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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

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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....

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