from favoring certain types of traffic, it said.

"Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content," said Level 3's chief legal officer, Thomas Stortz, in a statement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/web-delivery-firm-says-co_n_789557.html

This is another step toward abolishing net neutrality.

Net Neutrality

The concept of “net neutrality’' holds that companies providing Internet service should treat all sources of data equally. It has been the center of a debate over whether those companies can give preferential treatment to content providers who pay for faster transmission, or to their own content, in effect creating a two-tier Web, and about whether they can block or impede content representing controversial points of view.

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html

[Lasher]

1. Comcast is trying to protect their monopoly of programming in areas they serve.

This Netflix service is just the beginning of something that needs to be encouraged. What I hope to see in the future is streaming programming from many sources, to optionally replace the expensive TV channel lineups that we buy mostly from cable and satellite companies. Comcast and others would just provide an IP pipe to your home. Comcast shares this vision and they don't like it, so they're trying prevent it from evolving.

If there was ever a good case for a DOJ antitrust inquiry, this is it.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

2. there needs to be LOTS more trust busting going on these days...

Monopolies are not good for the economy. We need leaders like President Theodore Roosevelt who knew what the term "free market" really means.