Burstein on Deutsche Telekom - will Euro ISPs be evil?

Even if Genachowski's strange 'Title II-lite' 'Third Way' compromise proves sufficient threat to US ISPs, who are in any case it seems far too busy making a fortune from their various pigopoly arrangements and state subsidies to want to enrage politicians yet further, the European story Dave reports seems designed to test Neelie Kroes' resolve:

"The CTO of Deutsche Telekom essentially said they would deliberately cripple video over the net in order to force the TV people to pay them. We were in front of hundreds of people at the Broadband World Forum in Berlin.

He had just described a network that would reliably carry 16 megabits or more to every home, which meant a 2-5 megabit video stream would get through perfectly without any "special QOS". In the same speech he had claimed the video folks would pay billions for that QOS. I asked him whether his regular network would reliably handle 2-5 megabit streams, and he spoke up proudly. "I designed this network myself and I assure you there will be no problem." I next asked "That means that unless the video people want more than 5 megabits (a good HD speed), no one needs to pay for QOS. So won't paying those billions be totally unnecessary?" He turned apoplectic..."