WSJ.com - Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees
Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg yesterday said he might favor reaching deals with companies to do the same. "We have to make sure they don't sit on our network and chew up our capacity," Mr. Seidenberg told reporters.This logic, of course, doesn't pass the laugh test. Did BellSouth or Verizon send checks to Google or Yahoo! to pay for their data centers, developers, or marketing? Why are their customers interested in broadband (and paying a premium for it) anyway? As I've mentioned before, the value of a telco's network without services like Google is approximately zero.
[T]he telecom companies argue that they have spent billions of dollars through the years to upgrade their networks so that users can effortlessly download content from Web sites such as Google and Yahoo -- with little benefit to the phone companies themselves. "During the hurricanes, Google didn't pay to have the DSL restored," said BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher. "We're paying all that money."
I suggest BellSouth take up the cost of restoring DSL to the Gulf Coast with their insurance companies.
