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

The settlement isn't harsh enough

[dh003i]

The settlement in my opinion clearly isn't strict enough. There's nothing that really prevents MS from continuing to abuse its powers.

Furthermore, the adaptations proposed by the states are very reasonable, if only minimal requirments, to prevent further abuse. MS should be forced to sell OEM's a stripped-down version of Windows, and OEM's should have the right to remove any features they so desire. Furthermore, competitors -- including competing operating systems -- should be given the code to MS Windows so that they can ensure compliance and compatability with Windows. In other words, people making competing products to MS' IE, file-browser, e-mail prog, messenger prog, should have the ability to integrate and mesh those with Windows just as well and easily as MS can/does.

Additionally, restrictions should be placed on MS' use and development of the boot-loader.

Furthermore, provisions should be put into place to ensure that alternate OS' are represented at OEM stores -- such as *Linux, *BSD, BeOS, AmigaSDK, GNUstep, Hurd, etc -- so that the makers of other OS' have the ability to compete. The real reason MS dominates the market is because THEIR OS is installed in MOST OEM PC's, and OEM's WON'T install other OS'. If users had the option to have the OS of their choice installed, MS' dominance would be reduced. So MS should be forced to pay a fee to OEM's to allow them to display alternate OS' on systems in their stores.

Of course, the main thing is that they should force MS to open up the source code for all versions of Windows. That is, if they aren't going to break MS up, which would ALSO solve the problem.

PS -- I'd like to think I have the honor of being the first person to actually post an intelligent comment on this story, other than "First post here" or "Second post here". Some people really need to get a life.

Re:Let's be serious

[BarefootClown]

I know this is a troll, I know I'm going to get modded down for responding, but I'm capped anyway, so I have points to burn. Why not?

1. In case you haven't noticed, we were attacked a few months ago. What would you have us do, roll over and show them our throats? Slink off and whimper in a corner? If your dog bites you for not giving him your steak bone, you don't reward him with a steak. If somebody attacks you and murders 3,000 innocent civilians, you don't ignore them and hope they go away--that only encourages them to do it again. You sure as hell don't give them what they want. That policy is called "appeasement," and it's been tried. Little obscure guy called Adolf Hitler. Seems to have worked rather well, don't you think?
   
2. Powerful enough to take over the entire world, eh? Something tells me Russia, Europe (collectively, and several contries individually (not France)), China, and a few other countries might disagree with that assessment. And we're not exactly building new forces here--we're restoring what President Clinton cut.
   
3. As any half-competent economics professor can tell you, cutting taxes results in an increase in tax revenues. No liberal would ever admit it, because the *percentage* of GNP pilfered by the government is lower (i.e. they have less control over the subject^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcitizens), but in terms of absolute dollars, cutting taxes ends up in higher revenues. For an explanation of this phenomenon, consult any economics textbook, professor, or probably most TA's. Short answer: more money --> more investment --> more business --> more spending --> more tax revenue.
   
4. Perhaps my favorite part of your little rant: your ad hominem attack on President Bush. Intelligent, informed, mature debate focuses on policies, ideas, etc. Attacking him on that level is puerile. As far as his "sophistication" goes, I for one am sick and tired of the "sophistication" of politics, and I find it most refreshing to have a politician who says what he means, and means what he says. It's a refreshing change of pace from previous administrations, which were governed strictly by the Poll of the Week. Often attributed to Groucho Marx, "Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." seems to apply well to certain administrations in the not-so-recent past. And as for the picture, well, I'm sure you've never tripped in your life, so it's perfectly acceptable for you to mock the rest of us, who are not so perfect. Oh, and the big words are underlined because they're links: I didn't want to cause you too much trouble in figuring out the meaning, so I went ahead and linked them to a dictionary for you. You're welcome.
   

I'd continue, but I just realized something: you're not worth my time.

Re:What can us Canadians do about this?

[Alsee]

First, you must become the 51st state.

Canada is a bit big for one state (it actually has more area than the US). Canada is already divided into 13 provinces, but the population is rather sparse. We might have to consolidate some of them.

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This is news?

[Nick]

It's a well known fact that DSL is just second rate to cable. The ill-informed DSL guys will tell you how great it is and all, a nice dedicated connection - but they won't tell you it's dedicated to the switch.

The point being, you've got all these people pirating mp3s, porn, and software and you still are gonna get shitty service. Let's just hope you live across the street from the telco's switching equipment.

The telco's have no reason to maintain their lines either, they have to open it up to other companies which look bad when bell decides to get around to fixing a problem on the lines - they make money by neglecting their equipment.

Cable on the other hand is not regulated meaning they have don't have to open their systems for shit. They generally provide better service anyway.

In a 2001 Newsweek report it stated that the DSL market has shruken nearly a staggering 14% in one year, 9% of that in the last quarter alone. If you own stock in any of the other big DSL companies such as Verizon, Swbell, or @home then you are in for a big surprise. Lets just hope you enough bandwidth to come crying on slashdot when your company leaves your ass hanging in the breeze.