CNN.com recently posted an article about the ongoing controversy over the idea of having a tiered Internet, where high-bandwidth websites have to pay additional fees in order to keep their site running at a tolerable speed. Behind the move for such a system are virtually all high-speed Internet providers (Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner, among others).

A quote from the CNN article states, “The telecom industry sees such remuneration as fair compensation for the substantial cost of maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure that makes high-bandwidth services, such as streaming video, possible. “

You know what? This is just the telecom companies trying to squeeze even more money out of consumers who are already paying hundreds of dollars per year for Internet service. I thought that was the whole point of paying for my service — to pay them for the cost of the Internet infrastructure. So why do they all of the sudden need all this extra money?

Anyway, there’s strong opposition on both sides of the argument. The entire CNN.com article is available here.