I’m trying to figure out how killing 40% of the traffic and nearly doubling capacity will double the customers. A lot of paying customers are going to be pissed off when they can’t use the ‘net as they wish. Increased capacity does not automatically increase customers. In fact, I understood us to have excess bandwidth already, anyway….

They will double the customers when they offer a similar deal as can be had in South Korea, Japan, or other international countries. Which is a LOT more bandwidth, for half of what we pay here.

How can something be “overwhelming” and “unacceptable” when the customer has paid for it? Treating your customers as thieves will not result in a successful business.

This isn’t just AT&T. NBC-Universal is joining with AT&T. I hear Microsoft is also jumping on this bandwagon.

The MPAA has been pestering ISPs to spy on their customer’s content and filter the material that is allegedly illegal. They will do whatever they can do to maintain their dying business model.

Imagine leasing a GM vehicle for four years with a 30,000 mile annual limit. GM notices that most lease returns are at or close to the limit. They deem this overwhelming and unacceptable, even though the customer has paid for this.
G
GM decides to install a device that requires the driver to enter their destination. Based on some criteria determined by GM, the devices deems certain trips as unnecessary and prevents the car from starting. Would you buy that car?

Thanks for the comments Vincent and Michael.

I agree that these filters would not be beneficial to customers and that in the end, we as customers will stand to lose if all ISPs implement these network filters. I also believe there is an opportunity here for an ISP to really benefit if they become the only (or one of the only) one(s) without these filters. In that case, there would in fact be an “overwhelming” number of customers seeking that ISP’s services to avoid the filters.

Michael, in terms of killing traffic and gaining customers, I agree that many customers will be angry with their ISP at first, but at the extreme, if there is no filter-free alternative, people would be unlikely to stop their internet usage and would need an ISP, and each ISP would have gained up to 40% additional capacity from the filters,(to add to their existing surplus capacity) with which they could handle more new user traffic.

I am very interested to see how the other dominant ISPs weigh in on this issue over the next couple of months…