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Baby Bells Victorious Over Sharing Rules
An Anonymous Coward sent in somewhat troubling news for people who like high-speed internet access at reasonable prices: the Baby Bells have won their legal challenge of FCC rules requiring them to accomodate competitors providing high-speed internet access. The FCC has already been moving toward this on its own (the FCC is headed by political appointees appointed by the President), but this court decision will accelerate it: neither the current FCC nor the courts are going to stop the Bells from squeezing out their competition. There's a CNet story and the decision is online.
The court also overturned a 1999 rule that required the dominant carriers to share a portion of a local line into a home so that the customer could have a different provider for DSL (digital subscriber line) service, but keep their local telephone provider.
I wonder how often the existing line was suitable for DSL anyway. Didn't seem like it was the case in SNET country, anyway. If they are saying that you have to run a separate copper line, that's not such a big deal except that I expect that, in areas where they can get away with it, bells charge a lot more for a second line that will be used for DSL than they do for one that will be used for POTS, even if they would be conditioned the same in either case
"The commission's own findings repeatedly confirm both the robust competition and the dominance of cable in the broadband market," Williams said.
So they are trying to look at the total competition picture rather than just DSL vs. DSL. Probably a good idea. The problem with all this is that telcos have all kinds of weird deals with state and local gov'ts for what can be provided, etc. There are all kinds of unintended consequences whenever changes are made that end up muddying the waters. Sucks. It also sucks a lot to have to depend on your competitor for your service to work. As long as the bells get to own the wires and sell networking that runs on the wires, providing DSL will be messy.
The unelected thing.... man that ticks me off, the "Full Recount" in Florida that gore argued would have had him win... well, it was done after the fact. guess who won? (if your too stupid to figure it out, it was Bush)
Still though I hear that every time a democrat talks about Bush I hear that line. And it'll never die either. Ignorance knows no end, and the Liberals tend to stick to what they believe regardless of what facts show.
Note Covad's stock dropping 12.5% on this announcement, their days must truly be numbered now...
:-(
Also note the previous weeks price erosion (no doubt the cronies running the FCC/judiciary getting friends & family to sell short before the press release...). Why oh why can't I be a crooked public official on the corporate payroll!?!?
I'm just glad I live in Canada where I have the choice between 3 different DSL providers or cable at about $35US/month. It seems like the states has really fumbled the ball when it comes to providing high speed Internet to everyone. The FCC should be creating more competition not less.
The Media Borg's Man in Washington
Their Man in Washington
This court decision is not the end of the world, folks.
It may be if you're a DSL customer. They are using the popularity of cable modem service to indicate that there is enough competition in the high speed internet market to indicate that now anti-monopoly restrictions should be placed on DSL service. In the past, you could get DSL from Covad (or somebody else) because the FCC foreced the ILEC's to open up the unused frequencies of the local loop to CLEC use. It sounds like the FCC is going to be forced to change their mind on this matter and will no longer have to allow CLEC's access to the non-voice portion of the local loop.
It sounds like if you want to get DSL service from sombody besides your local RBOC, you'll need to completly change local providers (ie. you new local provider would have full access to the local loop (all frequencies) and they could offer you DSL service). Anybody else have a different interpretation?
Unless I'm reading this wrong, you don't have to worry unless you have only one pair of telephone wires run to your house/office. The decision says it removes the "line sharing" stuff from a list of services that must be offered to CLECs without bundling. This is that the phone company can deny CLECs access to the loop already providing your voice phone service. They hinted at, but ultimately balked at deciding to throw out the whole unbundled service mandate list. It looks to me that Covad can demand a local loop to your house if there is a dry one available. Go to your box and find out how many pair you have!
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Sorry, wrong answer, the DMCA passed under the previous administration.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
That technically the Bells own the wiring.
Technically this is true, but it's not that simple. Bell telephone was granted a monopoly by the government. They were given exclusive rights to porvide telephone service to people. In exchange for that monopoly, they had to accept government oversight of how that monopoly is used. When you went to have telephone service hooked up at your house you didn't have a choice who's wiring used. The government granted exclusive rights to one company to run that wiring to your house. This servers a purpose in that you don't want dozens of companies putting up telephone poles and runnign wires everywhere.
The Bells do own the wiring, but how they can use that wiring is regulated by the FCC. The government can't just take the wiring away from them, but it can tell them they have to share. If they refuse to share, I would assume that the govenment could fine them or even force them to sell the wiring.
As other options become available such as wireless or options over cable TV networks, the monopoly of the telephone company becomes less important. Because of this it may be reasonable to give the Bells more leeway so that they can compete with other technologies. The problem is that from what I've seen, some of them make Microsoft seem like a team player.
READ THE DAMN ORDER!
The only thing they got was an order requiring the rules to be reviewed. Nothing was thrown out. Morons.
In Illinois, when you pay to have a line installed, you bought the local loop(s) for however many pair they charged you to drop. I think the subloop (pole to your house) can be claimed by you. The rest of the loop is a grey area owned mostly by the phone company, but held in public trust by the charter granted to the phone company.
Umm, no. The ILEC (usually) owns the pole, the wire to your house, and the little box on the wall on the outside of the house (called a demarc). You connect your wiring to that box. That's why when a tree knocks down the wire after a storm, you don't get a bill for $3,000.
B
Flamebait
Serious inquiries only.
All you need is a real LEC and you can do whatever you want. If you have your own routing and switching equipment in a fiber hut, all they do is pass you the copper pair. Mind you, if you are a LEC and are dealing with Ameritech, they tell you to meet them at some manhole between the hours of 2pm and 7pm and if you're not there the exact second they are they wont do ANYTHING because residential phone service has a federally mandated required uptime (just to keep 911 working, even for people without phone service) that will wind up getting them (the previous phone company) fined for cutting off what is still their customer.. It's a joke, and SBC/Ameritech dosen't make it easy on other LEC's. Once you get that far, though, you can do whatever the hell you want with that pair. DSL, voice, etc. It really sucks to provide local service because if people want to be an ass about network outages and equipment problems they can claim it may of interfeared with 911 service, complain to the FCC, and unless the LEC can prove it did not, the LEC will get fined up the ass.
Last mile wire may be owned by Bell Canada, but other ISPs can use it.
End result is I do not have to deal with sympatico to get my DSL.