#usage-based billing

Globe and Mail » David Beers » A metered Internet is a regulatory failure: "Forget that caricature of the slobbering porn addict next door. Canadians accessed a treasure trove of National Film Board works by the millions of downloads last year. Universities and libraries across the country are working to move priceless archives onto the Internet, where, the idea was, they’d be available to all. Not if it’s too expensive to download them. Consider the predicament of a small, independent website like mine, The Tyee. Already scraping by on limited resources, but recognizing our audience’s desire for more audio and video, we are working with a network of multimedia producers who really know how to stretch a dollar. But they tell us that UBB threatens to make it too expensive for them to craft their products, considering what they need to download while doing their work, the amounts we can pay and the niche audiences likely to listen and watch." Imagine an internet without YouTube or Vimeo, Soundcloud or MySpace, Facebook or Twitter or Flickr or a million pictures of that next baby. Now go sign the OpenMedia petition.