Boing-Boing has a post on this but I thought I'd bring it to Kairos' attention. It appears the big Telcos are lobbying Congress hard "to create a two-tier Internet." From a Boston.com story

AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.

One has to wonder how universal the higher speed tier would be. Would rural users have access to the higher tier? Would schools and universities have access to the higher speed tier? There's a lot of questions to ask about this scheme as it opens the door for lots of abuse, especially since the Telcos are pulling the old, "we'll go out of business" trick,

Bill Smith, chief technology officer of BellSouth, [said] ''Why do fundamental business economics not apply to the Internet?"

Well Bill, it depends on what you mean by "fundamental business economics." If you mean doing things the old way and gouging your customers and forcing them to purchase goods and services they really don't want, well yeah it appears that you are in a bit of a pickle. If it means not providing service to areas unless you have a monoploy, then yeah I guess you are in a bit of a pickle.

If successful this two-tier plan will change the Internet in ways that won't be very good for the rest of us.