From Slashdot: Comcast goes after NAT users

[JD Runyan]

On Fri, Jan ,  at 03:12:20PM -0600, Bradley Miller wrote:
> At 02:40 PM 1/25/02 -0600, you wrote:
> > The idea of charging
> >for network utilization is archaic.
> 
> Ok -- let's think about that for a second.  Doesn't that point mean then
> that spam should be permitted?  It's using a "renewable resource" so who
> cares if it goes out to users?   If someone pays to have a TI and they want
> to send emails to 10 gazillion people . . . why would we limit what they
> send out on that TI?  Who are service providers to care what comes in on a
> user's email account . . . or web browswer?   Pop-up ads are just as
> intrusive and many times suck down more bandwidth then spam mails . . . but
> people aren't nearly as hostile about them as spam.   
> 
> Interesting food for thought eh?
> 
> -- Bradley Miller
> 
SPAM uses up my disk space, and it impacts the performance of my server.
I have never made the argument that we deserve unlimited bandwidth.  I only
argue that I am paying for capacity, and whether I use that capacity or not
it is there for me to use.  I do not want to pay to have capacity available
to me, and then pay again when I use that capacity.  Sell me 400K/sec or 
1MB/sec.  Give me certain guarantees, and I will pay for the level of service
I want.  The idea of paying for usage is the same concept that has died with 
land line phones, and is dieing with cell phones.  It all but died with dial-
up ISPs in the years preceding the broadband boom.  You pay for a certain amount
of available bandwidth, and whether you use it or not is your choice.  The cable
company make no promise that thier connection is equal to the number of customers
times the speed of thier connection to thier POP.  You shouldn't need that kind of
capacity any way, because TCP/IP is connectionless, and the majority of the internet
is static in nature, thus you download it, and look at it, even animated doo-dads
are static, because the files don't change.

-- 
JD Runyan
		"You can't milk a point."
			David M. Kuehn, Ph.D.