Trying to Take Ownership

Yet none is as breathtaking as the recent vision for the Internet put forth by William Smith, chief technology officer of BellSouth Corp., a major telecommunications company.

Along with a handful of other telephone and cable companies, BellSouth owns the pipes most people use to get to the Internet and thus can control the flow of digital traffic.

In Smith's view, network owners should be able to, for a fee, give one Web vendor's traffic priority over the traffic of a competitor.

In this world, if the travel site Orbitz pays the freight, it will work faster and better on your computer than Travelocity. And of course any service provided by the network carrier itself will go to the head of the line.

It reminds me of a start-up company that has developed a newfangled jukebox for bars and restaurants. Among its features: If you pay more than the person who put his money in before you, your song will get played ahead of his. And if someone else comes along willing to pay more money, well, you get the idea.

These notions may be capitalism at their best, but a pay-for-performance Internet will profoundly alter its character and what made it so powerful.

Imagine a new search-engine company seeking to challenge Google. But where will the money come from to match what cash-rich Google can pay to the network owner for priority treatment?

The playing field will tilt again, and perhaps this is as we like it: To the owners go the spoils.

But as Congress rethinks telecommunications policy next year, let's hope it looks hard at this equation and is absolutely sure that this new Internet will be better than the one we have now.

Staff writer Jonathan Krim can be reached atkrimj@washpost.com.