BellSouth Will Charge Providers For Performance

smooth wombat writes "In a follow-up to this Slashdot story from last month, BellSouth has confirmed that it is in discussions with content providers to levy charges to reliably and speedily deliver content and services of the providers. Bill Smith, chief technology officer at BellSouth justified content charging companies by saying they are using the telco's network without paying for it. "

Great!!

[Anonymous Coward]

So we will get their service for free now? Or maybe they'll even pay us to use them?.. :P

Ridiculous

[Kamidari]

That just seems crazy to me... The people accessing the site pay for their internet access, but that's not good enough - they need to double-charge. Seems akin to charging grandma a toll when relatives came to visit her via a tollway on Thanksgiving. She got some benefit from the tollway too, right?!? Cough it up, you leeching old hag!

Re:Wow..change in the world

[timeOday]

I agree. The Internet is so good, it's almost hard to see how it could have come about in our business culture. We need to draw a line and make a fuss about crap like this or the goodness will slip away.

Sounds like the Mafia's movin' into Telco...

[Billosaur]

He suggested that Apple Computer might be asked to pay a nickel or a dime to insure the complete and rapid transmission of a song via the Internet, which is being used for more and more content-intensive purposes. He cited Yahoo Inc.'s plans to stream reality TV shows as an example.

A little JavaScript box pops up: "If youse would like to download the remainder of dis' song, youse need to contribute to the fund, or we can't be held responsible for what might happen to da' data, see?

Re:There goes

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Not if LobbyMan! and the Lawyer Justice Leauge has anything to do about it. To the Slime Cave!

Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts...

[iCEBaLM]

This euphemism is a big misconception. Anybody can have their cake and then eat it, the real trick is to eat your cake and then have it.

Re:Greed

[metternich]

Nice Internet Business you've got there... Hate to anything happen to it...

Re:they are the lion, we are the lamb

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

But we are the lamb. CorpGovMedia is the Lion.

I guess that would make Slashdot the Valley of Darkness.

Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts...

[Randolpho]

...the real trick is to eat your cake and then have it.

Bulimics do that pretty often. ;)

Not Paying?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Bill Smith, chief technology officer at BellSouth justified content charging companies by saying they are using the telco's network without paying for it.

So is he saying that CNN is NOT paying for their hookup to the net? Somehow, I don't think that's true. I would guess that wherever their server farm is (might not be Atlanta), the fat pipe connecting it to the rest of the internet already comes with a fat bill from Bell South or some other telco. I guess he's talking more about MS and Google that are already paying someone else, and he wants to add a tariff to every packet from outside the Bell South system. Does that apply only to packets delivered to BS customers or to those that transit their system on their way to somewhere else?

I can see it now:
To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Closing the big deal
Bob, We can close this deal for six figures if you meet the client for lunch at [this packet of this email can be made available for reading by logging onto tariff.bellsouth.com and authorizing payment of the tariff from your account. If you do not have an account, one can be set up after arranging the account setup fee and monthly payment structure. Have a noce day, Bell South] late we'll lose the whole deal to those slimeballs at theirbiz. Good luck, John.

Re:There goes

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Insightful? Funny.... maaayyybe (but not +3)

LobbyMan! and InternBoy shall smite thee with their affidavit-ray guns!

Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts...

[Anonymous Coward]

>Why HAVE the cake, unless you CAN eat it?

Two words: Cake Futures

Re:Competition?

[Thud457]

Hey look, there's somebody that thinks they know how to make money on teh intarweb. Let's tax them!

Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts...

[smbarbour]

I've got another business proposition for them then.
 
If a BellSouth customer calls someone who is not a BellSouth customer, then degrade the connection quality unless the non-customer ponies up some money for better quality service, since one end of the conversation isn't paying for it. Perhaps the paying customer's transmission quality could be diminished, but the non-paying customer's transmission is crystal clear? That way everything seems perfect for their customers.

Re:They aren't USING anything!

[Qzukk]

wouldn't it be like a shippee paying UPS or FEDEx a monthly fee for unlimited deliveries, and then having UPS or FEDEx ask the shipper to pay part of the cost?

More like having an all-you-can-eat buffet, charging the customers to eat, then charging the farmers for the food.