The problem with the two-tiered internet is that customer choice is removed from the equation, instead one company holds the other hostage for access to customers.

Something along the lines of how product shipping is done might work though. For example, I purchase something from Amazon. I can choose next day delivery, 3 day delivery or 5-7 day delivery. When I pick my choice I pay a little more for each option.

If I know I'm going to be downloading a 100MB of MP3 from emusic.com, it would be nice if I could pay an extra $5 and boost the connection speed from them and drop a 10 minute download to a 5 or 2 minute download. But it should be MY choice. Not the ISP demanding money from services I have already paid to be able to access at a particular rate.