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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.
I think companies here in North America still have a lot to learn about cooperation as a method of business. I mean, we have incompatible cell phone standards, lots of proprietary interfaces, etc. The real value in any economy comes from trade - which is basically different things interacting. The more we create closed off little worlds, the worse we do, and yet it seems that's all North American businesses are interested in these days!
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
"...troubling news for people who like high-speed internet access at reasonable prices..."
It's also bads news for freedom of speech
Whereas in a competitive environment ISPs can compete for savvy customers by touting their lack of restrictive practices (such as server-side censorship software that eliminates client-side choice), now they'll be more worried about not offending the big-hitters like the Christian lobbying groups who have the Washington-level power to disrupt their cosy monopolies.
Comeptition is reduced, but it is his opinion that progress will occur more rapidly nonetheless. It is certainly true that PacBell was in no rush to distribute new equipment and services that would enrich Covad (hence the "cancellation of Project Pronto).
But the point is - the telecoms own the wiring from the switch to your house. Why should government dictate what the owner of that wire has to do with it? Allowing other DSL providers to use that infrastructure is going to cost the Bells money. So I really feel that the court is correct in this matter.
However, I don't want to pay exhorbitant amounts of money for my DSL line. And I think the way to do this is to offer a true competitor.. maybe it's the cable companies and cable modems, maybe its 802.11 wireless, maybe it's satellite transmission, maybe it's something that hasn't even been thought up yet, but there will be a competitor.
And I don't think this is a monopoly any more then I think DISH Network is after buying Direct TV.. they still have to compete with cable companies.. much the same way DSL is still going to have to compete with cable modems, etc. They're selling broadband access, and there will be multiple ways to get it.
This court decision is not the end of the world, folks.
Now I just have to prepare myself to be modded down.. ;)
You are right. Sept. 11 would have happened but W is taking advantage of his "mental immunity" for everybody trying to be patriotic and so nobody is questioning his policies or politics (Iraq, Enron) when they very well should be scrutinized. But worse yet, it isn't just Bush that is doing this. Congress, RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft are all using the terrorist attacks as shields of their messed up policies. Everybody is pushing for copyright laws and pro-DMCA because "terrorists" are the ones who crack programs. Also, according to Microsoft, the anti-trust case is taking resources away from the investigation of the attacks. Of course this is all bogus, but nobody of power and influence is saying anything because then the Republicans will label them as anti-American.
Hopefully, this phase of trust in our government will pass and we can get back to criticizing them when they do something stupid.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Why should the baby bells have to provide the infrastructure for their competition? This decision is actually better in the long term. In case you haven't noticed, customer service has gone way down since the bells were forced to open their phone lines up. What happens when an entire neighborhood no longer uses a bell? Why shouldn't bell just pull out of that neighborhood and no longer support those lines? Then what happens? Yep, the company leasing the lines can't help the customers because they don't know what they're doing or they don't have the knowledge the bells do of the system in place.
Broadband suffers from the same thing. If you want cheap broadband, wait 20 years. If you want high speed access now, expect (and be willing to pay). And if you want competition, then be willing to pay higher (should be only to begin with) prices while infrastructure is being laid. The baby bells should not be required to lay the infrastructure for their competition. If someone wants to compete, that's fine, but they should also be willing to put down the money required and set up their own infrastructure, instead of trying to build on top of the bells' hard work.
If 76 Trombones really led the big parade, why did they have anyone else in it?
completely failed to consider the relevance of competition in broadband services coming from cable (and to a lesser extent satellite). We agree.
Cable is absolutely NO competition for DSL. My requirement was
1) static IP
2) low price
3) allows servers. I run mail and http servers.
My directtvdsl is $49 a month with a static IP. If they take this away, I'm screwed. I'll have to pay a bundle to get the same service from the phone company.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Wake me up when Ford is the only company that is allowed to provide cars in my area.
--
E_NOSIG
One of the biggest barriers of bringing DSL to my community (other than it's small size) is the fact that after investing a rather large chunk of capital in equipment, the phone company would have to share access to competitors.
I'm all for competition, but when that very competition is delaying rollout by years, I see this as a partial win.
For those who already have the access they want, they probably have options such as DSL and Cable, and maybe even Wireless. I have none of those. When the phone company already has to compete with Cable and Wireless, they won't even enter a market when they have to make the investment in equipment that other get to use to add to the level of competition.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. -Samuel Johns
I think the point is that the infrastructure the Baby Bells are so keen to shut competitors out of was originally provided by public funding (much like highways).
So lets say the government privatises highways, selling them all to Ford. Ford would just have won the right to block Kia-made cars from using the on-ramp.
Reduced competition & corruption (aka lobbiest pay-offs) are going to rot the US economy from the inside. Where does the US rank in the world now for broadband penetration/adoption??? Further and futher behind....
Try Qwest. They lie about everything, make you wait forever for anything to get accomplished, and their billing department has to rival the IRS when it comes to complexity of an organization.
I've had Verizon (DSL, home phone, still have Verizon Wireless). I've had Qwest (DSL, home phone). I had good service from Verizon, and most definately did NOT from Qwest.
As soon as AT&T digital cable is rolled out in my area, I'm dumping my landline and going with AT&T phone service over cable. Qwest will not get another cent from me, ever again.
It's a shame Qwest won't have to share their lines... Anything to make those bastards work for their money is fine with me.
a victory for the cable modem industry since dsl will become increasingly less competetive (viva isdn). and hopefully this will spur even more interest in alternative routes like wireless.
what you have here is a "natural monopoly". The thing is that you dont really need to have incentives for others to make their own infrastructure. Making ionfrastructure is very expensive, and doubling would just be an enourmous waste.
You just need companies to compete over the quality and price of services over this infrastructure.
Such an arrangement is not as strange as you say. It often happens with natural monopolies. for example when the electrticity market was being deregulated nobody seriously suggested that different power companies should build different powerlines.
I can't believe the communist crap I am reading on this board.
What makes America great is that we arn't a pure capitalistic society... if we were, we would quicly slide into a dictatorship as companies gobble up smaller companies in order to form monopolies, etc. Further, we are not a pure socialistic society, private ownership is essential. What we are is a pretty-good ballence between the two extremes. Unfortunately, for the last 10-20 years the power has been getting out of ballence, with capitalistic forces now having more control then the democratic forces. This is clearly seen by the acquisations of congress people doign the bidding of companies instead of people.
Have you read Adam Smith's title called The Wealth of Nations? It rests on a principle of a competitive or free market economy; a competitive market being defined by many economists as one where no single supplier holds more than 20% of the marketspace, having 7 or more distinct direct competitors. Only under these circumstances will capitalistic markets bring the highest value to society. In marginalized situations, where a single company holds a large share of the marketplace there isn't a choice, it is called monopolistic.
Monopolies in general arn't bad, but a special class of monpoplies which provide for essential services are problematic. Telephone is essential in our day and age (ever try to get a job without a telephone number?) and the baby bells have a huge part of the marketshare for telephone and related land-line services.
So. What do we do with essential monopolies? There are two extremes forms of control; Democratic (one customer one vote) or Dictatorship. The latter choice is usually bad since, if left to its own devices, it will maximize profits by overcharing the customer, causing huge distortions in the economic system and undermining other markets and thus our free market economy. The former choice is not great, but variations of it are important to consider.
One form is to have government operate the smallest, most essential service of the business which cause it to be a monopoly. Our roads are good examples. The government owns them, but services to maintain the road (which can be competitive) are all farmed out to various companies who can bid. The government need not create the road signs, for example. The other form is to let a private dictatorship run it, but regulate the dictatorship. Unfortunately... there just arn't any other options!
As for the phone systems themselves, a bulk of the funding for these systems were initally provided by the government (the people) since setting up a phone infrastructure is a huge operation... thus to say that private enterprise has done this is just not true. Private funding for stuff is usually not long-term. More often than not, public funding for bring projects is the only way to get them done.
Your black and white charactization is just dead wrong. It isn't iorn grip of Washington that is the issue. Washington is just the government controlled by either Democratic or Capitalistic forces. In this case, we have yet another victory for the capitalistic force; which already has the bulk of the power. The more we allow this to happen the closer we come to having a pure dictatorship. By the way, if we were shifting to be totally socialist (everything decided by the people with equal weight), then I'd be arguing on the other side of the fence. This is a delicate ballence, not a black vs white issue. Becarefull for what you wish... you may just get it.
I would take the worst commercial monopoly over government control any day. A government organization would make the telco's look like friendly and efficient organizations. The enormous overhead would result in higher prices: if not directly, then through taxes.
If govt were to own the wiring, the quality of service would vary from year to year depending on how much tax money is diverted to the War on Something. There are a lot of roads in fair or poor condition around the country, but at least a road is still a road, even if it's a bit rough. DSL or cable, on the other hand, just doesn't work if the lines aren't in near-perfect condition.
Finally, I can think of no justification for siezing control of billions of dollars in wiring from the company that laid it. Regulating a business is one thing, taking all of its assets is another entirely.
Phone lines are a natural monopoly, we just have to accept that. Any attempt at forcing competition is artificial and thus doomed to failure. The same can be said of power and gas distribution. One need look no further than Caliornia to see the spectacular failure of unnatural competition, and if you consider the slow growth and unreliable nature of DSL under this system, it too is an example of a large-scale failure.
To reiterate: phone lines are a *natural* monopoly, and if you think about it, the idea of competition is completely absurd. The only solution is regulation of the kind that is currently done for standard voice lines.
Nix absolutably seriousness.