BELLS, TECH GROUPS SPAR ON NET NEUTRALITY

摘要

Bells want to prioritize Internet content to provide more options -- but consumer and tech groups warned of an 揳rtificial scarcity?at a State of the Net conference in Washington. The dispute over increased bandwidth was seen as proxy for the net neutrality debate. Bells said they can't make service faster on the strength of consumer subscriptions alone and said they would be transparent with potential customers about possible commercial agreements with Internet companies to provide value-added services. Their opponents accused the Bells of creating scarcity at a time when much of the world has faster, cheaper connections. The U.S. relative rank in broadband speed vs. pricing in the world was used as evidence that network providers are slowing innovation to pad their bottom line. Jonathan Krim, WashingtonPost.com dir.- strategic initiatives, said the Bells have been able to provide 10-15 Mbps connections for a few years, but 搚ou've chosen to meter that bandwidth at what some would consider very high price points.?/font>