-------------------------------------- BUSINESS SPECIAL: The Consensus Machine http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/current/sf4096.html The Internet has matured to the point where people are increasingly asking: who runs it, and on whose behalf? The Economist, June 10th - 16th 2000 -------------------------------------- Beneath the Internet's happy communal culture, a cadre of giant carriers is mercilessly squeezing every last dime it can out of smaller players. Users are picking up the tab. BACKBONE BULLIES http://www.forbes.com/forbesglobal/00/0612/0312056a.htm By Neil Weinberg, Forbes, June 12 2000 John M. Brown runs IHighway, an Internet access firm in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He'd like to give his clients the fastest possible link to the rest of the web world--but he can't. That is because UUnet and the few other giant data haulers that dominate Internet traffic don't have the fat, 45-megabit lines Brown would like in Albuquerque. And Brown can't afford $120,000 a year to lease a pipe running 530 kilometers to the UUnet hub in Phoenix, Arizona.... --------------------------------------