Will this affect the USA only, or the entire world?

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

The only way for your voice to be heard is to speak up.

I believe that if a bill is passed like this that not only will many people be disgruntled, but a massive outbreak will happen. Stop, and think about who uses the internet with high bandwith. Not only will you have the entire gaming population on your tails but a national security crisis leading on your hands. Millions of hackers would join teams to fight for a common cause. It would be a so called Internet Revolutionary War.

This sounds like another way for the rich to get richer. Is it just me or does this seems like the under dogs are going to be the only ones effected by this bandwith greed . This is ridiculous!

Everytime I read another story about this I get really depressed.

Having said that, I cannot see the people sitting quietly by while the internet 'breaks'. Maybe someone can figure out a way to link all those home wireless networks and create a massive open source mesh network that noone really controls.

The computer community is filled with highly skilled tinkerers. You never know...

USA or whole world?

GoTo savetheinternet.com

In all fairness it will mean that for a short while there are problems getting to certain sites WHEN (not if) the bill goes into law.

This is because a lot of providers are hosting in the US.

Thanks to this a lot of hosting business will change countries - and in the end it will be the US that looses jobs in the technology sector. Give it 5 to 10 years and the telecomms industry will post more losses than gains and will ask the senate to post laws to revive the technology sector - but by then other countries who weren't stupid will have the benefit of a corporate (speak money first interest) USA.

Why should the comapanies not be able to choose to give more bandwidth to higher paying customers? First of all, its thier buisness, and they should be able to choose how to run it. You impose legislation on them as if its your right to do so, without realizing that without them, no legislation would be necessary, becuase they wouldn't exist. Also, its not as if they are going to drop their entire client base because they can now charge more for a much higher bandwidth, that would be unprofitable. A more likely result from this bill will be for the companies to offer varying degrees of bandwidth and *increase the total amount of badwidth on the internet to compensate.* They probably wouldn't even increase thier prices on current level bandwidth level costs. Even an extraordinarily rich person isn't going to pay 600 million dollars for a personal internet service; becuase he would have to pay alot more to compensate the internet companies their bad buisness decision. Internet providers have to compete against other companies, and they have to stay in buisness. They are not going to sacrifice their entire customer base unless they can make a profit somewhere else; and that profit is not going to come from the top 1% of the population; there just isn't enough reason to pay that much, even for a billionare.

Yes, give or take five to ten years; they'll have it coming, snapping at their heels.
But these kind of shortsighted descisions are very trendy at the moment and are mainly happening in the "western" societies, but no worry; it'll work out in the end; even "they" have to maximize their profits, and this is only happening when they see "the way of all"; not "the way of the richest" ;0)
blessed be.