SBC CEO Claims He Owns the Internet and Will Charge Everyone for its Use

In a recent BusinessWeek article, SBC CEO Edward Whitacre made some very provocative statements with regards to allowing the Googles and Vonages of the world to provide services over the Internet to subscribers of the SBC broadband network:

“How do you think they’re going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

“The internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!”

This is the first signal that the ever larger telecom and cable companies want to carve up the Internet in order to become fee-charging gatekeepers, blocking out competition for services by controlling who can access their broadband subscribers. While SBC is not a major provider of broadband services in New York City, similar ideas and actions may well be being discussed in the corridors of Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision.

As customers of ISPs, we are already paying for our service and our open access to online content and services. It is unreasonable and unthinkable to think that the websites and online services we use will be charged by our ISP in order to provide us with a service.

Given the brash statements made by SBC, we must ask the large ISPs to make public statements ensuring they will continue to run an open network in which customers can access any and all legal content and services provided by any and all individuals, organizations, and companies online.

Update – More Articles:

eWeek – Nov. 3, 2005

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