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Florida Court Overturns AT&T Cable Ordinance
jothenull writes: "A Florida judge ruled that a "Broward County ordinance requiring cable giant AT&T to allow rival Internet access to their systems violated the First Amendment."" Available wherever AP articles are found. Since cable systems get a monopoly from local municipalities, it only seems fair that they be required to fulfill certain requirements - carrying a diversity of programming, permitting access to a variety of ISPs - but the cable services are fighting their part of the bargain tooth and nail.
I think this is one of the major problem with the court system, they allow huge companies with tons of money to basically bring continual lawsuits against people. i can not remember a time in the last 5 years that a major media company hasn't been sueing someone for violations of their 1st amendment rights.
A blog about stuff.
All the 10-10 numbers are lines being leased out from the local phone company, because its considered a monopoly on the local phone lines. So why wouldn't it be considered a monopoly for the cable company? Maybe its because phones are almost considered a necessity these days, even welfare will pay the phone bill.
Certian companies may have a wire monopoly but that monopoly is not mandated by the city, they have a wire monopoly because they own the fucking wire and can do whatever the hell they want to do with it (or should, but when it comes to telecomm the feds like to play fast and loose with private property rights.) Nothing is stopping another carrier from coming in and laying wire but the cost of doing so, if you're really that upset about your choices raise some capital and build your own network. The only way I can see how the city could somehow sanction a monopoly would be by a corrupt offical denying access to city owned right of ways to a competitor wishing to lay wire, of course if that ever happened in a sizable market you can bet that the competitors being locked out in this way would be screaming bloody murder to the FCC.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Corporations SHOULDN'T Have any rights. Corporations are inanimate collections of individual citizens who each themselves have rights. It pisses ME off whenever free speech and other Constitutional rights are mentioned in regards to non-people like companies.
Uh-uh. Individual people have rights, not corporations.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Shouldn't the Florida courts be focusing on more pressing matters?
# They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. --Fran
I have never been convinced of the so-called dangers of the AOL/TW merger. You seem fairl conversant and I was wondering if you could clarify some of your statements.
--The article appropriately invoked the specter of the AOL-Time Warner merger. In the case of AOL/TW, a single corporate conglomerate will control 1. A considerable array of content and 2. a significant percentage of the U.S. cable infrastructure.--
As it is right now, what you mentioned in points 1 and 2 are both aspects of Time Warner which is already a single entity. What is it that AOL is adding to the mix besides 25 million customers? Also what is this significant percentage? I was under the impression that TW cable could only reach 20 percent of the population.
--If the FCC/FTC fails to ensure that AOL/TW opens up its pipeline to competing ISP's, the corporation would be in a unique position to selectively discriminate against competing ISP's and content providers.--
Thats very much like saying that TW Warner as owner of the cable company (and the content provider here)can effect what we are seeing so that we ignore it's competitors. Yet most media companies deal with each other on a regular basis. I feel that I must be missing your point.
thank you
"Slashdot: Election News for Leftist Neds. Ballot Stuffing that matters."
When I meet a leftist Ned I'll send him right over to slashdot. In the meantime finish reading a sentance before you post an opinion on the article. That's the trick with reading, you have to try read hard to get to that period.
Yeah. Videotron. Think they'll start supporting Windows ME any time soon? But that's beside the point.... I'm with ADSL now, and I can honestly, and bluntly, tell you that I will never switch back to cable. I was with Rogers@Home in Ottawa for over a year. Then about 2 months ago, it all went to shit. Down an average of 18 hours a day. Any idea how hard it was to get a refund? How about the fact that I had to take them to small claims court to get more than 14 days? The list keeps going. I'm with Magma ADSL in Ottawa. I'm 6.1km away from the CO. Despite that, the speed I'm getting is better than Rogers has given me for the last 6 months, and I've got free reign to run whatever server I damn well please. Static IP, too. Really Static. Not just a DHCP that never changes like @Home. So you can have your opinion, and I'll keep mine. I'm with ADSL at least until a viable alternative becomes available. I'm looking into Starchoice sattelite, but that's about it.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I disagree with the fact that it is even a monopoly. I think if ATT or whoever spent the money to lay the lines, they should have exclusive rights as to what services they provide. If you didn't like TCI service, you have public airwaves (I've been living fine w/o the need for cable), and one if not two different satellite options. There is competition, just different technology.
Same with Internet. Other ISPs should not be allowed to leech off of ATT's cable lines, because those ISPs didn't build the infrastructure. There _IS_ competition: You have many options: DSL, Satellite, Dialup - all through different companies.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I'm sorry, but all their lines run on public and private property. They're only _IN BUSINESS AT ALL_ because they are _ALLOWED_ to be. If they want to stay in business and keep their lines _AT ALL_, they should have to play by the rules that are set for them. If that deal includes opening up their lines, that's how it should be. You can charge me anything you want to allow me on your property, they've got it easy.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
This franchise granting is done partly because the company receiving the franchise pays a periodic franchise fee to the local government granting the franchise (unlike broadcasters who just feed the FCC some bs about "operating in the public interest"), partly because the logistics of only having one cable company or phone company digging up everybody's yards is a lot more manageable than letting 37 different companies go at it, and partly because the local government is run by someone whose brother-in-law has a chunk of stock in the company getting the franchise.
As for the notion that that a cable company has a 1st Ammendment right concerning the content carried over their wires, that's just nuts. That's like saying that the phone company has a 1st Ammendment right to control the content of telephone converstations
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The only reason that they spent the money to do so was that they could rest assured that the govenment(s) involved wouldn't let any other company run competing lines in the same physical and geographic areas.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Capitialism requires competition - but not forced competiton.
This statement conflicts with itself. If capitalism requires competition - and capitalism is desired - then competition must be "forced" if it is not realized on its own. Any basic logic course could tell you this. The statement you were trying to make is "Capitalism must allow for competition but does not require it; hence competition need not be forced." This is a debateable statement (although it is wrong, it is still debateable) but if competition is required then it must be forced. This is why monopoly laws exist
Looks to me like he actually managed to vote for both by punching though both holes.
Upon further investigation the the butterfly ruling was deemed legal, and the case is being thrown out as the judge cannot have a second chance at filling out the card.
Rod Taylor
My goodness! When I saw "Florida Court Overturns...", I though Slashdot was continuing its devolution into: "Slashdot: Election News for Leftist Neds. Ballot Stuffing that matters."
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-- Geof F. Morris
Then AT&T shouldn't be allowed to offer local telephone services. Hey, maybe they shouldn't be allowed to offer local cable service..
Hmm, the ideas...
I thought AT&T fought for the right to offer local service. Isn't this the same thing? I guess Broward County did not have good lawyers.
The AP article without registration:
Court Overturns AT&T Cable Decision
I am a karma whore (who hates it when the partners trick doesn't work on ny times articles).
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He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
After all, this is the company who confiscated my fscking linux box because some brat tried to use it to hack into a skool. TCP Wrappers, shmappers. Whatever. At least I learned something.
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However, there seem to be sets of laws that change this, so in some cases, companies have less rights and people have more.
But the real purpose of a company is to remove liability from the individual owners and onto the "company" as an entity. In other words, Bill Gates is not legally liable for anything Microsoft does - Microsoft itself is. So if a system based on MS-BASIC caused a building to collapse due to a flaw in MS-BASIC, Gates would not be liable, and could suffer not penalty from Microsoft's fallings. Microsoft would be. This protects every corporate owner from liability from the companies actions.
Don't forget, every stockholder is a part-owner. Imagine your house being taken over because you owned some stock in a company that was forced to pay massive amounts of money in damages!
Because a company has the ability to legally act as any person does (which is why companies can bring lawsuits, for example) a company is also entitled to the same rights.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Did Al Gore put them up to that?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'll ignore the personal slam here. It's hard to get frustrated with anything posted by an AC, especially one apparently unable to recognize sarcasm and humor when applied to an unfunny situation.
Hell, I want the Electoral College gone--I ran a long "Ask Slashdot" that was rejected that would probably be prudent to read now--and that would put the candidate I didn't want in, Gore, into office. Fine by me--I have a vote, just like everyone else. I don't expect you to agree with me--if you did, I'd worry about you. I'd rather have Gore elected by popular vote than the current maelstrom we have today. But I follow the Constitution, even as I work to have it changed.
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-- Geof F. Morris
Sounds like a great place.
-Legion
Nothing may stop the construction of a competing system today, but that misses the point. Many of the incumbent cable systems were constructed when local governments had the power to grant a monopoly. I can remember when all sorts of sleazy deals were made between local government officials and the cable companies. In many localities, the cable companies basically bribed government officials and "influential citizens" to get the cable franchise. It is disingenuous for them to now claim that there is a competitive market, after they constructed their system under monopoly conditions.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Excuse me but cable != monopoly, it depends on the location and I see nothing here saying that this Florida county granted a monopoly to AT&T.
Second point, if they do indeed have a monopoly then cry at the government agency that granted/regulates them.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
On the same string, the overseas votes are also military people even larger than the overseas students, which bush has in his shirt pocket.. :)
Jeremy
hehe you canadian bitches just make me laugh :)
i live in brussels/belgium and sure we do have a few good operators, but you dont choose them, and let me tell you i'm pretty happy when i get 25 kbps downlink .. adsl is nice, but we have ridiculous bandwith limits on the accounts. (like 3.5 Gb up/down a month heh).
you are fucking right, could not have found better words. most ppl down here in brussels dont feel abused as i do when they pay 60$ a month for a crappy 256 kbps downlink (64 kbps up - not kidding here). anyway, the service suxx, it's fuqn expensive and you dont get a chance to choose your operator...
we've had two choices, TCI/AT&T, and Provo Cable, all along. Of course, it was never really a choice for many people. because Provo Cable sucks a$$.
But now the city fathers have signed a contract where they're putting fibre to every house in town. This will be for alternate phone, cable, internet, etc. I'm not certain that this is something that the taxpayers money should be spent on, and it'll take several years to get done, but damn the taxpayers, full speed ahead! Oh, the bandwidth!
Failure is not an option.
Failure is not an option.
It comes bundled with Windows.
Economics.
The first system builder has 100% of the market and monopoly pricing power. Anyone who is building a second system has to take customers away from the incumbent and compete on the basis of price, quality and service. This makes it substantially less profitable to build a second system and the market is less predictable.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The reason AT&T has a monopoly in your area is because they own the cable. Who do you think layed the cable to every house in America? Who? The government? No. The people? No. The only reason AT&T doesnt own all of it (or some other company) is becase the FCC requires that no cable company cover more than a certain number of customers.
,who has spent millions to build infrastructure, now have to give it away.
AT&T owns no cable (as in cable tv, and cable modem) anywhere near where i live. Time Warner has this entire area. AT&T is not even factor here at all actually. They own 0 miles of cable in this area, telephone or coax. In the area the article was talking about, AT&T does have a monopoly. The ONLY reason they have one is b/c no one else is ALLOWED to compete in that way. Its a gov't sancationed monopoly.
Why should a company
Dude, you are a complete moron. Forcing the cable company to open its network does NOT mean that it must do it for free. If you had done the reseach i asked of you on the local dialup ISPs, or maybe read my last post in detail, you'd see that the local ISPs have to BUY the connection from the telco. They then turn around and resell that connection. Thats what forcing the cable system open would do. The ISPs buying the connection turn around and try to undercut the telco's ISP service, so that they can get more customers. Its called competition, and it drives the price down. I'll use your last paragraph to show that you are a complete moron.
(cable modem, DSL+ISDN+T1, microwave, wireless radio, and satelite)
Ok, DSL, T1, T3, ISDN. Those are all via your local telco, and the fact that you have more then once choice as ISDN provider, for example, is b/c that local telco IS FORCED TO KEEP ITS NETWORK OPEN. Otherwise, you'd have ONLY one provider for all 4 of those services. Out of those 4 i mentioned, 2 are not practicle for home use; they should not even be considered options, since we are talking about access for the average person. ISDN is all but dead, at least it should be. Its the equal of having 2 56k modems; thas not even broadband. So now we are left with DSL. Where i am, i don't know of anyone but the local telco that provides DSL. Its 39.95/month, with a 1mb down and 128kps up. I've seen it displayed, i doubt its even that fast. Oh, BTW, RoadRunner (TW's cable ISP), is also 39.95/month if you have cable tv, 34.95 without. It offers 2mb down, and 384 kps up. Wait, why would i want DSL now? Especially since my local telco is extermely unreliable. Should DSL go down, i wouldn't expect it back up for at least a week. Microwave and wireless radio? Around here thats not even an option. Tell me, how fast is that, and whats the price? I doubt those are viable solutions for most people. Satelite? You're kidding right? For a packet to leave my computer, it must travel up to the satelite, which is what, 26 miles above the earth? Then it travels down. Thats 52 miles just to get to your provider, and now it has to be injected into the internet and come back. Once its back, its got to travel another 52 miles to reach you. You think thats gonna be faster then traveling 20 miles round trip to your local headend? Or, you can upload with a 56k modem, whoopiee!!! Now, you send even slower, and you STILL are tying up a phone line. Its 50-60 dollars, and you only get 400kps!! Are you on crack?
To summarize:
My choices are one of 10 ISPs that offer 56k (keeping in mind that those 10 would not exist if the local telco was not forced by the gov't to open its networks, and that they offer about the exact same service), or a cable modem if i want broadband access. Now, there's only one cable provider, and its networks are closed. So if i want broadband, i MUST get it from the cable company. Don't say i can pick DSL, its less service, for the same price, and you'd have to be an idiot to pick it over cable.
As for punished for being successful? Well lets say i open a chain of grocery stores, and i'm able to run ALL other grocery stores in your area out of buisness. What am i gonan do now? I"m going to raise prices, and cut service, b/c that will make me alot more money. Now, i'm being very very successful, so by your logic i should be left alone. Nevermind that now alot of people can't afford food, and that alot of what i sell is now substandard. (Thats why the gov't inspects meat, b/c stores would sell diseased meat, so don't tell me that wouldn't happen). Are yo gonna sit and argue with people that want to break my monopoly b/c i really did fairly beat all the competition? Or are you gonna say this is insane? And if i'm forced to raise the quality of food? Ok, but i'm gonna raise price to make up for it. Thats now business works, and i don't think you'd argue with that.
In case you want some refernces:
http://www.frontierlightinglink.com/
http://www.rochester.rr.com/
http://www.direcpc.com/
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Apparently the ruling has been reversed. The judge was confused about the placement of the "Yay" and "Nay" check boxes in the paper work.
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Now, let me just start off by saying I install cable modems for AT&T here in Minnesota. It was formerly MediaOne's before AT&T bought us out.
Anyways, we've got around 16,000+ miles of plant. I've probably seen 70% of it.
<BR>
Now with cable a lot of things can go wrong, such as cable in the home (splitters, fittings, window filters, etc), Fiber Node, and return path issues.
My question is, if you were getting service from a third party ISP who would be responsible for trouble calls? As it stands right now, when someone calls in for a problem, it's usually resolved by Teir 1 phone support, if they can't fix the problem over the phone, I get sent out about 2-3 days later. Now with a 3rd party handling trouble calls that 2-3 days WILL jump to 2-3 weeks. It's just easier for the consumer this way.
<BR>
And why should AT&T open up something THEY built to support THEIR customers to some other comapany? That's just stupid.
<BR>
Besides, we offer 1.5Mbps/300Kbps access for 40 bucks a month. You can't get much better than that here in the Twin Cities.
I hate the fact that I can't choose which Internet Cable I want to use. In Montreal we only have the choice of ADSL from one company and Cable from another. That's it! I think that other companies should be allowed to open compete with the big boys.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Are you trying to insinuate something?
Me? NO, NOOOO , Nooo........
YES
Monty Python we love thy so, let us count the ways...
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
In many localities there is an official, government protected monopoly on the actual physical lines, which makes sense when you consider the herculean effort required in laying the lines and coordinating with public utilities. The contracts with the localities generally require that the authorized monopolist allow other companies to purchase use of the wire at a reasonable price. It's all part of the business. If you want to be the monopoly, you have to play by the rules. It's been the case with phone lines and power lines for ages. It disturbs me how the courts have lately been tricked into thinking that the internet somehow works differently.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Where I live, AT&T (formerly TCI) has been the only cable company in town for the last 20 years. So many people have complained about the service, though, that the city finally signed an additional contract with another cable company (I don't recall the name). It'll take a couple years for the new company to get their infrastructure in place, but it will be interesting to see whether things improve once people here have a real choice.
"A Florida judge ruled that a "Broward County ordinance requiring cable giant AT&T to allow rival Internet access to their systems violated the First Amendment.""
It seems interesting that whenever an individual's rights get stomped on by a corporation nobody in power seems to care. Yet when a corporations "rights" are threatened, a ruling in favor of the company is made.
Now I realize that this is a company vs a county but still.. I had no idea that corporations had First Amendment rights.
Disclaimer: The link was down when I tried to read the linked article so I am only going on what the blurb said.
This is the consequence of elected judges....
you never stop to amaze me. who has heard of corporations being treated as 'natural persons'? if that holds true, then i would like to make use my corporate rights as an individual. i mean, if companies have the same rights as a person, should i as a person have the right to use corporate law? so i'm not born on my birthday but incorporated under trustee management of my parents until, i the company reaches the age of 18 [21 in some states], when i automatically assume all offices in my company. as such, i have the right to own other companies - people - to sell parts of myself to shareholders; depending on state law - i might be limited to dividing myself into only about 2000 shares and can not offer myself to the public as such. however, i can file for an initial public offering and then auction off parts of myself to be traded publicly... wow, even better, i can buy others, chop them up, absorb pieces i like and sell of the remains... serious, in most western countries corporations are only treated as individuals [or 'entities'] where applicable - meaning in a practical sense, wherever corporate law does not apply. this is specifically the case when corporations deal with individuals. however, i have never heard about a company claiming what is ver much the equivalent of basic human rights. let's face it the declaration of human rights is in essence a large chunk of what is embedded in the U.S. constitution; yed, amazingly enough, it is the very U.S.of A. that has one of the worst human rights records on the planet - yep, the u/s are battling against china and peru for rank 92, straight behind australia - another human right advocate. to the subject matter, well, it's likely that they get away with it just because of those amazing laws you have in your corner of the planet. while i think human rights as such are unworkable and basically a load of b/s i also think that corporations should have the right to block courts with non-sense suits while actual 'human cases' are waiting years to come to trial. just my electronic $0,02
ah, it seems like everyone is waking up from a really calm, scary dream... welcome to the gibson/sterling novel of your choice.
none of this is new in florida or anywhere else i don't think.
Your Vote Doesn't Count If They Don't Count It: U.S. Election Fraud
bjord.org
news from the revolution
I guess this is a republican judge who was elected erronously by an old lady who wanted to buy a poodle.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
AT&T, the company, is not a common carrier. Telephone lines are common carriers. This is an important distinction.
Years ago (I forget the exact date) the FCC tried to get cable companies declared common carriers, and this was overturned by the Supreme Court, because the FCC lacks the authority to make this decision. Common carriers must be declared as such by an act of Congress, and until this happens, cable providers will not be required to give their competitors access to their lines.
However, AT&T is currently experimenting with this in Colorado, if I'm not mistaken, probably because they want to forestall any lawsuits. If they do the right thing in the first place, and allow other ISPs to access their high-speed lines, they can avoid a lot of bad publicity, lawsuits, and possibly make a potential common carrier decision a waste of time.
....it will delay access to fiber optics networks until they are wiretappable and it will make them have to provide wiretaps for the police.
Erm..what I could see is some other power company claiming rights to use the power grid for their own plant to their own customers on their own bill.
You could try talking to the real owners of the company, but I think you'll find that they are insurance companies and pension funds, who also have an obligation to maximize their investments...
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
sorry, wrong. Just b/c AT&T owns the lines does NOT mean that someone shouldn't be allowed to use a different ISP. Just b/c such and such owns my telephone lines means I can't use an ISP not affiliated w/those lines? Get real.
These kind of "Well, Mr. Cable is a monopoly!" things PISS ME OFF!
Why do you want ISP's to be open, but allow the damned company to be monopolistic? I mean, c'mon people. Leave them BOTH closed or open BOTH. I frankly, like SusCom, and their service is A+. If another company came in, I'd certianly stay with SusCom. I'm not sure about ATT tho.
Cable companies are usually required to obtain a franchise agreement, which grants them the authority to use local city-owned rights-of-way in exchange for a number of things, including, requirements such as providing "open access" to competing ISPs. The agreements are basically lease agreements, leasing the city property in return for consideration.
By law, a municipality cannot grant an exclusive franchise (monopoly), and in fact, most cities are busily trying to lure competitors to their local cable companies into town. They hate having a single cable company as much as the citizens do. But the cost of building a new system is large, and only recently have companies begun to step forward to try and "overbuild" old systems, like AT&T's. The arrival of these overbuilders has less to do with anything congress did (i.e. telecom Act of 1996) than it does the perceived opportunity to run the old coax companies out of business, by building modern state of the art ringed fiber networks, which can offer voice, video, and data at rates and speed vastly exceeding anything that can be done on a crapulent old Coax system. Take a look at Western Integrated Networks proposed system as an example of what these new arrivals want to build. Notice, the fully symmetric 100baseTX ethernet network provided into homes, via a fiber actually brought into the house? That ought to get any self-respecting geek's heart pumping fast.
In regards to "Open Access", the more important thing happening, is th activities resulting from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Mt. Hood v. AT&T, where the court ruled that @Home was a telecommunications service, not a cab;le service. This ruling will require (if left to stand) that cable comapnies be regulated identically to telephone companies, and thus will be forced to offer competitive access to their networks.
Imagine if your power company also marketed and sold household appliances, tvs, computer equipment, and so forth.
What would happen if they said to their competition, "No, you cannot use our power grid to run your devices. It is an infringement on our rights!"
Gee.. wouldn't that be wacky and interesting?
What does it really matter if they make 1.2 billion instead of 1.3 billion, if it means the people will be better off. The cable companies should not be allowed to profit at the expense of consumer rights. But it won't end until you demand your voice be heard and your rights respected.
What can you do? Write your local newspaper. Write your congressman. Make it clear that you will not support corporations that limit your choices and limit your rights. If the aforementioned avenues fail, a boycott might drive some sense into the cable companies. You can get by without cable for a few months, can't you? Especially if it means having your rights restored.
I am,
I am,
Fine
"It's just too much," a spokesman said. "He tries real hard to come up with quick satire for quick karma, but then something like this comes along and just defies parody."
"He's feeling pretty bad, as you can imagine," the spokesman added.
Free Software Foundation guru Richard M. Stallman was unavailable for comment. A source close to the programmer said he was "busy frantically trying to think of a punchline."
Carousel is a lie!
I would almost be willing to give up the internet if it meant I could put just one cable/telephone/etc. company out of business in the process.
tcd004 Janet RenoMargolis, Election Uncoverage
I live in Morganton, NC.
I forget the details but we kicked TCI out or they left after their franchise was up. We ended up creating our own cable system-CoMPAS.
As you can see on the CoMPAS website, the regular cable is competively priced and has a fair selection of channels. It is also reliable as I can never remember my cable being out in the years I have had CoMPAS.
The only drawback is that the infrastructure was not built with broadband in mind. Therefore we only have one-way broadband and it is prohibitively expensive.
That way, they are not liable if one of thier customers said something libelous, terrorist, pornographic, goatse, etc.
But now AT&T says that they have a right of freedom of speech? What is AT&T a provider of , speech or data?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I would hate to see the day that a man or company can work hard to produce a product and then be forced by the government to hand over the fruit of his labors to any one that comes by whining that they are a victim of a monopoly. I don't neccesarily think that locking out a rival isp is good. But what right do they have for using those lines? Did they pay for those lines? Did they dig the ground, lay out the money, do anything to entitle them to use those lines? NO! Those people are the parasites on the back of economy. If you think that the government should force a cable company to open those lines I think you should support the government in buying those lines with your money. Don't condemn a company for being successful.
very useful for those angry about their service. .
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Riiiight, Career military people and anyone in it for the next 2 or 3 years will vote for democrats who have stretched out military so thin its pathetic... Anyways, go back to your corner.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Dammit, this cable signup form is confusing, I wanted HBO not Showtime...
Hammer of Truth
``Compelled access like that ordered by the Broward County ordinance both penalizes expression and forces the cable operators to alter their content to conform to an agenda they do not set,'' the decision said.
Perhaps. However, look at the issue of penalizing expression from the flip side of the coin.
The article appropriately invoked the specter of the AOL-Time Warner merger. In the case of AOL/TW, a single corporate conglomerate will control 1. A considerable array of content and 2. a significant percentage of the U.S. cable infrastructure.
If the FCC/FTC fails to ensure that AOL/TW opens up its pipeline to competing ISP's, the corporation would be in a unique position to selectively discriminate against competing ISP's and content providers.
To better illustrate this the consequences of Closed Access, consider a well-known white paper from Cisco released in 1999 called Controlling Your Network - A Must for Cable Operators.
The Cisco paper includes such gems as this:
Committed access rate (CAR) is an edge-focused QoS mechanism provided by selected Cisco IOS-based network devices. The controlled-access rate capabilities of CAR allow you to specify the user access speed of any given packet by allocating the bandwidth it receives, depending on its IP address, application, precedence, port, or even Media Access Control (MAC) address. For example, if a "push" information service that delivers frequent broadcasts to its subscribers is seen as causing a high amount of undesirable network traffic, you can direct CAR to limit subscriber-access speed to this service. You could restrict the incoming push broadcasts as well as subscribers' outgoing access to the push information site to discourage its use. At the same time, you could promote and offer your own or partner's services with full-speed features to encourage adoption of your services, while increasing network efficiency.
In other words, a cable operator using Cisco's equipment will be able to selectively discriminate what content a consumer can view, slow down content originating from a competing content provider -- in the words of many Open Access proponents, transforming the "information superhighway" into a "digital toll-road."
Even if the ruling mentioned in this post is correct, I believe that the alternative to mandating open access will result in more significant penalties to free expression.
Sincerely,
Vergil
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