A fast internet for all? Or just for some?

Apparently, it’s a tough world for US internet service providers right now. Competition is fierce, margins are wafer thin, capital expenditure requirements are as high as ever, and potential new ISP options (such as offered by Google) may soon open up to the wider public.

Two of the USA’s biggest ISPs, Bell South and AT&T, have come up with a potentially lucrative solution to these problems: serve some websites faster than others - and charge the website publishers, not the website’s end user, for the faster access.

If that raised your internet-reading eyebrows a little, then you’re not alone. In the US, there has already been a storm of criticism raining on this suggestion of a more-commercialised version of internet content. No doubt Graeme Samuel and the ACCC will keep a close eye on Telstra, Optus and all other major Australian ISPs to watch their interest in taking up such a concept.