BellSouth CTO Outlines Preferential Site Access Idea

Close on line of SBC CEO mouthing off something he shouldn’t have comes this moronic statement from Bill Smith, the CTO of Atlanta-based telco BellSouth, that ISPs should be allowed to strike deals to give certain sites or services priority in reaching computer users…for example, ISPs should have the ability to charge Yahoo for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google. Or, Smith said, his company should be allowed to charge a rival VOIP firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth’s offering.

But he’s giving a positive spin to it: he said a pay-for-performance marketplace should be allowed to develop on top of a baseline service level that all content providers would enjoy.

Opponents say not so: “Prioritization is just another word for degrading your competitor,” said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group. “If we want to ruin the Internet, we’ll turn it into a cable TV system” that carries programming from only those who pay the cable operators for transmission.

Related:

Reuters TCS: BellSouth’s IPTV Service To Launch Mid-2006

Reuters TCS: Ad Models on Cable, Telco TV:

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