Tauzin-Dingell Up for Vote Soon

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Just received this letter from my ISP, one of the oldest in existence. A study here lays out the basics on the bill and why it's a bad idea. The bill retracts the telecommunications act of '96 which forces the phone giants to share the nation's phone lines (which are in public trust). Looks like it's time to write those pesky congressmen again." Too late to write. Call. Tauzin-Dingell, up for vote on Wednesday, would eliminate all the requirements on the four remaining Baby Bells to play fair with competing telecom providers. "Sure Covad, you can co-locate your DSL equipment in our switching offices - our deregulated rate is only $10,000/day/piece of equipment." It's instant death for all DSL providers except Verizon, SBC, Qwest and BellSouth.

Comments

Re:News Flash

[arkanes]

Someone needs to go take polisci again. What's a government for? Hint: It's not for making rich people money, not matter what George W got told when he was growing up. One of the purposes of the government is to provide for the public good - if it didn't have that purpose, there'd be no point in having one at all, and we'd just have small wandering tribal bands.

Now, it's debatable whether or not DSL is a neccesary public service or a luxury good, but the fact is is that people back in the day decided that everyone having telephones would be in the public interest, and therefore used government power to make it possible. It's a similiar situation with radio/TV and cable channels. it's a public good, regulated and controlled by the government, for the greater good of society, because the private sector cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of society as a whole - that whole profit imperative thing.