True but the analogy still holds.  We could consider the difference in the amount paid by trucks/buses vs cars as paying for their relative bandwidth. Let's say I pay my ISP $50 for a network access and a certain amount of bandwidth.  We know that Google is paying gazillions more than $50 a month for their network access and bandwidth. I'd have less problem if I thought this was simply a technical issue.  However, I think this is simply a case of a shrinking profit margins.  The providers have always oversold their actual capacity on the theory that most users won't be using it 24X7 and when they are using it they won't be using their maximum bandwidth.  Now they're pissed because they've got users out there that have the nerve to actually want to use the full or a large portion of the services they purchased.  This causes more work balancing the load and ultimately less profit.  I'm not opposed to them making a profit.  I am, however, opposed to them increasing their profits at the expense of the users just because they can. > Actually, your toll road example is a good one, but you are wrong on how it works. Trucks and busses do pay >more, because they use it more. They take up more space, and inflict more damage on the pavement, so the cost >to get down the road is higher. > >As much as I want my provider to never get in the way of getting to content, I also understand the importance of >quality of service. There is no way we could run voice video and data over our WAN without setting preference to >certain types of data. Treating every bit the same isn't viable with the long term goals people have for the net, but >saying all file sharing is bad isn't the option either. Definitely a problem for the network engineers to fix, not the >legislators. -- Andy -- There are 10 types of people in the world--those who know binary and those who don't.  (DoLooper)