CNet just ran an article about the cable companies' day in Washington. While I sympathize with statements like "I don't think the government should be coming and telling us how we can work that infrastructure, simple as that", the cable and phone companies' arguments still smell of bullshit.

That's because I'm over on one of their networks and Google is way over on some body else's. How exactly do the operators of my network extort money from a customer on someone else's network without pissing off the guy in the middle?

I can see it now:

Midnet

One of customer's is reporting that their site is being blocked on your network

AT&Time Warner

Yeah, they were using to much of our bandwidth because our users really really like them. We asked them to fork over some money before we restore service.

Midnet

Yeah, but you agreed that between us, whoever had the most data coming out of their network would be the ones paying that month.

AT&Time Warner

Umm...

Midnet

I just paid you for all that data my users sent. Now you go and block data coming out of my network, charge me for it, and extort my customer to pay you even more!

AT&Time Warner

Ain't this a happy little game? [Thinks: Thank god none of our users produce content.]