Big Money Boys: AT&T Doesn't Own The Net

AT&T may not be able to hijack the Internet after all: The big money boys -- the country's biggest financial firms -- are putting their muscle and cash behind bills that would ban AT&T and other telcos from charging sites extortion-type fees for adequate bandwidth. That's according to Reuters. Financial services firms worry that if telcos are allowed to charge higher prices for more bandwidth, the firms will be hit with massive bills, which they'd have eat or pass on to their customers.

According to Reuters, the big money boys worry that such tiered pricing "could add billions more in expenses to maintain online banking services and other Web offerings -- costs that could hit the bottom line or be passed on to customers."

The financial bigwigs are suddenly worried big-time about this one.

"Net neutrality is an issue that (financial services) firms ignore at their peril," Philip Corwin, of the Washington law firm Butera & Andrews, wrote in a memo to financial services lobbyists.

"If the industry does not engage quickly, it may find that the matter has been decided without its input and that the fallout will affect the industry's cost structure and customer relations for years to come," he added.The big money boy are now starting to call in their markers with their friends in Congress. They're either going to push for their own bills, force a logjam to gum up the works, or work behind the scenes to get their way when the bill gets to a conference committee.

Congress didn't listen to Internet users and consumer groups about the net neutrality issue. As we all know, money talks -- and now it's Big Money against Big Telco, and in this heavyweight fight, I'm rooting for the money boys.