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The Coming Internet Monopolies
scrm writes "'The Federal Communications Commission is quietly handing over control of the broadband Internet to a handful of massive corporations according to this Salon article." Very important stuff; Slashdot has covered this before, but this is a great article which sums up everything that has gone on over the past few years.
I prefer the Internet be controlled by a couple greedy corporations that by a single greedy government with armed forces to back it up.
Call me paranoid, but I'm sticking with Linux, where I know I'm secure.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Wasn't this obvious that after the dot com massacre
companies with large amounts of capital from traditional sources
would take over?
A word from the CLIT sponsors:
.INF file and the
.INF file and the "Have Disk..." option. These drivers and the behaviors that they exhibit are listed below, along with directions to install these drivers properly.
Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer Wizard
v 02.00
Table of Contents
1. Overview
2. DHCP
3. DNS
4. IP Address Support
5. Suggest IP Address (Autonet)
6. NetWare Support
a. Supported Versions
b. NDS Multiple Tree Support
c. NetWare 5 Support
d. No Novell Print Path
e. No NDS volumes
f. Support for NDS localities
7. Device Discovery
a. Gateway
b. Multi-homed Machines
c. 0.0.0.0 IP Addresses
d. Class A Subnet Masks
8. Driver Support
a. License Acceptance
b. Have Disk Support
c. HP Driver Updates
9. IPX Port Monitor and Data Corruption
10. Printer Names
11. Printer Share Name
12. Error Messages
13. Known Problems Installing HP Printer Drivers Under Windows 95/98
14. Known Problems Installing HP Printer Drivers Under Windows NT 4.0
1. Overview
This Read Me file contains last-minute product information for the Hewlett-Packard
Install Network Printer wizard for Windows 95/ 98 and Windows NT.
2. DHCP
If you try to change just the subnet mask on an HP JetDirect print server that has
been configured via DHCP, you will get an error message while using the Hewlett-Packard
Install Network Printer wizard. Once a JetDirect print server has been manually
configured, it will store the IP address, subnet mask and default gateway statically
instead of trying to obtain them dynamically. Allowing a static change only to the
subnet mask would cause DHCP-configured IP conflicts in the future. For more information
on this subject, see the HP JetDirect documentation.
3. DNS
In a DNS environment, the Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer wizard will
automatically set up the port with the host name rather than the IP address. If you have
a DNS environment that allows Host lookup by IP, but not the reverse lookup, the printer
will never print a page. We consider this environment to be an invalid DNS environment.
To fix the port without changing the DNS environment, view Properties for the printer.
Select the ports tab. Select the port that is in use for that printer. Click Configure
Port. Change the host name to the correct IP address.
4. IP Address Support
Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer Wizard do not support class D IP address. Class D IP
addresses are those addresses with the form of 224.xx.yy.zz
All addresses of the form 127.xx.yy.zz are reserved for loopback testing. They are not valid IP
to be used to configure device on the network.
5. Suggest IP Address (Autonet)
The algorithm for obtaining the IP address for the "Suggest Settings..." button is
derived from the Internet Draft DHC-IPV4-AUTOCONFIG by R. Troll entitled "Automatically
Choosing an IP Address in an Ad-Hoc IPv4 Network". The algorithm for generating the IP
address is to randomly generate an address in the 169.254.x.x reserved address range,
then determine if it is in use on the network. If it is in use, generate another address
in the range. Repeat until an address is generated that is not in use. The resulting
address is not intended for use on the Internet. Microsoft uses a similar scheme for
determining an IP address on Windows 98 and Windows 2000 when the system is in an environment
that doesn't have a DHCP or bootp server, and the system is configured to dynamically
determine and IP address.
6. NetWare Support
a. Supported Versions
The supported versions of NetWare are: 3.11, 3.12, 3.2, 4.11, 4.2. For Novell
queue creation, you must be logged into a Novell bindery or NDS server using a Novell
supplied client requester. See www.novell.com for client updates.
b. NDS Multiple Tree Support
The Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer wizard only provides support for the NDS
tree the user is currently logged into. If a different tree is desired you must quit
the application, change your login to the desired tree and rerun the application.
c. NetWare 5.0 Support
If NetWare 5 is configured for IPX, and an IPX connection is being used on the client,
the Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer Wizard can be used to create an NDS print
queue. If NetWare 5 is configured for TCP/IP and a TCP/IP connection is being used on
the client, the Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer wizard can be used to create
an IP print path. If the client on which the application is being run has an IPX
connection to the NetWare 5 server, and the client is logged in, an NDS queue server
print path will be recommended. If IPX is not in use but TCP/IP is, a TCP/IP print
path will be recommended. In order to create NDS queues, an IPX connection with a
login must be present.
d. No Novell Print Path
The Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer wizard relies upon several DLLs that ship
with the Novell Client for 95 and NT. The application will look for these DLLs and
the associated entry points within them. If any of the necessary DLLs are missing,
or if they do not have the needed entry points (perhaps an old version), a Novell
print path will not be available although other supported print paths will be. If a
Novell print path is not available when you think one should be, try upgrading your
Novell client software to a newer version.
e. No NDS volumes shown in NetWare 4.11
There is a known problem reading the list of available NDS volumes in NetWare 4.11 with
service pack prior to version 7. This problem has been seen in cases were the user
logs into an NDS context that is at a lower level than the available volumes. The solution
is to install the NetWare 4 Support Pack 7 or upgrade to NetWare 4.2.
f. Support for NDS localities
The Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer Wizard cannot recognize localities in the
NDS context.
7. Device Discovery
a. Gateway
Discovery performance will be very slow if your client PC does not have a gateway
configured. To configure a gateway, choose "Network" in the Control Panel, and then
look at Properties for the TCP/IP protocol. An input should appear for entering a
gateway address. See the online help for a more information on TCP/IP and gateways.
b. Multi-homed Machines
Multi-homed machines are not supported. In a multi-homed machine, it is not possible
to distinguish between multiple devices with the same IP address. A multi-homed
machine is a computer with more than one network connection. It is possible for two
or more devices on different networks to have the same IP address. A multi-homed
machine would see both devices and there would be no guarantee that you are
configuring the correct device. In this case, either disable all but the correct
network card, or configure the HP JetDirect print server from another PC that is on
the correct network and has only one network card. This problem may also occur on
PCs that contains both a network card and a dial-up adapter.
c. 0.0.0.0 IP Addresses
Assuming that an IP address is not assigned, a JetDirect-connected printer will have
an IP address of "0.0.0.0" for approximately 2 minutes after a factory reset. After
2 minutes the IP address will automatically be assigned "192.0.0.192". Attempts to
configure a "0.0.0.0" device through an IP print path will fail. You must wait until
the HP JetDirect device has a non-zero IP address before attempting to configure it.
d. Class A Subnet Masks
If the machine running the Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer wizard has an IP
subnet mask of "255.0.0.0" (which is known as a "Class A" subnet mask), device
discovery will suffer a significant performance degradation. To improve discovery
performance you must change your subnet mask to a non-Class A subnet mask.
8. Driver Support
a. License Support
Some drivers require the acceptance of a license. When installing a driver, if a
dialog appears that requests acceptance of a license, you must approve the license
before the application will continue. Failure to approve the license will result in
the application hanging.
b. Have Disk Support
To support new printers or drivers, the "Have Disk" button can be utilized during
driver installation. For the "Have Disk" functionality to work, the media must
contain an "inf" file (e.g. filename.inf). Some driver updates available on the
World Wide Web are in the form of self-extracting archives and are not in a format
that "Have Disk" can utilize. In this case, install the driver before running the
Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer wizard.
c. HP Driver Updates
Hewlett-Packard driver updates can be found on the World Wide Web at:
www.hp.com/go/support
NOTE: This URL is subject to change.
9. IPX Port Monitor and Data Corruption
Some printers may experience data corruption when used with the Hewlett-Packard IPX
Port monitor under Windows NT. These errors may be corrected either by installing an
appropriate hot fix for NT or by installing Service Pack 4 from Microsoft.
10. Printer Names
When naming a printer within the Hewlett-Packard Install Network Printer wizard you
must enter a name in English that conforms to the Microsoft Printer Naming rules
(i.e. what would be accepted in the Microsoft Add Printer wizard). If a localized name
is required, assign the printer name in English and finish the install. Then open the
printer folder from the Control Panel and select the desired printer. Select "Rename"
from the File menu and rename the printer with a localized name.
11. Printer Share Name
Spaces are not allowed for naming printer shared name.
12. Error Messages
Error writing to for : The system cannot write to the specified file.
This error message may appear when attempting to print a test page or during regular
use. It usually means the printer is out of paper or unavailable. Check the printer
and make sure it is plugged in, has paper, etc. If you were running the Hewlett-Packard
Install Network Printer wizard when this occurred, there is no need to rerun the
application. Simply locate the printer in the printer folder and right mouse click on
it. Choose "Properties" and select to print a test page. If you have corrected the
error condition, a test page should now print.
Driver cannot install. Must run printer's setup program.
When installing certain HP printers (see tables below under #11 and #12), the Hewlett-Packard
Install Network Printer wizard may not be able to install the driver. You will receive an
error message stating that you need to run the printer's setup program. The Hewlett-Packard
Install Network Printer wizard may create the printer in the printer's folder despite this error.
The installed printer will not function properly. After the wizard exits, run the setup
program that comes with the printer. You may have to identify the printer as existing on a
local port such as LPT1. Install the printer using this setup program. Now delete both
printers from the printer folder (the printer created by the HP wizard and the printer created
by the printer's setup program). Run the HP wizard a second time. This time choose existing
drivers. You will see two similar printer strings. One will be from the first HP wizard
install and one from the printer's setup install. Choose one. If the wizard exists
successfully you chose the proper driver. If the installation fails, rerun the wizard and
this time choose the other driver. Finally, check to make sure the printer created is the
default printer. This can be accomplished by right mouse clicking on the printer in the
printer's folder and seeing if "Set As Default" is checked.
13. Known Problems Installing HP Printer Drivers Under Windows 95/98
Some HP printer drivers do not install correctly using the printer
"Have Disk..." option. These drivers and the behaviors that they exhibit are listed
below, along with directions to install these drivers properly.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 8100
Behavior: PCL 6 driver will not install. The user will receive a "Spool 32" error.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the PCL 6 driver.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 8000
Behavior: PCL 6 driver will not install. The user will receive a "Spool 32" error.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the PCL 6 driver.
Printer Model: HP Mopier 320
Behavior: PCL 6 driver will not install. The user will receive an error message telling them
to run the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run the printer
installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the PCL 6 driver.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 4050
Behavior: PCL 5e driver will not install. The user will receive an error message telling them
to run the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run the printer
installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the PCL 5e driver.
Printer Model: HP Color LaserJet 4500
Behavior: Postscript driver will not install. The user will receive an error message telling
them to run the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run the
printer installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the Postscript
driver.
Printer Model: HP DeskJet 2500C
Behavior: The DeskJet 2500C driver will not install. The user will receive an error message
telling them to run the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run
the printer installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the driver.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 5M
Behavior: The following drivers will not install properly: PCL Standard, PCL Enhanced,
Postscript. The user will receive an error message telling them to run the setup
program that came with this printer, and then to run the printer installer again.
Solution:
The drivers for the HP LaserJet 5M can not be installed with the "Install Network
Printer Wizard." Please use JetAdmin or Web JetAdmin to install this printer and drivers.
Printer Model: HP Color LaserJet
Behavior: The following drivers will not install properly: HP Color LaserJet, HP Color LaserJet
5/5M (CLJ5FR), HP Color LaserJet 5/5M (HP). The user will receive an error message
telling them to run the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run
the printer installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the driver.
Printer Model: HP Color LaserJet 5
Behavior: The following drivers will not install properly: HP Color LaserJet, HP Color LaserJet
5/5M (CLJ5FR), HP Color LaserJet 5/5M (HP), HP Color LaserJet 5/5M Postscript. The
user will receive an error message telling them to run the setup program that came
with this printer, and then to run the printer installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the driver.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 6P
Behavior: The following drivers will not install properly: PCL Standard, PCL Enhanced,
Postscript. The user will receive an error message telling them to run the setup
program that came with this printer, and then to run the printer installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the driver.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 6L
Behavior: The PCL Standard will not install properly. The user will receive an error message
telling them to run the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run
the printer installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the driver.
Printer Model: HP OfficeJet Pro 1170C
Behavior: The OfficeJet Pro 1170C driver will not install properly. The user will receive an
error message telling them to run the setup program that came with this printer, and
then to run the printer installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the file Setup.exe that came with the printer driver to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the driver.
Printer Model: HP DeskJet 1120
Behavior: There is a port monitor error right after installing the printer. The printer supplied
driver is not supported
Solution:
1. Run the Setup.exe that came with the printer to install the driver.
2. Run the "Install Network Printer Wizard" to install the printer with the driver.
14. Known Problems Installing HP Printer Drivers Under Windows NT 4.0
Some HP printer drivers do not install correctly using the printer
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 8100
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 PCL 6 client driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 5000
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 PCL 5 client driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 4050
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 PCL 5 and PCL 6
client drivers.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 2100
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 PCL and Poscript
client drivers.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP Laser Jet 6L
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 Postcript client
driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP Laser Jet 5P
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 Postcript client
driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP Laser Jet 5L
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 Postcript client
driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP Laser Jet 5
Behavior: Driver will not install. The user will receive an error message telling them to run
the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run the printer installer
again.
Solution:
1. Run the Setup.exe that came with the printer to install the driver.
Printer Model: HP LaserJet 5Si Mopier
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 client driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP DeskJet 895C
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 client driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP DeskJet 890
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 client driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP DeskJet 870
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 client driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP DeskJet 2000C
Behavior: Driver will not install. The user will receive an error message telling them
to run the setup program that came with this printer, and then to run the printer
installer again.
Solution:
1. Run the Setup.exe that came with the printer to install the driver.
Printer Model: HP DeskJet 2500C
Behavior: Windows NT 4.0 shared printers cannot install the Windows 95/98 client driver.
Solution:
1. Windows 95/98 client connecting to the Windows NT shared printer must install driver
manually
Printer Model: HP OfficeJet Pro 1170C
Behavior: No inf file that describe printer drivers.
Solution:
1. Run the Setup.exe that came with the printer to install the driver.
Printer Model: HP CopyJet
Behavior: No inf file that describe printer drivers.
Solution:
1. Run the Setup.exe that came with the printer to install the driver.
Copyright 1999 Hewlett-Packard Co. All Rights Reserved.
-- You are such a fucking fag
Isn't long distance telephony infrastructure also controlled by a few massive corporations? Equal access carrier laws and preventing a single company from owning the whole thing has fostered enough competition to really hammer AT&T, for instance.
wtlw.
how is this news?
ein net, ein pipe, ein company.
We've been hearing it for years. of course if salon posts it and we have to stare at some obnoxious ads, it carries more weight.
If it drops the cost of broadband and increases the bandwidth becuase tehse companys can afford to do it i have no problem... if thats the case
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
" They warn that if the FCC goes through with its plans, cable companies and the Baby Bells will quickly establish a monopoly on broadband service over their own networks."
The quote in the article states that this could give the Cable companies a monopoly on broadband.. This I see as bad because there is no compeition (locally) for cable companies. you get what is there, I see it bad for pricing/monitoring
you get 1 choice of cablemodem (cable company) or 1 choice of DSL (local phone company) or satelite (not great for gaming) and no real competition. Who wants to bet that Innovation in this field is the next to die?
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
The decision in March to let cable companies exclude competitors does seem to violate common carriage and will probably disappear after either a short or long series of appeals.
Likewise with the cable companies deciding what content is allowed on their pipes. I can't see that holding up under scrutiny either.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
broadband may be the exception that makes all the difference in the future. Especially considering the emergence of new wireless technologies. Satellite, while of limited utility to the common user at this time, may also help prevent control from falling into the hands of just a few.
All things in moderation.
Looks like I'll have to use my modem forever. Oh wait, I live in an area without broadband anyway.
$ yes >
Despite those dire warnings, the FCC's policy on broadband enjoys strong support. Companies with a stake in the matter are gung-ho for it, at least for their own networks
In other news, several CEOs were recently admitted to the Mayo clinic with an unusual condition that caused their eyeballs to actually turn into small dollar signs. When asked about his condition, once CEO could not stop laughing manically long enough to answer.
A spokesman for AOL/Time Warner said he was quite willing to accept customers from price gouging DSL monopolies into his price gouging Cable networks. Comcast could not be reached as their network was apparently down yet again.
I read the internet for the articles.
This is why it is imperative that with like 802.11[a|b] start becoming more prevalent. Net access may be a privilege not a right (for now), but it is becoming more and more necessary to have it in order to function in a technological society. Having a few uber-greedy corps control the access we have to this increasingly-critical medium, is becoming less and less acceptable.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
June 7, 2002 | The Federal Communications Commission is quietly handing over control of the broadband Internet to a handful of massive corporations.
In March, the FCC ruled that cable companies do not have to open their networks to competing Internet service providers, or ISPs. A FCC proposal to extend the same exemption to DSL service is pending. If approved, the proposal will allow local phone companies, now down to four "Baby Bells," to deny other DSL providers access to local phone networks. Currently, all DSL providers are guaranteed access to phone networks under the FCC's interpretation of federal telecommunications law.
Telecommunications, cable, and media companies (increasingly one and the same) and their allies in Congress have campaigned for years to deregulate most aspects of the telecom industry. Under the current administration, and the leadership of FCC chairman Michael Powell, those efforts have finally begun to pay off.
The trend profoundly concerns consumer advocates and some Internet policy experts. They warn that if the FCC goes through with its plans, cable companies and the Baby Bells will quickly establish a monopoly on broadband service over their own networks. Consumers accustomed to thousands of competing ISPs to choose from for dial-up narrowband Internet access will be left with just one or two options for broadband service. One worry is that the lack of competition will yield high prices and poor service. But the far more urgent concern is that media conglomerates will use their control over broadband pipes to restrict access to content, information, or technologies that compete with their own content or otherwise threaten their interests.
"The past two decades on the Internet have been a uniquely consumer-friendly environment," says Mark Cooper, research director at the Consumer Federation of America. "Now that is up for grabs. The essential ingredient of the Internet was preventing the owner of the facilities from dictating content. Now, eight cable companies will decide what the public will be offered, not 8,000 ISPs." The CFA, along with the Media Access Project, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the Consumers Union are challenging the FCC ruling on cable broadband in federal court.
Despite those dire warnings, the FCC's policy on broadband enjoys strong support. Companies with a stake in the matter are gung-ho for it, at least for their own networks, and many independent economists and public policy experts also find the FCC's deregulatory approach to broadband enlightened and long overdue. They scoff at the idea that the freewheeling Internet can be controlled by any company or group of companies. And they argue that the current regulations, particularly the open-access requirements for DSL, actually discourage private investment in new broadband infrastructure and technology. Who wants to build a new network -- whether it's DSL, satellite, or "fiber to the home" -- if you then have to share it with competitors?
If the government steps aside, they say, robust competition will develop between different technology "platforms" such as cable, phone, satellite and local wireless, giving consumers plenty of choices and stimulating a build-out of broadband infrastructure at the same time.
"If you have competition between platforms, consumers will be better off," says Randolph May, a communications policy expert with the Progress and Freedom Foundation. "The problem is that [regulation] impedes investment and new entrants to the market."
Further complicating the picture is the massive consolidation in the media and telecommunications industries that has been building for years. That consolidation is expected to accelerate as the FCC throws out limits on how large and broad media companies can grow. Once those limits are gone -- some have already been eliminated -- it is quite plausible that a single media company could control the broadcast television stations, newspapers, radio and broadband Internet access in a single city.
Even some conservatives worry about this concentration of power among the very companies seeking unregulated control over broadband Internet access. Kenneth Arrow, a Stanford economist who won the Nobel Prize for his free-market theories, supports the deregulation of broadband. But he also expresses concern about pushing reliance on the free market too far. "I am worried about concentration in the media," he says. "That does bother me."
The heart of the anti-deregulation camp's argument is that the narrowband Internet owes its phenomenal success as an engine of innovation, creativity and economic growth to government regulations that guaranteed open competition. Current telecommunications regulations, originally written to break up the Bell telephone monopoly, require open access to phone lines for all ISPs and forbid the Baby Bells to tweak with the content flowing over their networks. If such protections are not extended to broadband service over cable, and are lifted from DSL over the phone lines, those against deregulation fear that the openness, innovation, and creativity that made the narrowband Internet revolutionary will wilt in the tight fist of corporate control. Huge media companies -- increasingly fearful of the threat posed by the Internet to their proprietary content -- will jump at the chance, they say, to lock things down.
"There is a fundamental battle going on," said Larry Lessig, a Stanford law professor and an expert on Internet history and policy. "There is a strong political movement to remove all obligations to keep the network open [and] the Internet as we knew it."
On March 13 the FCC commissioners ruled, 3-1, that cable broadband is an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service." By toggling definitions just so, the commission cleverly managed to exempt cable broadband -- widely acknowledged as the key communications network of the future -- from all the rules that apply to telecommunications services under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The most important piece of telecom legislation in 60 years, the act, among other things, requires telecommunications companies to open up their networks to competition.
This open-access requirement is the reason you can choose from among hundreds of long-distance carriers and from among thousands of ISPs for dial-up access to the Internet. Under the law, local phone companies must allow other companies to sell services over the phone lines, even if they compete with the phone company's own services or products. The Telecommunications Act also forbids network owners from meddling with content on their network. This is why narrowband users -- and thus far, DSL users -- can fax, or talk, or download music off the Internet without permission or fear of interference from the local phone company. The rules were written to prevent the owners of the telephone wires from using their power over the lines to control content or stifle competition.
Over the past several years, as cable companies have begun offering services generally considered to be telecommunications -- Internet access, digital telephone service, video conferencing -- there has been an increasingly bitter battle between cable companies and consumer advocates over whether open-access requirements and other regulations that apply to telecommunications should also apply to cable. The March ruling settled the question: Telecom rules won't apply to cable broadband.
The 1996 act defines "telecommunications" as simply "the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received." Consumer advocates argue this should apply to cable broadband. Although the act, and the FCC, have long referred to high-speed Internet access as "advanced telecommunications services," the FCC decided in its March ruling that cable broadband is really better described as an information service. Although technically still under FCC jurisdiction, there are no significant regulations on information services, which include services like voice mail. As a "declaratory ruling," the commission reached its decision without a hearing or public comment period.
FCC commissioner Michael Copps, the lone Democrat on the four-member commission, wrote in his dissenting statement that the ruling amounted to a breach of the Constitution.
"Today we take a gigantic leap down the road of removing core communications services from the statutory frameworks established by Congress," Copps wrote, "substituting our own judgment for that of Congress and playing a game of regulatory musical chairs by moving technologies and services from one statutory definition to another. Last month I remarked that we were out-driving the range of our headlights. Today I think we are out-flying the range of our most advanced radar."
But the FCC is not stopping there.
For years there has been clamoring from all sides that the same regulations should apply to all types of broadband access, although opinions differ on what the rules should be, or if there should be any at all. Public policy for broadband is particularly confusing, because the service is offered over cable, phone and wireless connections, and each of those sectors has traditionally had a separate set of regulations. Chairman Powell has made it plain he would like to clear up the confusion and have consistent rules.
In February, the FCC proposed lifting the current open-access requirement for DSL service. No decision has been reached yet, but now that the FCC has ruled that cable companies will not have to open their networks to competition, and given Powell's enthusiasm for consistent regulations -- or lack of them -- it seems a safe bet the FCC will let the Baby Bells shut out their competitors, too. The logic is essentially that one monopoly deserves another.
The prospect of broadband provision reduced to a few competitors, each with a monopoly on their own platform, scares the hell out of consumer groups that have fought the creation of corporate monopolies over media and information sources for years. Because media conglomerates such as AOL have begun buying up the pipes that deliver the content they produce, the situation seems even more ominous. In short, consumer advocates worry these companies will mess with content in order to force the Internet to serve their own interests. They argue, for example, that a cable company will never allow streaming video to flow over its cable broadband lines if it competes with its cable television service. Even the right to "click through" to the Web won't be guaranteed, they warn, and companies are likely to turn the Internet into walled gardens of their own content -- think AOL with no escape hatch to Google.
"The path the FCC is currently on will change the Internet that you know," said Cheryl Leanza of the Media Access Project (MAP), a public interest telecommunications law firm. "Currently, rules prevent phone companies from controlling content in any way. There is no content protection for cable, and the FCC has proposed to take away the protections on content discrimination for DSL. The impact will be breathtaking."
Like consumer advocates, free-market supporters trumpet the importance of competition among ISPs, and fear a monopoly on broadband. But they think the access requirements and the other rules in the Telecom Act stifle rather than secure competition, innovation and investment, and the monopolist they are concerned about is Uncle Sam. "I'm a lot more worried about John Ashcroft than John Malone," quipped Gerald Faulhaber, chief economist of the FCC from 2000 to 2001, referring to the attorney general and to one of the top power brokers in the cable industry.
At the heart of the argument that the free market will save us lies the belief that competition between DSL, cable, satellite, local wireless and other technology "platforms" not yet imagined will be more than enough to guarantee that consumers will get the Internet when, where, and however they want it. Even if one company enjoys a monopoly on one of those platforms, the theory goes, it will not amount to a monopoly on high-speed Internet access overall. Better still, they say, encouraging a horse race between platforms will mean that billions of dollars in private investment will pour into broadband infrastructure and equipment.
"It's clear the FCC is moving toward putting cable off-limits to regulation [under the Telecommunications Act], and I think that's a great idea," said Faulhaber, who now teaches economics at Wharton. "I wish Michael Powell would do more to encourage platform competition. As long as people think this will be regulated, no [competitor] is going to jump in."
Competition between platforms would indeed steal an awful lot of thunder from those making dire predictions that mega-corporations are about to capture control over the next generation of the Internet. If my cable company won't let me click through to the Web or get streaming video, I can get DSL, or a satellite dish, or a wireless connection.
But the likelihood that robust competition will actually develop for a majority of households remains a hotly contested question. As of June 2001, the latest official statistics available from the FCC show 2.7 million U.S. households using DSL, 5.2 million using cable modem, and 200,000 broadband via satellite. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. zip codes (not necessarily households) had more than one broadband option available. Twenty percent of zip codes had no broadband service at all.
Advocates of broadband deregulation tend to be very optimistic about the potential for interplatform competition to improve; its critics are not.
The pessimists say that cable is too far ahead, that DSL doesn't have the bandwidth to compete with cable on key applications like video streaming, and that satellite broadband -- besides its tiny market share -- works well for downloading but not uploading. "In the abstract, no one would deny that 10 different platforms would be good," said Leanza of the Media Access Project. "But it's naive to assume that most people will have more than one platform available."
Optimists point out that DSL is catching up and network upgrades would make it just as fast as cable modem, that satellite is a real option just needing time to develop, and that new options like local wireless, fiber to the home, even networks over power lines, will take off if local, state and federal bureaucracies would stop standing in the way.
In the most extensive independent study of broadband to date, the National Research Council came to a mixed conclusion regarding interplatform competition. The report found that interplatform, or "facilities based," competition, is important and should be encouraged. But it also predicted it would not take hold everywhere and should not be relied on exclusively for consumer protection.
"The report found that facilities-based competition is important, but don't assume you're going to get it," says David Clark, a computer scientist at MIT and a coauthor of the NRC study. Some locations, like big cities, might get three competitors, others two, and some just one, he said. Nevertheless, Clark cautiously endorsed the current FCC policy of deregulation.
"The gamble is to get broadband out there, no matter what it looks like," Clark said. "You might try for a level of competition you don't get. You might gamble and lose. But I would say, get it out there."
That is a gamble consumer advocates are not willing to take. In their view, the best possible outcome of the bet is bad, the worst case catastrophic. "Even if three top platforms reached every household, we will be trading hundreds of [ISP] choices for three," says Leanza, but she thinks even that number is too much to hope for. "Deregulation can only work if competition is in place," Leanza says. "You can't have both deregulation and monopoly, and that is where we are headed."
Viewed in the context of the FCC's campaign to deregulate media and telecommunications in general, the concerns about who will control broadband become even more urgent. With quite a bit of prodding from the courts, the FCC has been tossing out or rewriting rules, called "ownership caps," that limit how large and broad media conglomerates can grow. The cap on how large cable companies can grow is gone. So is a limit on how many broadcast television stations one company can own. A "cross-ownership" rule forbidding cable companies from buying broadcast television stations has been scrapped. Another that forbids ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market is under review, as is a restriction against owning more than one broadcast television station in the same city.
Analysts agree the regulatory changes already made will soon unleash a new wave of consolidation in the media sector. Among companies that deliver broadband, the consolidation is already under way. In December, AT&T agreed to sell its cable division to Comcast, in a deal valued at $72 billion. If approved, the combined company will have 27 million subscribers, or about 40 percent of the cable market. EchoStar and DirecTV, the top two satellite television companies, have also announced plans to merge. The combined company would essentially have a monopoly on satellite television. The two companies argue they need to merge in order to compete with the likes of AT&T Comcast.
"At the end of this, one company in a community could own the newspaper, several TV and radio stations, the cable company, the principal ISP -- maybe even the phone company!" said Jeff Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "This stands the First Amendment rights of citizens in the digital age on its head."
For those who, like Chester, are worried that deregulation will result in a dangerous consolidation of power among a handful of media companies in traditional media like television, print, and radio, keeping the Internet out of their control has become all the more urgent. In their minds, the battle for broadband could amount to democracy's last stand. "This is a war for the heart of the Internet," Chester said. "Will a few telecoms be allowed to seize control of it, or will it be preserved as a democratic resource? It's David versus Goliath."
The cable companies and Baby Bells disagree, arguing that there is sufficient competition both within and between platforms and that more can be expected. AT&T's cable division has voluntarily agreed to let EarthLink sell cable modem service over AT&T-owned cable in Boston and Seattle, and it is promising to open more markets soon. But skeptics say the company has been dragging its feet on opening access for years and is giving token access now to head off mandatory requirements as a condition of its pending merger with Comcast, another major cable company. As a condition of the merger between AOL and Time Warner last year, the Federal Trade Commission required the combined company to open its lines to at least three competing ISPs.
But, oddly, the same cable corporations that oppose mandatory open access for their own cable networks are among the most eloquent and spirited advocates of continued mandatory access for the telephone lines. Both AT&T and AOL Time Warner have asked the FCC to maintain open access for DSL -- a market both would like to crack -- arguing that the rules protect consumers. Both companies oppose placing the same requirements on their cable networks, markets they would like to protect.
"For decades, the FCC has successfully promoted the openness of our nation's wireline infrastructure," AOL Time Warner lawyers wrote in comments submitted to the FCC on its proposal to eliminate open-access requirements for DSL. "It understood that by ensuring non-discriminatory access to wireline networks, consumer welfare would be optimized."
Hearing AOL laud the benefits that open access offers consumers on DSL, despite its opposition to such access for cable, triggers eye-rolling fits among consumer advocates who want open access for both cable broadband and DSL. "This double standard illustrates what's at stake," said Chester. "Media giants are manipulating broadband for their own purposes -- not the public interest."
Asked why AT&T supported open-access requirements for phone lines of local carriers, but not for its own cable network, AT&T spokeswoman Claudia Jones said: "Cable and telephone are different animals. There is ubiquitous competition for cable. Satellite is really bringing competition to the cable market. But there is virtually no competition in the local telephone market. The Bells can't get what they wanted in Congress, so they are looking to the regulators."
"The hypocrisy is outrageous," said the Consumer Federation of America's Mark Cooper. He thinks getting regulators to overrule Congress is exactly what AT&T's cable division has done by successfully persuading the FCC not to apply open-access requirements to cable broadband.
In the end, the battle over broadband is about who has control over information. One unlikely but eloquent spokesman for the importance of fair access to information is FCC chairman Powell himself. Speaking at the Broadband Technology Summit in April, an event sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Powell said:
"You name it, and information plays a vital role in making a decision, making a commitment, taking a risk, or agreeing to part with something of value. Often in these transactions the information one has will determine if the transaction is fair, or whether someone gets taken -- the taker having superior knowledge about the deal."
For those who are convinced Powell's policy on broadband could permanently tip the balance of power over information toward massive corporations, the irony of his statement must be almost unbearable.
But catastrophe is hardly assured. Perhaps technology and the free market will come to the rescue. They have before. What is certain is that by deregulating broadband, the FCC is taking a tremendous risk that could have unforeseen consequences. A risk few people even know they are taking, fewer still understand, and only four get to vote on.
The scenario is not new. In 1981, Congress quietly eased restrictions on savings and loan houses, allowing them to invest their federally insured deposits however they pleased, even in, say, junk bonds. In the mid-1990s, the SEC softened rules that had prevented accounting firms from consulting for their auditing clients. Aside from a few stray government watchdogs, a handful of Beltway bureaucrats, and a clutch of corporate lawyers, those obscure but radical experiments in deregulation went unnoticed -- until it was too late.
This will only serve to motivate some clever person with coming up with a broadband solution that doesn't require participation from the cable or telephone companies.
While wireless isn't there yet, it will be soon.
When TimeWarnerAOL (or Disney or whoever else ends up as the big players) decides you shouldn't be seeing this or that website, or sending this or that data down the wire, you'll care.
Remember, these are the same companies who bought the DMCA - they do not have your interests in mind.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
The article describes oligarchy, not monopoly. "Monopoly" has more emotional impact, and it is used just for this effect. Either that, or those with limited vocabulary do not even know what an oligarchy is.
This might be nitpicking, but for this item, the error is right there in the title (the word "monopolies")
Yes, but read the article.
In order to be a more interesting read , Salon takes a "sky is falling" approach to points 2 and 3.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Is full commertsialization really a good idea?
I believe that some resources should be maintained by government. Especially resources that are vital to security of country.
The trend profoundly concerns consumer advocates and some Internet policy experts. They warn that if the FCC goes through with its plans, cable companies and the Baby Bells will quickly establish a monopoly on broadband service over their own networks.
not to say this is ok, but isn't it likely that the monopolies would face the same fate as AT&T and get broken up into lots of baby bells again?
I think this is especially the case seeing the US now has a precedent for breaking up big telecommunications carriers with monopolies. Getting the first one is always the hardest.
-- james
Somehow I can't see net access or even cable tv access for that matter a right?
Where in the constitution can you assume that or justify that the above is inaliable or even a civil/moral right ?
I remember watching C-SPAN as a bunch of cable customers actually got there congressman involved in house hearings of the price of cable tv. Like is an important national interest. Um tv is free to begin with if you haven't noticed. I have failed to live anywere or been anywere were I couldn't get at least one major network.
...a handful of massive corporations
I was reading the article on salon.com; and I noticed that the banner was about msn! wow!
667 The Neighbour of the Beast
Deregulation is a great thing. For the most part, regulations have actually limited my telecomm/net/etc choices:
- cable franchises to prevent alternative cable companies.
- Ameritech supporting regulations to keep AT&T from offering local service.
- regulations that censor satellite cable TV content, thus making me get cable TV year after year.
---------
The intent of some of these stifling regulations is indeed to prevent the big boys like AT&T from getting more power. However, the actual effect has been to prevent competition.
"'The Federal Communications Commission is quietly handing over control of the broadband Internet to a handful of massive corporations "
SHHHH!!! They are doing it quietly dammit! Pass it only in notes with codes or you'll blow the whole thing!
On March 13 the FCC commissioners ruled, 3-1, that cable broadband is an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service."
if narrowband is a telecommunications service, how can you argue that broadband isn't? It's just a faster extension of the same basic principles.
The FCC needs to pull its head out of its ass. It's blipping into an entirely new intestinal reality
-- james
Sorry, just one network does not cut it.
But it never happens that way
"If you have competition between platforms, consumers will be better off," says Randolph May, a communications policy expert with the Progress and Freedom Foundation. "The problem is that [regulation] impedes investment and new entrants to the market."
All this talk about Competition, when they are limiting how many players there are on the field. This same rhetoric has been spouted on so many things in the past, only for it to come down to "Monopolies are good for security and the well being of the economy".
Why CAN'T I have my own Pipe, and control access to it Myself? Why do I need an ISP, when all I want is a big fat connection with plenty of speed?
You keep going until you die..."Me".
I know in my area (that being Atlanta), one cannot get DSL without having a landline or a Cable Modem without getting cable
I was wondering if anybody sees this as the same type of monopolistic behavior MS was convicted of when they bundled IE with the OS?
For example: I have no need for a landline as I have a cell phone plan that gives me more than enough minutes, yet I have to shell out an extra 45 (lets face it, one can barely get a bare bones phone line for less than 45 bucks when all the extra taxes, fees, etc are tacked on) for a phone line so I can have a DSL line. A phone I really never use. Thus my DSL cost is really 85 bucks instead of just 40
isn't this the one of the issues this article might allude too? shouldn't the government bring a lawsuit against the cable/telcos accusing them of bundling? or forcing their un-related product on us just as MS was accused of?
Just wondering.....
When clicking the link in the story, I was sent to a page with a huge animated image. It went like this:
(blurred animated shot in skin tones)
Some text floating over the picture:
"Oh... Yes! Oh yes!"
"Oh... Lower!"
"Lower!"
Then the text "Need new glasses? Buy progressive glasses blah blah"
It was just funny to see how it linked to the story about broadband internet, when the ad content was so similar to what it's mainly used for.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Oh I have had 3 non-bell reseller phone companies thus far at my homes. NON OF THEM PROVIDED GOOD SERVICE. They deserved to go out of business. They didn't know the networks, cause they didn't build them. They didn't know how to operate the network ( phone lines ) cause they didn't build them. Everytime I had to call up my local bell and have them take back my phone and isdn service before it work work correctly. Being a utilities ain't all that easy and you consistantly get asked to let other use the service you built without making a promise.
there is in 't much we can do about is there? look at all the bells when they broken them up..most of the mini bells have formed bigger companies in the effort to survive competition. Plus the lobby and pac effort is hugh, so forget about trying to claim monopoly. My suggestion is to bite the bullet and hope sanier form of government comes into power?
Okay, first stop misusing the word "momopoly", it is defined as ONE entity controlling a market.
Second, figure out what market you are talking about. If it is high-speed data access then one company owning the local/regional/national cable infrastructure is not a monopoly IF (as is the case) there are DLS and other providers within that territory. Lookup the famous monopoly case against Celophane, the Celophane manufacturer won because the market was wrapping material, not the fact that one manufacturer makes one wildly popular product.
Look folks, the more we keep bastardizing the language the more confusing it will be to communicate.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I'd just like to mention that it seems that just about every other story in Salon's tech and business section is getting reprinted here. Actually looking back it's every 4th story or so. At a certain point, wouldn't it just be wiser to link directly to Salon's tech and business page? I'm not trying to troll here, I just notice it because I happen to read salon before slashdot each morning.
This has been a long time coming. There have been signs of this kind of behavior all throughout this industry and others.
With the privatization/deregulation of the Internet, Energy etc, companies are so busy snatching each other up (think Banking, Telcom, AOL/Time Warner, Compaq/HP etc), that they aren't really improving or changing anything except how you trade stocks.
I think in 20 years, there will be ~10 stock symbols on the entire stock market - you'll have TEC (The Entertainment Company), TTC (The Technology Company), TGC (The Energy Company) etc... It's getting really stupid.
The point of this? After the Internet has been handed over to these X companies, there will ensue a mad scramble for each other's assets until there is only TIC (The Internet Company), probably run by Steve Jobs or AOL....
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
More and more internet access is a nececary thing to people and companies alike. I think govenment's should treat the backbone connections like a road system, public funding and public access. Think about the economic effects of all highways having unregulated tolls, do we want this for our data?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -Plato
Isn't long distance telephony infrastructure also controlled by a few massive corporations?
Yep, and back in the day it was all controlled by ONE company, unntil that one company ASKED to no longer be the monopoly utility for LD service.
It was the government that made ATT a regulated monopoly and it was business that introduced competition.
once again, anti-capitalism, anti-capitalism, anti-capitalism.
Terrible how these big evil greedy companies are just screwing us in yet another way.
An alternative way of looking at this is that SOMEBODY needs to provide this service and I dont think mom n' pop ISP has the capacity to handle this. I don't think anyone is planning on providing the service for free as most slashdotters think it should be. Its not a 'right' if other people have to pay for it.
Also, I think the term monopoly is bandied about far to much these days: Now, eight cable companies will decide what the public will be offered Doesnt sound like a monopoly to me!
Look at it this way... the overall product being delivered is broadband internet. Unlike a "traditional" monopoly, where one company controls all elements of one product, broadband internet is a product that can be delivered by several different means that go outside the normal definitions of a monopoly.
You can get broadband from telephone systems, cable systems, wireless systems, etc. Each of these systems are independant technologies with their own sets of regulations. Interestingly enough, they are also technologies where the broadband internet is a second use application, i.e. phone calls over DSL, television of cable internet, etc.
Its a new media, and an interesting era, and change is needed to diversify the methods that we are able to access the overall "information service". Personally I think its a good move... all of these dire predictions over regulation of content are ridiculous... no one would ever stand for it. The bottom line is that new rules are needed for a medium that doesn't apply to the old set. It may not be the best move, but at least its a move.
The majority of consumers can take their pick from 2,3 & 4 broadband providers right now (not resellers). WiFi and 3G will add additional choices. Seems like competition to me - how would a few shoddy DSL resellers improve the situation? I know I *loved* my DSL through Flashcom & Northpoint.
Another good reason to use the Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol (yeah, correct link, it's *also* on Salon.com - how convenient). The details here.
Transmitting IP Datagrams over Avian Carriers simply has to be a way to avoid these mega corporations getting control over these common, often fiber based transmission techniques.
But I'm sure there will soon be a Pigeonsoft breeding huge amounts of pigeons for the sole purpose of pissing of others. And of course, the technique of training them to carry datagrams will be patented. And if you try to understand how it works, you'll be sued by the PPAA (Pigeon Protocol Association) for "infringing on intellectual property". They will use the PMCA (Pigeon Master Copyright Act) to support this claim in court.
That's the world we're living in.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
While we criticize China, Saudi Arab, and Singapore for their "Net Censorship", the fact is that the US government also wants to censor the Net.
It's just that there are LAWS in the United States that guarantee freedom, such as Free Speech and such, and Uncle Sam can't do what China or Singapore have done - direct censorship.
Therefore, to achive their goal of censoring Internet, the US government uses another tact - Censorship Through Monopolies.
You see, if you have LOTS AND LOTS of Internet Providers, it is next to impossible to have any meaningful censorship, for anything that ISP A censors, ISP B can provide, and so on.
But if you have MONOPOLY controlling the access of the Net, then censorship will comes easy. As long as the Monopoly controls the access for ALL Americans, whatever the Monopoly provides, the Americans, no matter who they are, have NO OTHER CHOICE !
Difficult times awaiting the Americans, in term of FREEDOM OF ACCESS.
Let's hope that someone from America, be it individuals or groups, stand up in opposing this slowly but surely encrouching censorship.
It is said that if you throw a live frog into a pot of boiling water, the frog will jump out of the boiling water.
But if you put a frog into a pot of cool water, and you slowly turn up the heat, the frog won't know the difference, and before it realizes, the frog gets cooked.
Let's hope that the Americans won't get cooked.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This has been goiong on for a while now, and in all but a few big cities, a single company has the monopoly on broadband... If it's even availible.
Something we need to realize is how the companies veiw this situation (which the salon article does a wonderful job of NOT exploring). Most comapanies who provide broadband service are not making any money off of it yet. The demand is high, but the cost of bandwidth is currently higher. Many of these companies see the only way that they can turn a profit is to be the sole provider in a service area; which, to an extent, is viable.
I saw another comment which touched on the long-distance carriers. This is a perfect example of what may or may not go wrong. On one hand long-distance service is cheaper and more versitile than ever, but on the other hand these companies have had a similar situation to their current on for some time now, and it has only been recently that the large carriers are providing the 'low, low rates' that one sees today.
It's hard to say whether or not deregulation like this could bolster the industry. On one hand the demand exists everywhere, while at the same time the per capita demand is often not great enough to warrant a company to provide service in an area (as with ruby ranch). On the other hand, deregulation could spawn an explosion of service in areas which the cable companies and 'baby bells' (which aren't small in any sense) in areas they once thought to risky to warrant the investment of time and materials.
I'm all for it, because I know that a big part of what's holding back many telco's and cable companies in rural areas is the fact that they have to share their lines (which means they make the investment, but get no return). These companies could make an investment and have a guaranteed return, (provided their business analysts have studied an area well enough).
Hopefully, regardless, cable internet service will be availible in my area by the end of september, after 6 years of 'cable for christmas'.
Linux is dead.
LU
Well, I know what it'll eventally happen.
We'll have a few large mega-corps do ISP jobs and backboning strcture. Well, eventaually be slapped down by a shitload of consumers, finding out they can't even have "servers". Lots of people run P2P, well that's half server/half client.
I see bandwidth being charged in the same wasy as electricity is today. However, in the 'packet' system, you pay only for packets sent out, not in (EG: the Snail Mail system). Since somebody's paying to send those packets to you, they're paying. That also eliminates hackable heuristics on wether packets are a flood/DDoS/whatever.
Then the government decided to trust-bust them. What did that get us? About five hundred new area codes (and that was just in California), and huge delays to get any changes in service or new lines.
I'm not saying that the Internation Internet Corporation would necessarily be a Good Thing, but in some instances there is something to be said for monopolies, IF they act in the best interest of the network (like Ma Bell did), and IF their prices are federally controlled, because they have the muscle to see that changes that need to be made get made, without dealing with a lot of BS from eight hundred other competitors.
There will be several "competing" giants, but in your neighborhood, you'll only be able to subscribe to one of them. They'll tell you the price, take it or leave it. All ports will be blocked on your end, so you won't be able to put up your own "content". It will only exist so that you can connect to commercial sites.
Also, as in the first century of the phone system (and most current cable TV systems), it will be illegal to connect anything not on the approved list. This list will include the latest releases from Microsoft, and nothing else.
If you don't like it, well, you don't have to use it. Connectivity is a privilege, not a right.
Then, after maybe a century, we'll have some new laws making it legal to connect your own equipment that runs unapproved software. At that time, we'll see a huge expansion of the Internet, as the first innovations in many decades hit the market and the companies upgrade the lines to more than 100KB.
Remind yourself that if the old Bell monopoly were still in place, we'd still be using the old black rotary phones, one per customer unless you pay a surcharge for an extension line. Also, note that right now most of the cable companies are blocking port 80, preventing customers from being "producers" and limiting them to a "consumer" status. And we've read the reports that MSN has been buying up ISPs and blocking email access to everyone but Windows users.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
If it drops the cost of broadband and increases the bandwidth becuase tehse companys can afford to do it i have no problem
And that kind of short sightedness is exactly the problem. That is only good in the long term. These companies aren't giving you cheap access because they want to, it's because they get business out of doing it. Once someone has an actual monopoly the prices shoot up and it's too late to do anything about it. As long as there are a few corporations, and they are actually competing, things wil be ok. When they coordinate to price gouge or when one gains control of the entire market then the consumer is screwed.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
Remind yourself that if the old Bell monopoly were still in place, we'd still be using the old black rotary phones
Years before it fell, I was using beige Touch Tone phones.
In the US, the government controls the corporations, and forces the corporations to pay a massive financial tribute to the government (corporate taxes far exceeed corporate welfare).
If corporations controlled the government, there would be no corporate taxes, and no regulations on corporations. Both are far from the situation right now.
If you don't think corporations don't have armed forces, then you have never met an angry hord of lawyers
Lawyers derive their power from the government. To clarify, they have no power unless a government backs them up.
"All the better to monitor you with, my dear."
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
...for unfiltered IP access. As the article so insightfully points out, the issue isn't cost or even availability, it's that pretty soon the companies that rent you a cable modem or DSL connection will be the same companies that own (or have an interest in) a whole stack of content. These are the people who bought the DMCA, the people who want to buy DRM legislation like the SSSCA in its various incarnations. Now they will control the creation, the ownership, the distribution and the delivery of content. So much for the original intent of copyright law.
Ask yourself this: when your choice of access is a subsidiary or partner of either Disney or AOL-Time Warner, why would they even need to buy legislation? For your safety and convenience, they can just block everything except port 80, map that to their caching proxies, and firewall off any part of the 'net that challenges their profit models.
You think they won't or can't do it? Why not?. The FCC's position is that competition should be across technologies, not within technologies, and they seem to be lumping cable and DSL in as one technology. The cable/DSL providers could offer (e.g.) filtered 2048/64 cable modem or DSL for a giveaway price of $10 a month; if the competition is $100 a month 512/128 satellite service, or a range limited and contended 2.4Ghz wireless service, then that will just about kill off the idea of unrestricted residential (not consumer, dammit) broadband. That's quite apart from rate/bandwidth capping and billing depending on whether you're downloading content that you've bought from your provider, or if you're daring to go out onto the big wide internet.
Yes, I know that we've no right to demand cheap unrestricted content, and that we should vote with our wallets and so on. But here's something to think about. If you truly believe that an unregulated free market will take care of this, then you wouldn't object to a shell corporation representing the Chinese government buying AOL-Time Warner or AT&T-Comcast and owning 40% or more of the cable networks in the USA, right?
I use that example because the free market, in its purest sense, means that anyone who can afford to buy or do something should be able to do it. The assumption is that purchasing power is obtained through persuading people to give you money of their own free will, and that your actions will continue to be along those popular lines. There are holes big enough to sail an oil tanker through in that theory, the biggest being that once you get in a position to demand money, or you sell a service that has no effective competition, or (my example) you are spending the taxes you collectd from taxing a billion people, then you can continue to leverage that hold indefinitely, especially if there's a large capital investment cost to entering the market.
Capitalism suffers from exactly the same problem as communism: it works great in theory, because it assumes that people are basically good and honest and will cooperate with the spirit as well as the letter of the system. In practice, any system of human governance or interaction requires constant vigilance to prevent tyranny, even if that tyranny comes wearing a pair of big friendly round Mouse ears. I think we need to be asking our government if they understand that the whole point of the Constitution and of the American State is to prevent situations where We, the People can be oppressed and (de facto) taxed without representation. I'd say we're well past that point already; the only question is how far we'll push it before we either see mass civil disobedience, or we tear up the Constitution and start over with a political version of an End User License Agreement, complete with all the usual disclaimers of warranty.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
So you either pay up, or go without. How many here would actually give up the internet in protest? Round about none I'd wager.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
How services run for profit cost people less than the same service provided by a non-profit institution? Negative effects of no competition? Well... What if massive services such as the Internet were administered cooperatively by multiple groups who compete for "bonuses"? Whoever provides the best performing section of the network for the best price wins a pay increase. Yes, it would make it that much easier for the G-Man to install surveillance equipment, but private companies already are complying. Plus, if mega-corps didn't make unfathomable amounts of money off of what has become an essential element of our right to Free Speech, perhaps they wouldn't have the money to enslave the Third World and get everyone pissed at us...therefore no reason for terrorists to terrorize. Perhaps a bit simple, but IMHO something to look at.
We got the new area codes because of new phone users. It had nothing to do with the break-up..... unless the break-up caused there to be more useful things to do with phones (like modems and cell)
oops. I had half a vocabulary more. I did mean oligopoly NOT oligarchy.
Another example of the abuse of "monopoly" comes up about every time Microsoft is monopoly. I guess if you say "Microsoft monopoly" enough times, people will believe it, even though the company is not one (it is instead one large popular choice among a dozen or so competing, but less popular choices that have as much as 10% market share)
Seemingly unbeknownst to many in the USA we actually have access to the Internet here in Europe. I believe it is available in Australia and Japan too.
Certainly in the UK we have similar sorts of difficulties with broadband access, with an effective monopoly supplier in the shape of British Telecom. However, I wouldn't glorify this with an article containing a line like "BT is taking over control of the Internet". Hyperbole anyone?
That the Internet and the networks that happen to make up the Internet themselves are fundamentally two different animals.
Remember the roots of the word. An internet is a network made up of a bunch of networks.
The reason the internetworking in general, and the Internet in particular, work, is because we all agreed on some standards, and a global addressing scheme that ensured unique, routable address space.
Far more important in the long run is making sure that address allocation is impartial and open to everyone. Even now this is erorded.. for reasons that seem unavoidable at present.. but it's still eroding.
You see, before, you could get a block of address space assigned to you, whether or not your network was hooked to anyone elses. Why would you do this? On the mere POSSIBILITY that one day you would hook it up.
Everyone could get unique address space, and network together at will.
Now.. you ahve to prove your precise need for those addresses, and you must get them from your isp. This makes sense if you consider the increasing scarcity of addresses.. but there is a quality that is being lost.
My point is.. we have to make sure that, regardless of who is offering what, that global IP routability is still there, and that Joe Farmer, if he invents a new transmission method, can get routable address space.
Separate platforms exist for separate purposes, and have separate capabilities. While I am as enamored of Bluetooth as anyone it is not the same as a fat cable pipe.
The FCC rulings do not (as I understand them) prohibit one company from owning multiple "platforms" If the local wireless net, and cable, and DSL all come from the same source then nothing has been gained.
In any location where one company has a monopoly on most services such as broadband, etc. Where is the incentive to develop a new "platform"? If a town has cable and DSL controlled by AOL then I have little or no incentive to develop a wireless alternative there. The startup costs will be (as they are for anything) huge. In order to break even (until I get a lot of subscribers) I will have to charge more than AOL can charge. So, while I am depleting my cash reserves trying to undersell them they are a) selling at a fraction lower than me, and b) blocking my ads from running and my web page from working on "their" lines and c)running news on their service saying that I torture kittens in my spare time. Then once I'm gone they can jack up the prices again.
Where is the incentive to invest in infrastructure going to come from? Once you have a service that "works" and are facing no competition, why upgrade? Why waste your cash reserves on making life better for your captive audience when you could be working on expanding your audience.
Monopolies are only good for themselves, and the economists that they pay.
What is needed is one company controlling the local infrastructure, and charging for access to it. The access cost would have to cover the cost of installation, maintenance, and upgrades.
Best Slashdot Co
Can someone explain to me how Internet2 relates to all of this. Will Internet2 rely on the same pipes, or are they building a whole new network, pipes and all?
Can I bum a sig?
I see why, in this day and age, I am still dialing in with a friggin' modem.
Local gov'ts generally give cable companies monopoly rights, rights to tear up streets, etc.
Well that's your problem right there. You're looking for a government regulation to fix a problem created by another government regulation.
grep -ri 'should work'
from the article Now, eight cable companies will decide what the public will be offered
Thats 7 too many companies for a monopoly! People say monopoly way too much.
You get to vote for your government every 4 years. Once they're in, 4 years is long term. Corporations, on the other hand, have to keep you happy every day, forever. Corporations, especially these days when brands are so important, are massively concerned with what people think of them, and if they're unpopular, they'll change.
Oh really? If what you say is true, then please explain to me how microsoft's behaviour is consistent with your argument. If you have time, I would also like to hear how the MPAA and RIAA are concerned with what people think of them, and I am anxiously awaiting them to change for the better...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Or a lack of increase in coverage, anyway.
I couldn't care less about broadband monopolies, as long as someone starts offering service in my area. At this point, I think I'd turn to AOL if they could get me off of dialup.
Yep, and back in the day it was all controlled by ONE company, unntil that one company ASKED to no longer be the monopoly utility for LD service.
It was the government that made ATT a regulated monopoly and it was business that introduced competition.
Boy, isn't this some spin!
ATT agreed to divest of their LOCAL phone monopoly as part of a settlement to an anti-trust action brought against them by the DOJ. Seems a little upstart named MCI complained that ATT did anti-competitive things to prevent their entry in the long distance business.
They never ASKED to no longer be a LD monopoly. That was forced upon them by the anti-trust suit. In their defense, their settlement offer was unexpected and they could have dragged it out for years and years. But, it seems they thought that they could compete well in certain technology areas that had been denied them before.
In return for this settlement, ATT got the right to compete in other technology areas, like computers, that they had been denied due to Telecommunications and Anti-Trust law up to that time.
Their computers and software flopped completely. How you could fail at making money selling UNIX during it's growth haydays of mid-80s to early 90s is beyond me. Their computers were actually interesting, but somehow they couldn't market them.
Their telecom/networking products, now mostly Lucent Corp., did have some success awhile back, but now Lucent is doing pretty poorly.
I see two paths before us. One has broadband in every home at acceptable rates, which can be given due to monopoly status.
The other has broadband dead in the water, because the monopoly in charge doesn't wish to do anything with it.
Only the WAP of life can free what will save us now!
I am very disturbed about the way the Internet is being commercialised (WWW I mean). I mean with these unlimited and unceasing pop-up adds. Spam which seems endless and now this. I clicked the link to read the story. To much of my surprise, the page loaded was not the story, but a whole full page of advertisment with another (small) link telling me to 'click here' if I wanted to read the story.
I am getting really fed up with these irritating and very frustrating ways of companies (or individuals) dumping all their unwanted advertisments on the unsuspected online person.
I don't know about the rest of the civilised world but, here in Belgium, it's illegal for companies to let you pay for unwanted advertising. But, I am doing this daily (I need to pay for the traffic I generate. Since these (automatic) advertisments generate traffic, I need to pay for them. Granted, maybe it's not alot of traffic they generate, but frankly that is irrelevant).
Hoping mankind will get it's punishment it so sorely need, I greet thee farewell.
Or just act like one.
Nationwide fiber-optic networks going for pennies on the dollar! Worldcom's price/book ratio is only 0.08 right now. That means you can buy the company Bernie Ebbers so lovingly assembled for only eight cents per dollar of net assets.
So, if anybody has $4.4 billion to spare, email me and we can be oligopolists too!
Milo
A few points:
Firstly, I think this trend is a very bad one, but not a sustainable one. It think the medium term effects of this regulatory change will be obvious and will make even fairly jaded political entities scramble to change it back. Firstly, these regulatory changes stand to make most of the providers without last mile networks either go out of business or cut back considerably, something that will be very visible in the current economy. Secondly, a lot of the people who are using broadband now, second-tier adopters, will be pretty damned disillusioned if the providers start screening content. Even if they don't give up on broadband, they'll probably stop evangelizing their mainstream, less geeky friends. I think that sort of thing would slow adoption to a crawl, which the opposite of what the FCC thinks its doing.
Mainly, I think its important to remember that this kind of policy change can be reversed just about instantly. I think the providers know this too, and will not bet the farm that abusing the new state of affairs will not cause such a reversal from future FCC appointees.. In many ways, we'd be much worse off if all of these changes had come through Congress.
Secondly, and more contrarily, I think its rather strange to classify a market media monopoly as a First Amendment violation. The First Amendment has nothing to do with publication. It guarantees that the government will not restrict your voice. It does not guarantee that the government will regulate the market to make people publish that voice. Media monopolies are wrong for many reasons, but the First Amendment as written is not one of them
Point #1 sucks, but is more or less a non-issue, because it happens to be the status quo in most areas.
:)
Point #2 is the scariest from my perspective - if this is implemented, Covad, and probably most of the independent ISPs that use them, are out of business. Unless the LECs are willing to resell (don't bet on it), my company, a medium-size carrier-class ISP, will see one or more of its largest billing customers get regulated out of business. Lots of people will lose their jobs if this becomes reality.
Point #3 is scary, too, but unless the FCC takes back the 2.5 GHz band, unlikely, unless that band becomes too crowded to be usable for IP traffic.
The largest logical failure in the FCC's line of thinking is the assumption that all three platforms will be available in all areas. Cable has shown the most promise for wide-scale deployment, but is hampered by the lack of competition that begets "because we can" policies (no servers or VPNs allowed, port blocking, etc.). Why? because unless DSL is available where you live, the cable companies truly have a monopoly. If the same thing happens to DSL, something tells me that the idea of running a server on a residential broadband line will become a faint memory.
My hope the the future is wireless - there's no way that any one wireless cellphone provider will have a monopoly of any given area, and hopefully the same will be true with data. I just hope those providers will allow servers.
The idea with platform competition - that is to say, that cable broadband competes with DSL - is that it's only partially true. There are high costs to get equipment, so that once you have cable, for example, you are unlikely to switch to DSL (with the attendent $200 installation if you can't find a deal). Also, since all of the broadband services look at their competition only within their platform when it comes to services and prices, the services tend to be poor and the prices high, since most broadband providers have no competition within their platform and service area.
On the other hand, I suspect that this will drive the community network connections forward, which is a good thing. Many developers in my region (DFW) are now building their developments with the homeowners' association controlling a preinstalled network with usually at least a T3 out (for about 100 houses), and sometimes more. All the houses are pre-wired, and you pay for the service monthly, at generally very low rates.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Under current conditions, anyone who can get a good SDSL connection (for instance, Covad/Speakeasy, available in all the major population centers) can, for a bit over $100 a month, run a medium traffic Web server, ftp, a listserv, dns.... You can't do that over cable, and you can't do that over telco ADSL.
Now, you can do that by renting space at a server farm somewhere, but then you'll also need broadband to administer that at all efficiently. On the low end you can match that $100 a month, but in the middle range - say you want to have lots of content available, multiple URLs, custom configurations of Apache and whatever, you're talking about something over $200 a month for a dedicated server, plus your own broadband - tripling the price. So you significantly raise the bar for citizen participation in Internet publication. Where's the public interest in this? It's like giving the dominant newspaper control of the price of paper and ink.
As a small note: cable isn't even in the picture if you don't have cable - and some of us out here have no interest in $35 a month for basic cable - the effective cost of cable broadband is that much higher if you don't want that crap.
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The large ISPs also promote spam. Consider Qwest, Verio, and UUNET just to name a few. These companies are so large they know they cannot be blacklisted, so they just keep on selling the pink contracts and to hell with the rest of us.
Unforunately, at this point it look like only a national law will even begin to bring those companies to heel (and a law will only affect companies with a significant business presense in the country that has the law...). I hate saying that - I dislike the "There outta be a law...." types, and any anti-spam law will have severe negative consiquences, but this is the direction we are being driven in.
www.eFax.com are spammers
As a local example; If FCC deregulates DSL services I would be forced to give up my local ISP and use Qwest the ILAC. Not good. I run my own server from a second IP via my local ISP. Quest would shut me off from running my own server immediately, raise my ISP rate and I believe they are blocking common ports such as 80 for listening services. So much for the home based web server.
I'd be forced to co-host or use a virtual domain giving me limited physical access to my server, or making certain custom configurations difficult or completely unavailable if I go with the hosting solution. As DSL is an unregulated service here in Oregon I can't even cry to PUC. No solution would then exist for a private individual to run a small server from home in my area without incurring an unnecessary debt.
I believe Qwest also has a download limit, something like 2 or 3 gigs a month after which you start paying something per MB depending on your service plan. My current ISP does not. Unlimited bandwidth. While I'm a fairly heavy user my total download since 5/02 appears to be around 10GB, while upload is at less then 200MB. Not that high but higher then what Qwest would allow without incurring further monthly overrun costs. I can see no financial reason for Qwest to uncap their download limit unless it was forced on them, which would be rather contrary to deregulation. Local cable? hah, AT&T's Orwellian user policy, upload bandwidth is terrible, no local servers, etc. I've been informed that they scan common service ports and will terminate service for violations. In parts of the area I'm located in service is simply terrible while others get good service. Crap shoot and your forced into a year long contract.
To sum up. Deregulation of DSL IS going to suck if it happens. Another step back for broadband as there are no worthy alternatives. That second unregulated IP I discussed was and is my linux and networking education. I've run several flavors of GNU/Linux, configured firewalls, IDS, PHP, Apache, and on and on. Because it was an option. I'd like others to have that option in the future. My local school districts are pushing linux onto desktops which probably means a whole hoard of kids are going to be enlightened to a network OS, they should have the same opportunity I did to try this networking thing, maybe find some value in using the net for something other then passive browsing and IM.
The article mentions that there are was no public forum for debate over cables deregulation. Will there be for DSL? I'd be interested to know what the small ISP's providing DSL service have to say about this. Is a local ISP such as dsl-only going to survive? Just look at the name! Not a chance. More money going out of the local economy and into the hands of a corporation I hate and dispise for repeatedly giving me sloppy customer service and terrible technical support. And think, I'm just one example... sigh.
From the article:
Two decades of consumer-friendliness? At least half of that has been
more like uncertainty, instability, greed, and sheer hell.
First, Let's refer to...
Marriam-Webster
1. exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2. exclusive possession or control
3. a commodity controlled by one party
Notice the word exclusive as in exclusive ownership, exclusive control, exclusive possession
Litmus Test
Q. Do the Baby Bell's have exclusive control over the publicly owned telephone telecommunications infrastructure?
A. No, They currently have Primary Control now as they are required to share thier control with other providers.
Q. If the current FCC proposal allowing Baby Bells to deny access to the network access, will the Baby Bells return to thier Monopoly status?
A. Yes, The current FCC proposal will give EXCLUSIVE rights to the public infrastructure, making the Baby Bells Regional Monopolies. IE, No more Covad or Flashcom.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Like I want THAT popping up, even momentarily, when I'm at work! I want to *keep* my job after all... Do Salon ads now need a NSFW warning?
Freedom: "I won't!"
Apropos AT+T in the computer world, they innovated too much and too soon. Things from the plan9 OS to the rc shell to the sam text editor to the Acme whatsamabobit were arguably major improvements upon the mainstream, and were unarguably innovative. Not Microsoft style innovative but Edison style innovative. Main stream OS', to the extent they have changed since plan9, have approached plan9's design (distributed computing, network transparency, replacing monolithic mainframes with peer special purpose machines - one to do networking between LAN and WAN, one to serve up home directories and authenticate logins, one to store runable binaries, one or more to do long cpu and ram intensive tasks etc. that act to the user like one coherent computer). The ideas are maybe just too wierd, not what people are used to in computing, too new for them to make money on them, but we may just talk about them someday re networking and program design the way people now talk about Xerox PARC regarding UI (try out the unix port of sam, rc or wily, the unix port of acme, to see what I am talking about- you will have to RTFM, they all take a while to figure out, but they are all definitely innovative. If they were just released yesterday, they would still be innovative).
...and this lie crawls out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'
I think you will find that corporations are far more answerable to customers and even small shareholders than governments are to voters.
You're clearly too young to remember AT&T before deregulation. You couldn't plug anything into a phone socket that they didn't own. The popular variant of their marketing slogans was "AT&T: we don't care, we don't have to."
The FCC is a corrupt PoS. Not only do they "control" who gets to broadcast what/how/when and where, they want to limit the wire bandwidth to only companies that pay them the most money and sit on the FCC's "advisory" boards. What a self-serving crock of crap!
Shit, why the hell don't municipalities start non-profit NGOs to install/maintain another set of wires (or fiber)? Maybe with another type of utility, we can get the Bells off our collective backs. Btw, who needs local telephone service anyhow? It seems that alot of cell phones are cheaper than long-distance in most cases, and with a high-speed conxn, VoIP would be essentially free.
I vote that we scrap the FCC and start over, because they are NOT serving the people, only themselves and the big oglopolies.
P.S.: "Deregulation" means fewer rights for consumers, and more market power for "Baby" Bells (SBC == 4 Baby Bells).
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Don't get me wrong. I am not in favor of monopolies, and I'd rather that they would have ruled that the current telcom rules applied to cable.
---- however ----
5 or 10 years ago the average person on the street still didn't -get- the internet. They didn't understand the fundamental difference between a broadcast media and an interactive media.
If this ruling was proposed then it would have made sense to be up in arms because customers wouldn't know what they were missing when providers served them AOL or a lookalike.
Today however, many americans understand. The've all been amazed first hand at the variety and 'fresh-ness' of the internet. Do you think they would let that go away? Don't you think people will vote with their feet against the first such monopolist that started restricting content.
Isn't that the advantage of a free market. The government doesn't have to get it and companies that don't get it will suffer.
I just don't think that this will destroy the spirit of the internet. And with money to be made perhaps the providers will finally run fiber that last mile into everyones living room.
Just a thought.
You're clearly too young to remember AT&T before deregulation. You couldn't plug anything into a phone socket that they didn't own. The popular variant of their marketing slogans was "AT&T: we don't care, we don't have to."
AT&T before deregulation was a government-sanctioned monopoly. You're just proving my point that governments don't need to care what people think about them. After deregulation, AT&T improved drastically, because the market forced them to.
By definition, a private corporation in competition with other private corporations couldn't have survived behaving that way. Witness the intense competition between and well-staffed call centers of the various mobile telcos.
...is just setting themselves up for nice cushy jobs in the private sector when they leave the government service. How much does anyone want to bet that Michael Powell winds up a senior VP or on the board of one of the bigger internet companies or a telco when he leaves government.
Letting individual municipalities sweat these issues out separately would be a mistake, since few have the legal/technical expertise to grapple with them effectively. A national organization would be much better equipped to come up with the legal framework which the individual local governments could adapt to their tastes.
lots of newbies posting today...
But the far more urgent concern is that media conglomerates will use their control over broadband pipes to restrict access to content, information, or technologies that compete with their own content or otherwise threaten their interests.
In a democracy, those who control the flow of information control the country. Grassroots movements can't get started without free communication, and as the Internet is becoming an increasingly used political sounding board, this deregulation will give the media companies more power than we realize. Unlike the government, which is required by the Constitution to allow free speech, the media companies have no such requirement - they can deny access to anyone without any justification whatsoever. Those with views unpopular (say Jews, Christians, or Muslims...) or critical of the ISP, may find themselves silenced without any legal recourse.The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The rules were written to prevent the owners of the telephone wires from using their power over the lines to control content or stifle competition.
These rules don't seem to be very effective in the case of DSL. Verizon has had a nasty habit of cancelling CLEC orders for DSL or deny them on the grounds of being too far from the CO.... and then have the nerve to offer DSL service to the same people that couldn't get it though DirectTV, Earthlink, et al.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Large corporations love governnment regulations, because they do far more damage to small businesses than they do to the large corps.
Say what? Not in the US. Exxon "loves" the regulations it paid so much for violating? Arthur Anderson "loves" the accounting standards it violated? GM and Ford "love" the CAFE standards? Companies "love" minimum wage regulations that force them to fire workers and do the job a lot worse?
However, you do make a good point that regulations tend to kill the smaller companies first: survival of the fittest
If AOLTW were to block its competitors from sending content to its users that would be a gross violation of anti-trust laws. I for one am becoming less libertarian and more conservative the more I contemplate posts like yours (which is a good thing, most conservatives do support anti-trust law).
Oh really? If what you say is true, then please explain to me how microsoft's behaviour is consistent with your argument [Corporations, on the other hand, have to keep you happy every day.]
Microsoft keeps the vast majority of users happy every day. To the Slashdot community, the users may be "Fat happy and dumb", dupes, or fools: but they are there and they are happy even if they don't know better.
This could start a real flaming, but...
By defining broadband as an information service, not a telecom service would allow co-ops/neighborhoods/communtities/etc. to install their own copper or fiber networks and then tie this to the backbone.
By using VoIP they can also provide telephone services.
And then they can tell the telcos to go jump.
And if there was sufficient programming available on the internet, the cable co.s can jump too...
Witness the intense competition between and well-staffed call centers of the various mobile telcos.
Are you referring to cellular phone companies? If there was such competition to make them better, why are they so overpriced (costing 4 times what they do in Germany, for example)?
...uhhhh.... wait. I forgot the ridulous high fees that the government makes the cell phone companies pay. Like with gasoline, where we pay something way much higher than the real value due to taxes (Note: I'm not saying there should be no taxes on gasoline. Just that the taxes should be the same as on everything else)
The word "monopolies" still is quite wrong for the title of the item. Monopolies is a plural, more than one, so there have to be at least two. If each has at least 70% of market share, you up with these "monopolies" having at least 140% market share. IF there are 5 of these monopolies, they control 350% of the market!
is a site that follows proposed bills (and rulings) and articles affecting technology.
If you are interested in things like this, take a look.
It's still under development but it's very useful.
. Unlike the government, which is required by the Constitution to allow free speech, the media companies have no such requirement
No, the media companies, under the Constitution, are allowed to say whatever they want. WITHOUT guys like you dictating that their speech must include the speech of different political groups that you like.
Under globalization, people are better able to make decisions and to cooperate with each other without silly things like international borders and greedy governments who want to control getting in the way.
There are a bunch of government fees and regulations that make phone calls cost a lot more than they could right now.
Why don't you have more cable companies in your area? Regulations keep them out. At least that is the way it is in my area.
The local township has a "franchise" thing going to allow only one cable company. This is not a good idea. Is it even Constitutional? What if the township had a "franchise" to allow only the Wall Street Journal to be sold... no other newspapers allowed?
When will you libertarian slashdotteri figure out that the biggest threat to our liberty is not government, but corporations?
From a Wired article:
The role of wireless phones in traffic accidents has become a hot debate, as the number of cell phone users has shot up from a few hundred thousand in 1985 to more than 121 million today
Assuming a MAX use total of 10 million numbers per area code, wouldn't this increase have required 12 new area codes? And this is just for cell phones, and max use of all numbers in an area code does not ever occur by a long shot.
AT&T before deregulation was a government-sanctioned monopoly.
AT&T had acheived monopoly status by the 1930's. It chose to submit to a set of business restrictions (primarily other markets, e.g. computers) in order to be allowed to remain a monopoly in 1956. It was hardly a passive entity, before or after.
By definition, a private corporation in competition with other private corporations couldn't have survived behaving that way.
By definition, a monopoly isn't in competition, leaving very few mechanisms for "forcing them" to do anything.
"Well that's your problem right there. You're looking for a government regulation to fix a problem created by another government regulation."
That was asked for by a corporation.
Consolidation is OK so long as individual users mostly have choices on an individual basis. Despite media consolidations, there is more real
media choice today than ever.
Not long ago, I saw a talk on broadband connectivity here in Texas, especially with reference to rural communities; there are alot
of mighty small and isolated communities here in this state. Surprisingly many had access to broadband. Communities of any size at all had access to actual choices - two of cable, DSL, or wireless. Communities which only had one of those did so only because of widespread satisfaction with the 'monopoly' provider. It seems reasonable to believe that competition will spring up if satisfaction thins with that provider.
And, of course, everybody has access to satellite, but it doesn't seem to be needed in surprisingly many places.
Here in Austin, we have monopoly cable companies, and we have DSL mostly provided by a single cable company. Two near-monopolies in terms of individual technologies, but they do compete. Their prices are competitive; they don't dare let their service departments go too far south; they are always running TV ads blasting each other.
And if it doesn't work out, we can always reregulate. No matter what people say about money and politics, democracy will not be suspended
as a result of this decision.
I have been following this stuff a lot lately.
The FCC director seems to be completely insane in my book.
There was a reason the Bells were broken up, there is a reason IBM was held up in antitrust committees,and Microsoft is yet another example.
If you give someone the power to take advantage of others they will do it. You don't place a steak in front of a dog and expect him not to eat it. The heads of corporations are just rich dogs and the steak is our money.
Think about it, the people the FCC are trusting to be honest are the same people that lie to people before lay offs (Bellsouth, Time Warner), and do underhanded things like prioritize their telephone installers to stop competition in DSL providers, (Ameritech for example). We cannot trust large corporations.
If you don't believe this, you are either on the board of directors of a major corporation, or you are blind.
When will the government stop pandering to the whims of a group of "elite billionaires" and start listening to the constituency?
I guess not until we fire them.
> ATT agreed to divest of their LOCAL phone monopoly as part of a settlement to an anti-trust action brought against them by the DOJ. Seems a little upstart named MCI complained that ATT did anti-competitive things to prevent their entry in the long distance business.
MCI was engaged in a process of "cream skimming". It would lease ATT circuits in bulk and resell telephone services between lucritive markets. Calls between non-lucritive markets were handed over to ATT. MCI had a fine plan, all the profit with none of the obigations of providing a network with full nationwide coverage.
However, ATT mandate required they "spread the wealth" by providing things like Universial Access. ATT was required to provide everyone, everywhere, roughly equal phone service at roughly similar prices.
Net-Net ATT was facing a world where the likes of "MCI" claimed they had a "right" to engage in profitable business. Fine. But that argument was forcing ATT into a world where all the wealth it was required to spread was being skimmed away.
You just can't maintain a 10 mile rural phone circuit on $20/month, if you aren't making money to pay for it elsewhere else.
So, the key issue for ATT was that MCI's theory had made the ATT business model untenable. ATT had to force the issue, or die, and precipitated the Anti-trust suit. They got exactly what they needed, and indeed asked for. Namely, an accounting seperation between Long vs. Local distance.
The local wireing plants were broken into the Baby Bells, and a "Universal Access Charge" (among others) now appears on the Long Distance bills of MCI, ATT, and everyone else.
The settlement was designed to put ATT on a path level with everyone else.
It sounds like a recreation of old Fido-net.
Your example shows how it would be difficult for "giant corporations to take over the net": the technology is so ubiquitous now.
Local gov'ts generally give cable companies monopoly rights, rights to tear up streets, etc.
Could the local goverment then also say that they have to share their lines? Local goverments are far easier for citizens to have an effect on than the FCC, so it might actually be better to deal with things from that angle. Just some thoughts,
-Greg
You're argument for allowing Cable companies a monopoly is contigent on the following series of events happening.
1. Cable begins selling Voice-over-IP to all customers.
2. A significant market is going to switch to an inferior voice service. (CLEC's had hard enough time selling the same service as Bell's let alone an inferior one)
3. FCC will reconsider it's decision despite an earlier decision exempting VoIP services from paying into the Universal Service Fund, which funds telephone access in remote areas.
4. The Telco's won't figure out a way to circumvent this despite they figured out how to circumvent the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which bargained deregulation in exchange for providing access the public infrastructure they are entrusted with.
How can you even begin to assure that any of these events will take place, let alone all of them? How can you ensure a community will have all three services, Cable, DSL, and wireless? How can you ensure prices will be reasonable for the areas that lack competition (All Cable, no DSL, no Wireless)? What would keep any of these services from all agreeing to ban certain uses (Kazaa, FTP server, etc.)?
To recap, your plan puts all it's eggs in the VoIP basket, and is naive for thinking the Baby Bells and Cable companies will play by the rules.
At a minimum, we should ATLEAST keep making the Bells provide access to the infrastructure as they've been doing for the last 4-5 years. That's AT A MINIMUM, because you just can't trust them.
While we're at it, here's a list of people you can't trust.
* Politicans
* Monopolies
* Corporations
* The Media
* Musicians
* Comedians
* Religious Icons
* Advocacy Groups
* Anyone who just wants you to trust them
* Anyone who identifies with a political party
AND
* Anyone over 30
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I just didn't touch on it.
IPV6 will give us address space, yes..
but will it be too late? Who will allocate that space? Will it simply be handed out by the current heirarchy of control, or will we once again be able to freely get routable space assigned to us without hassle, regardless of who our ISP is?
The Salon article uses the phrase "facilities-based competition", which we have now in DSL markets, where the owner of the facility (the ILEC) has to open the facility (and its copper pairs, etc) up to CLECs like Covad.
I would be willing to forgo facilities-based competition, like the FCC is considering, only in exchange for "packet-based" competition, whereby the monopolizer of the facility must without prejudice allow all IP packets to travel through their facility. Specifically, under packet-based competition, ILECs and other providers of IP connectivity would not be able to use their monopoly/oligopoly on connectivity to gain an advantage in services or content that runs atop the IP layer.
Bob Frankston advocates this, but I'm afraid that he's not cynical enough about government's tendency to kowtow to big corporations.
Specifically, it is easier to fight to keep a right one already enjoys (to buy from facilities-based competitors like Covad) than to fight for a new right (to buy services from packet-based competitors).
Thus, I will fight to keep facilities-based competition.
perhaps they wouldn't have the money to enslave the Third World and get everyone pissed at us...therefore no reason for terrorists to terrorize.
Huh? The ones enslaving the people in the third world are the governments of those countries. There is no reason to be pissed, no reason for terrorism. In case you hadn't noticed, the big reasons for the terrorism are
1) we have a different religion than they do
2) we stand in the way of their goal of extermination of a certain group of people with a religion they detest strongly.
http://www.guerrilla.net/
Check out what the people here have to say as its becoming more relevant every day.
-Greg
China, being a socialist country, is largely based on slave labor. It is not a free market where there are slaves involved.
J*sus H Chr*st is that first f*cking full-screen ad annoying.
Would I ever patronize any company that ever used such an advertisement?
Never.
Will I ever go back to Salon, after that?
Never.
To hell with 'em...
All you folks who are so in love with pop-ups and pop-unders and all that cr*p need to wise up.
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
... and I am not on the board of a major corporation. I'm just well informed about economics and current civics.
Trash, if you look at it overall corporations don't pay taxes [darden.edu].
Did you read the article you gave a link to. Must not have. It said that a few corporations did not pay taxes. The article also argued that corporate taxes should be eliminated. If there were none, why fight to eliminate them?
They make a good case too: when corporations are taxed, they make us pay, or are forced to lay off workers.
the federal budget is top-heavy with corporate welfare. Counting tax breaks and....
Internal contradiction. They blew it in the quote you gave. Tax breaks are not welfare! They never are, they never can be. How is it "Welfare", a gift, for the government to steal less of what you own? Are you thankful when a robber takes your wallet but does not take your shoes.... do you then call your shoes a gift from the robber?
-- billions more than the mortgage interest deduction. (Which itself benefits the people with the biggest mortgages
Actually, it "benefits" anyone who pays a mortgage. As if it is a "benefit" for the government to exploit you less and keep more of what you earned. The vast majority of the people who "benefit" from mortgade deductions are non-wealthy invididuals (not the rich, not corporations)
So, since corporate welfare goes only to big corporations [commoncause.org] that means it's entirely possible (qualitatively) that their tax bill is zero
Only if you count things that are not corporate welfare (which you are trying to do). Also, corporate welfare, relatively small as it is, goes to corporations of all sizes. Not just big ones.
I don't understand this argument, but I see it a lot. Opening the network to competition should not mean that AT&T fails to make a profit on the infrastructure they've built. Look at it this way: AT&T builds a railroad to carry minerals from a mine they own. They have two different investments: the mine and the railroad. Now other mine operators want to use the railroad. Naturally, they expect to pay. But AT&T refuses to carry their cargo at all. Under the DSL rules, AT&T would be compelled to provide transport for the other mine operators - not at a loss, but at a reasonable profit. This should not harm their ability to recoup on any investment in the railroad. If it harms their ability to recoup on the mine, then the mine was badly planned.
In any event, the last-mile wiring infrastructure remains a monopoly. The issue is whether that facility should be rented (not given away) to all parties on a non-discriminatory basis, or whether the owner of the infrastructure can leverage its monopoly in last-mile transport to create a monopoly in a totally different market, ISP services and upstream transport.
To me the answer is clear; in fact I believe that any company granted monopoly privileges to provide last-mile transit should be banned from providing upstream internet access - they should merely rent capacity to ISPs who would sell the complete package to customers. That would eliminate the current blatant conflict of interest. I don't see how it would prevent investors in such last-mile infrastructure from recouping investment.
If this had happened a few years ago we'd all expect a padded room-censored Internet.
FCC - Pandora's box is already open, this is a pitiful attempt to close it. Next time I'll vote Democrat
Don't vote Democrat. They want to tax the Internet to hell in the U.S. The liberal democrats gave us our first major attempt to censor the Internet (CDA). They even have as a major leader a deluded boob who claimed that he actually invented the Internet. You could always vote for Nader, who wants total government control and censorship of the Internet.
Control of information is a big cause for concern. This pbs.org page goes into one famous example of a media (newspaper) big-shot, William Herst. The best paragraph is the following: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., remembers his father asking Hearst why he preferred concentrating on newspapers, with their limited, regional appeal, rather than spending more energy on motion pictures and their worldwide audience. Fairbanks recalls Hearst's reply: "I thought of it, but I decided against it. Because you can crush a man with journalism, and you can't with motion pictures." All you need is one person in power with a vendetta, and people who were interested in lower costs will change priorities.
This is not my sig.
There are more publications now than ever before, after all, and networks involved with TV news have more than doubled since the advent of cable.
Too bad there is no Constitutional right to privacy. These things would be easier to fight then.
After long and carefull thought into the situation here is the solution as I see it. Companies can only be trusted to do whats in their best interest, which is to make money. This includes every dirty trick in the book that maintains the revenue flow. To prevent companies from unethical behavior and to protect consumers we create laws and regulations to keep them in check. Unlike people companies are not natural and thus shouldn't be afforded every curtasy, they exist at our sufferance.
Since we are able to more closely dictate the behavior of companies we hold them to a more narrow context then what we currently do. The cable and telephone companies own, maintain, and lease the lines. They are forbidden from originating any information signals across these lines, save for testing purposes.
The cable and telephone companies then lease the use of the lines to the customer who gets to decide where the other end of the line is connected. They have no say in the contents transfered over their line.
Any routing/switching company that wants to abide by the laws and regulations can provide the actual routing/switching/data services in an area. The consumers get to decide.
Large multipurpose companies are a economic drain that corrupt the goverenment and screw the cosumers. In nature things are bound by natural limits, companies know no limits and gravitate towards a monopoly.
However, ATT mandate required they "spread the wealth" by providing things like Universial Access. ATT was required to provide everyone, everywhere, roughly equal phone service at roughly similar prices.
Net-Net ATT was facing a world where the likes of "MCI" claimed they had a "right" to engage in profitable business. Fine. But that argument was forcing ATT into a world where all the wealth it was required to spread was being skimmed away.
You just can't maintain a 10 mile rural phone circuit on $20/month, if you aren't making money to pay for it elsewhere else.
As I said, you're spinning it. To suggest that ATT "ASKED" for there to be competition in LD is bizaare. They certainly never would have gotten out of the monopoly business had it not been for the anti-trust suit.
ATT could have and were expected to argue that what they were doing to MCI was fair for years, but they folded right away and went in for the breakup plan. Everyone assumed that ATT was going after the lucrative communications/telecom/computing business that they were denied before.
"precipitate the Anti-trust suit"?? MCI brought the anti-trust action. I don't know where you get your history from.
What are you, some kind of Libertarian historical revisionist, trying to prove that big monopolies will always voluntarily break up and that it's only big government that we should be afraid of?
Your arguement is essentially
1) Companies want money
2) The consumer gives them money
3) They must appease consumers for money
1 is correct.
2 They can get money from other companies. For example Disney could pay the ISP to allow more bandwidth for downloading their stuff.
3 In the real world not even close. If their are only 8 companies (sometimes called an olgapoly) controling everything, they will probably tacitly agree to not out do each other since this would lead to "destructive competion."
They will all benfit if they all agree to not lower their prices. (This can often be an unspoken thing. They say let's not lower our prices because our few competitors will do the same and we will gain more market.)
It is different if there are more companies because if company X controls 0.01% of the market and it lowers its prices then it would increase its market share because its competitors would not respond to this because company X has an insignificant affect on the market.
I have been talking about pricing but everything I said also applies to quality of service.
Companies also don't need to improve products if they use fraud and high quality marketing but thats not as relevent to what we're talking about and this post is already to long.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
So are you suggesting that I just "vote with my wallet" on PG&E's brownouts? Obviously, I have no choice as there is not another electricity company serving the greater SF area.
...and THAT's the point of the article. Capitalism also implies that substitutes are available. What if they aren't - and can't be? Then what?
Monopolies is just a company that makes a differentiated product. That is all.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
It's strange. While the power industry progresses, the telecom industry goes in the direction of the power industry's history. Apparently FCC has never heard of the old adage of "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it."
:wq
From the article: [Economists] argue that the current regulations, particularly the open-access requirements for DSL, actually discourage private investment... Who wants to build a new network if you then have to share it with competitors?
So the only way we can have broadband is if monopolies build it. Righto, and gambling casinos will never work either, because if people don't win they won't come back.
It would be a tremendously difficult task even to organize a beginning to such a network, because while most of my friends are geeks of some nature NONE of us are hard-core electronic geeks; I'm the closest to such that I know, and thus far I'm only scratching the surface.
Wake up and take a look at the world around you, for the love of Mike; in a complex society we all depend on someone else to take care of some aspect of society's infrastructure.. We can't all be master plumbers, as well as civil engineers, as well as primary school teachers, as well as lawyers, as well as InterNet protocol designers. Kudos to you if you've found enough kindred souls to avoid the problem, but to most of us it isn't a trivial task to create such an alternative and the problem is a real one we can't sidestep.
Who wants to build a new network -- whether it's DSL, satellite, or "fiber to the home" -- if you then have to share it with competitors? If the government steps aside, they say, robust competition will develop between different technology "platforms" such as cable, phone, satellite and local wireless, giving consumers plenty of choices and stimulating a build-out of broadband infrastructure at the same time.
What a load of dung! In the first paragraph it assumes that there is not enough profit incentive to deploy high speed access{kinda funny when here where I live TAXPAYERS PAID to deploy the Fiber which makes high speed access offerable and it IS the consumer demand which decides broadband success, not restrictions against consumers}; and when you get right down to it, we all know the fcc suxs and are part of an empire that seeks to kill FREE SPEECH and is part of an evil death star which will reap what it sows. This is the Globalization Plan, ie.. make the USA like China, then it won't matter what country you live in!
--The "Free Market" is so laughable of a lie, when you have a bunch of greasy knuckleheads constantly screwing consumers and markets up completely; I'll roll my own telecommunications system out thank you very much!
Relying on "platform competition" would be like relying on horses (dialup), cars (wireless) and airplanes (satellite) to unseat railroad monopolies (telcos) about a century ago -- sure, they all provide transportation, but only one of them has infrastructure built and suitable for low-cost service while others have to deal with basically a lot of empty space and technology that makes sense only where infrastructure is built, ot for some limited uses.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
don't fall for that guys troll bait
DOJ did not initiate the action, ATT was already a government sanctioned utility
the pieces you added are accurate too, but at the onset, ATT was a LEGAL monoploy
you need to find a better source for your timeline than 2600 Magazine.
ATT initiated the action to no longer be a regulated monopoly, not the DOJ
perhaps you are confusing them with the failed DOJ action against IBM
I'm thinking, why would you lie about something that's so easily checked? Doesn't make much sense, really.
This page has a timeline. Note that it states that the DOJ requested the breakup with the initial filing in 1974, 10 years before the actual breakup occurred.
yea, great, put up some dorky home made page
got anything authoratitive like something saying ATT never asked to be broken up?
Do you dispute that the anti-trust action was brought in 1974 and that they broke up in 1984?
When, exactly, are you saying AT&T asked to be broken up? 1973? When? Where's your sources?
You want something more authoritative?
How about this where AT&T says:
Clearly the suit in 1974 precipitated the breakup.
Or, you can read here where Joel Klein, head of Antitrust litigation for the DOJ talks about the 1974 suit:
- "While the Justice Department can't promise any consumer benefits that might result from its suit to break up [the company], it is sure of one thing: This is the largest antitrust action ever filed. So much for the mentality of modern-day trustbusters. As long as they can tackle the biggest of all 'big businesses,' what is the difference whether the massive expenditure of federal money and effort is likely to cut anyone's . . . bills?"
By now, you may have guessed that this is an editorial about the Department's monopoly maintenance case against AT&T, a 1974 editorial as a matter of fact;"Where is the problem that justifies risking possible damage to the efficiency of a vital part of the U.S. infrastructure; damage to the investments of innumerable small investors and pension fund beneficiaries; possible damage to an important research and development enterprise? If there is a problem that justifies all this we can't find it. Maybe it is because we prefer to deal in economics, rather than politics in such matters."
So, clearly the 1974 suit was aimed at a breakup of the AT&T monopoly.
Which is the whole point. The Government, through the anti-trust suit, intiated the breakup of AT&T. Not some libertarian fantasy where monopolies voluntarily disperse under the control of the unseen hand.
Authorities Wednesday were looking into claims that 12- and 13-year-olds obsessed with the game have lined up to bet on World Cup fixtures -- something perhaps unsurprising on the gambling-mad Mediterranean island .
But local law says punters must be at least 18, the Philelephtheros daily reported.
"If bookmakers started asking every single client for an identity card they would probably go bust," the father of a 14-year-old told Reuters.
Encouraged by a string of wins, his son has been betting almost daily since the World Cup started.
"I don't know what I am more angry at, the gambling or the winning. We haven't spoken in a week," he said resignedly.