Ed Whitacre has fired another shot in the net neutrality war. With AT&T's gobbling up of Bell South for $37 billion he's going to have the leverage to make people pay.

Last time he said people that expected a free ride were nuts. This time he sounds more diplomatic, yet has a lot more power.

"“I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network – obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees – but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud.”"

You know what that means? The Agonist might have to pay more to AT&T so you'll have access to it.

See, that's what happens when you have a monopoly. You can force people to pay for your service.

All those dreams of a meritocratic information superhighway, a marketplace where the best ideas duke it out and win? Pffftt. Ed Whitacre doesn't care. All he cares about is raising your rates. Just like Standard Oil and the rail barons, just like Gates and Microsoft (hey, the price of your OS has gone up even as the cost of RAM has gone done, didcha know that?) Ed Whitacre cares about one thing alone: money.

Only you can prevent this. Do some research, bone up on the background (also here) and then take action.

Update: Russel Shaw over at ZDNet writes, "Ed Whitacre is both the driving force and the CEO of the acquirer. He is on record at favoring a multi-tiered Internet where large broadband content vendors (such as competing VoIP providers) pay for the privileges of fast and efficient network transport. Although the Democratic minority on the FCC is likely to raise some major concerns, they are, after all, not in charge. Given that political reality, I don't see the Feds pushing the wholescale abandonment of those goals as a pre-condition to merger approval." Read it all.