Sorry, my fault they went under
by
the_rev_matt
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I seem to have a curse. Two of my last three employers are no longer (and the third is in critical condition).
Seriously tho', Rhythms was incredibly disorganized internally (at least in May-Nov 1999 they were). Poor communication, lack of clear goals, the usual internal politics etc. The development group was mostly overpriced/underskilled consultants who really did a lot of damage. About June of 99 they decided to hire the decent consultants (yours truly included) and drop-kick the rest, and that was certainly a good first step. Their Director of Development (Jamie Horgan) after about Nov of 99 was awesome but I don't think he could single handedly save the company from what ultimately killed them: Incumbent telcos. Going head to head with those monstrosities is begging to go out of business. You think MSFT is bad? Try dealing with Qworst, and it was only that much harder for Rhythms because the CEO defected from Qworst (it took a LONG time for Rhythms to be able to offer DSL service in their own town, because Qworst kept dragging their feet as punishment for her leaving to compete). I consider myself extremely lucky that I'm moving to a state that does not have Qworst.
-- Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Yet another uninformative top-level post.
by
Giant+Hairy+Spider
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Really now, how hard would it be to refer to them as "Rhythyms, a DSL connection provider," instead of forcing you to read the story to figure out whether it's something you care about.
--
--- You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
Free Markets, Public Works, and Monopolies
by
FreeUser
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A colleague of mine and I were discussing this just this morning (he is a Ritym's subscriber).
Many of the DSL failures are a result, at least in part, of being jerked around by the provisioner of the last mile of wire. Here in Chicago that monopolist would be Ameritech -- notorious for deliberately delaying and mucking with the installation of competitor's DSL lines, despite a plethora of FCC regulations designed to prevent this sort of unfairness. I had personal experience with this, as did my colleague, when our DSL lines (from different providors) were provisioned.
When breaking up so-called "natural" monopolies with the intent of creating competition a very obvious oversight has been made, at least here in the United States, quite probably as a result of the rather radical anti-anything-that-remotely-smells-like-it-could-m aybe-be-considered-socialistic-by-anyone-to-the-ri ght-of-Gengis-Khan political atmosphere that has imbued the country since the early Reagan days. To whit, why do "natural monopolies" exist, what makes them a "natural monopoly," and why shouldn't the factor, or commonality, be treated as a public works project the way we do other "natural monopolies" such as roads and highways?
Take electricity, water, and telecommunications as examples. What made the electric company a natural monopoly? Not power generation, but delivery to your home... i.e. the physical wire. What made telecommunications a natural monopoly? Once again, not the intervening network and its services so much as the last mile of wire to your house. Water? Not, in most places, the water acquisition (it can come from rivers, aquafers, lakes, even the air if you can figure out how to do that economically) but rather the physical pipe to your faucet.
Instead of even considering nationalizing the infrastructure (there's another word which has fallen victim to the anti-communism hysteria of the early 80's and has remained taboo since) we have chosen instead to impliment an absurdly byzantine set of regulations prohibiting this, requireing that, and hopefully resulting in a level playing field. An approach far more favorable to error or outright corruption, and far less conducive to a level playing field and the competition such would engender than simply treating the wire like a public road, with equal access to all, would have.
I would submit that bottlenecks which create so-called natural monopolies, such as highways, the last mile(s) of telephone wire, and perhaps even the entire power grid, should be treated the same as highways, paid for and administered by government via taxes or access fees and provided to all of the competing service providors under the same terms.
The disadvantes would be the same ones we have with highways: a certain amount of government bloat, a certain amount of corruption in contracting and subcontracting, and a certain amount of government ineffeciency.
Just as with highways the advantages would far outweigh this, however: a level playing field for all competing businesses, an elimination of byzantine FCC regulations designed (and failing) to counter the monopolistic advantages under the current, wholely private, approach, an administration that is open to public scruitiny and nominally accountable to the public via our democratic process, and quite possibly economies of scale that might well offset the added overhead inherent in government administration of any project.
Monopolies are ineffecient, whether they are government or private. Where they must exist, as with roads, it makes far more sense that they be in public hands, a part of the public commons, rather than in the hands of some private Robber Barron a la' the Rhein River of two centuries ago.
Finally, I would argue that a free, competetive market cannot exist when the underlying infrastructure for that market resides in the hands of a private monopoly. Indeed, it appears that a competetive market on top of such an infrastructure is difficult, perhaps impossible, to maintain even if it is highly regulated. However, as we've seen with the success of our transportation companies, airlines can compete very well with public airports and automobile companies as well as trucking companies compete very well on public highways.
Perhaps it is time we reevaluated our love affair with private ownership of nearly all our basic infrastructures and put aside our aversion to nationalization and consider the question from the point of view of how to we structure things to eliminate private monopolies and maximize competetive free markets while at the same time minimizing the need for intrusive government regulation.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously tho', Rhythms was incredibly disorganized internally (at least in May-Nov 1999 they were). Poor communication, lack of clear goals, the usual internal politics etc. The development group was mostly overpriced/underskilled consultants who really did a lot of damage. About June of 99 they decided to hire the decent consultants (yours truly included) and drop-kick the rest, and that was certainly a good first step. Their Director of Development (Jamie Horgan) after about Nov of 99 was awesome but I don't think he could single handedly save the company from what ultimately killed them: Incumbent telcos. Going head to head with those monstrosities is begging to go out of business. You think MSFT is bad? Try dealing with Qworst, and it was only that much harder for Rhythms because the CEO defected from Qworst (it took a LONG time for Rhythms to be able to offer DSL service in their own town, because Qworst kept dragging their feet as punishment for her leaving to compete). I consider myself extremely lucky that I'm moving to a state that does not have Qworst.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
that the rhythm method does not work.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Really now, how hard would it be to refer to them as "Rhythyms, a DSL connection provider," instead of forcing you to read the story to figure out whether it's something you care about.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
A colleague of mine and I were discussing this just this morning (he is a Ritym's subscriber).
m aybe-be-considered-socialistic-by-anyone-to-the-ri ght-of-Gengis-Khan political atmosphere that has imbued the country since the early Reagan days. To whit, why do "natural monopolies" exist, what makes them a "natural monopoly," and why shouldn't the factor, or commonality, be treated as a public works project the way we do other "natural monopolies" such as roads and highways?
... i.e. the physical wire. What made telecommunications a natural monopoly? Once again, not the intervening network and its services so much as the last mile of wire to your house. Water? Not, in most places, the water acquisition (it can come from rivers, aquafers, lakes, even the air if you can figure out how to do that economically) but rather the physical pipe to your faucet.
Many of the DSL failures are a result, at least in part, of being jerked around by the provisioner of the last mile of wire. Here in Chicago that monopolist would be Ameritech -- notorious for deliberately delaying and mucking with the installation of competitor's DSL lines, despite a plethora of FCC regulations designed to prevent this sort of unfairness. I had personal experience with this, as did my colleague, when our DSL lines (from different providors) were provisioned.
When breaking up so-called "natural" monopolies with the intent of creating competition a very obvious oversight has been made, at least here in the United States, quite probably as a result of the rather radical anti-anything-that-remotely-smells-like-it-could-
Take electricity, water, and telecommunications as examples. What made the electric company a natural monopoly? Not power generation, but delivery to your home
Instead of even considering nationalizing the infrastructure (there's another word which has fallen victim to the anti-communism hysteria of the early 80's and has remained taboo since) we have chosen instead to impliment an absurdly byzantine set of regulations prohibiting this, requireing that, and hopefully resulting in a level playing field. An approach far more favorable to error or outright corruption, and far less conducive to a level playing field and the competition such would engender than simply treating the wire like a public road, with equal access to all, would have.
I would submit that bottlenecks which create so-called natural monopolies, such as highways, the last mile(s) of telephone wire, and perhaps even the entire power grid, should be treated the same as highways, paid for and administered by government via taxes or access fees and provided to all of the competing service providors under the same terms.
The disadvantes would be the same ones we have with highways: a certain amount of government bloat, a certain amount of corruption in contracting and subcontracting, and a certain amount of government ineffeciency.
Just as with highways the advantages would far outweigh this, however: a level playing field for all competing businesses, an elimination of byzantine FCC regulations designed (and failing) to counter the monopolistic advantages under the current, wholely private, approach, an administration that is open to public scruitiny and nominally accountable to the public via our democratic process, and quite possibly economies of scale that might well offset the added overhead inherent in government administration of any project.
Monopolies are ineffecient, whether they are government or private. Where they must exist, as with roads, it makes far more sense that they be in public hands, a part of the public commons, rather than in the hands of some private Robber Barron a la' the Rhein River of two centuries ago.
Finally, I would argue that a free, competetive market cannot exist when the underlying infrastructure for that market resides in the hands of a private monopoly. Indeed, it appears that a competetive market on top of such an infrastructure is difficult, perhaps impossible, to maintain even if it is highly regulated. However, as we've seen with the success of our transportation companies, airlines can compete very well with public airports and automobile companies as well as trucking companies compete very well on public highways.
Perhaps it is time we reevaluated our love affair with private ownership of nearly all our basic infrastructures and put aside our aversion to nationalization and consider the question from the point of view of how to we structure things to eliminate private monopolies and maximize competetive free markets while at the same time minimizing the need for intrusive government regulation.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy