How much will Jelsoft have to pay in taxes to stay online?

[DirectPixel]

They're doing this by having US ISP's and backbone service providers give priority access to different websites. US users will then be subjected to the speeds dictated by their service providers.

[Sal Collaziano]

Makes hosting in the UK look a bit more attractive...

I really don't see how the US could enforce this as visitors from the US to sites in other nations still need to use US bandwidth until they cross the Atlantic.

They can easily enforce it because since they're controlling where you're going (from the US) - see - they can open a fast connection to sites THEY specify... So even if a site is in the UK or wherever, it doesn't matter. That UK site will load just fine for everybody else in the world - but for viewers in the U.S., maybe not... If your ISP is AOL and the site is aolsucks.com - I'd be willing to bet it won't even load at all - no matter where it's hosted.

[c0bra]

So where exactly is the black hole of bandwidth that is not paid for, which AT&T et al. are trying to recoup? Aren't they trying to get us to pay for the bandwidth we use twice?

Exactly the point I was trying to make above. It's pure greed. The scary thing is in the UK a few ISPs have been very successful in selling the technologies to users as an advantage. Plusnet, the self-proclaimed pioneers of this, have openly suggested they intend to try and do something like an AT&T in the UK. They want to charge the same kind of tax to content providers to ensure users get quality unshaped access to services. I can't see how it will work with an ISP the size of plusnet, but if the larger networks get together and insist on this, so there's no consumer choice, it is definitely workable unfortunately.

[Raz Meister]

So where exactly is the black hole of bandwidth that is not paid for, which AT&T et al. are trying to recoup? Aren't they trying to get us to pay for the bandwidth we use twice?

Isn't this all about traphic shaping? So if you pay a premium, your traffic will get higher priority than someone who does not?

The majority of UK ISPs already do this with P2P traffic.

[KW802]

Isn't this all about traphic shaping?

Yep. The rest of the stuff mentiond in this thread like taxing page views is pure FUD.

So if you pay a premium, your traffic will get higher priority than someone who does not?

A slightly different angle would be that a broadband provider could also offer their own add-on services (video, music, remote games/applications) at a premium price and guarantee that their services would be of a certain quality while the same services from another provider may not work as well. In short it'd be "For a small price we can guarantee the quality of our services offered over our pipes but for everybody else they'll be on their own and will be mixed in with the rest of the pipeline."

[Shining Arcanine]

I am just curious, are not telecommunications companies already being paid for internet connections and all of the bandwidth that flows through them by their customers? What did their customers pay to hand over their rights as citizens to become the telecommunications companies' property so that the telecommunications companies can extort other companies?

This is pure fascism, plain and simple, and it is absurd.

[Weapon-x]

So is that why the United States is ranked the most greedy country?