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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.
It's not like the Telco act of '96 was of any help. The Telcos don't care and use the loopholes, DSL isn't really available everywhere, no matter what James Earl Jones says, and cable/satellite is just as inexpensive and fast.
I have friends that worked for CLECs that put equipment in ILEC COs. Sure Verizon would let you in the building, but want to use the bathroom? Sorry, can't do that, you'll have to go somewhere else. Want to come back in? Sorry, security isn't here right now and we can't let you in....
Ok, this pisses me off. Now that I've turned 18, what's the process for getting in touch with the people who can shoot this down? Where do I find out their info? What should I say?
Let me weigh in on Economics 101. This fictitious argument that a "dozen competitors in the same small geographical area" will all "sell at a loss and die" may be the case.
You know what I say? Great! That may be, and then went the industry converges on a few major DSL players, we'll know that natural oligopoly is the status quo for the DSL industry. And every time someone pulls out the antitrust argument, you can say 'we tried that'.
Or you can simply declare that competition won't work, and dictate that the network owners get to do whatever they damn please. Oh, and because they're earning super-competitive profits, they'll branch out to provide DSL to rural communities where its not profitable to do so.
Long pause. [Insert "huh?" here.] Not profitable?!? If any mechanism is going to get rural broadband off the drawing board, it will be market pressure, not a oligopoly of telecom companies earning supercompetitive profits on what amounts to a state-granted monopoly.
The economies-of-scale argument is irrelevant. Because the network already exists, the CLECs plugged into the Bell networks have already made the scale investments. It's there to be taken by anyone, given that they have open access to the essential facilities.
The real question is whether you want to allow the Bells to have to fight off competition with superior service, or whether you want to assume that competition will ultimate tank, and just do away with that whole "free market" thing. Because we all know that's a crock, right?
Indie DSL providers may all go belly up, but we owe it to ourselves to figure out whether that's going to happen. Tauzin-Dingell is corporate rent-seeking, plain and simple.
It may be cold, but at least it's clear.