[sllug-members]:Comcast_Is_Starting_The_Tiered_Internet_Whether_We_Like_It_or_Not

[Jared A Barneck]

For those of you that believe Utopia is going to save you, it just isn't.

Also, the difference between Comcast and Qwest is that Comcast is your 
internet through Cable connection provided by Comcast and Comcast is 
your ISP.

Physical wired connection and ISP should be considered two different 
entities.

With Qwest, you can get internet through your phone line and if you want 
you can have Qwest as your ISP, though you can choose any ISP that is 
connected to the DSL ATM backbone.  I recommend www.fusionnetworks.com 
because my brother runs it and I am biased, not to mention he is pretty 
smart and is recommended by those who use him and have no bias.

So no matter what you have to pay your line fee.  With Comcast it is one 
bill for the cable line and the internet.

With Qwest you pay for the phone line and they you pay your ISP for the 
internet.  They are two separate entities.

So you need two things:
1. a physical connection to your house (yes wireless is physical, lets 
not argue that point).
2. an ISP to allow you to traverse that cable to the internet.

With Utopia, how do you think it is going to work?  Somehow a physical 
line is going to have to be run to your house, and someone has to be 
paid to let you use the available bandwidth.

The problems won't change.  Utopia users will be singled out because one 
is using too much, just the same as they are with any company smart 
enough to know how to monitor their bandwidth.

If you think the costs will be better with Utopia, you are wrong.  Even 
if it appears cheaper, your city will cover the costs of their financial 
assitance by raising costs to you in other ways.

In the end, you have to pay to be online and someone bean counter will 
be monitoring your bandwidth to save costs. 

How does Utopia connect to the internet?  Could it be that they will 
just put there routers in a room with the Telco's routers?  Like they 
will be a CLEC?  So you will still just being going through your fast 
new Utopia fiber to the same old internet connection you had before.  
And when you realize this, some one will ask: "Did you really believe it 
will get better with another ISP with another name?"

Don't get me wrong, it will get better with Utopia.  But not because 
Utopia is so amazing.  It will get better simply because by the time 
Utopia is around, the internet will have self improved.  Then Utopia 
will be a fourth way to get physical connection to the internet and that 
will help create a healthy competition, instead of a monopoly, which 
doesn't really exist cause we already have three ways to get internet 
anyway.

1. Cable (comcast)
2. Phone (Qwest DSL)
3. Wireless (Digis)
4. Utopia (Fiber cable)