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FCC Abandons Linesharing, Kills DSL Competition
raygundan writes "According to Reuters, the FCC today decided to greatly curtail the laws that force incumbent phone companies to share their lines with their competition at cost. This does not bode well for companies like Covad Communications who provide DSL using phone lines to bridge their data networks over the "last mile" to customers. The new rules do force line sharing as long as companies are willing to offer voice service, but this essentially states that if you are not already a phone company, you cannot offer DSL. The existing rules will be phased out over three years. There is still some hope, however, that a federal court might strike down the FCC ruling. Oddly, the news agencies seem to be reporting this as a minor change to the rules, rather than an end to all non-ILEC competition in DSL." The FCC's front page has links (luckily PDFs as well as Microsoft Word files) about the decision, including statements from each of the commissioners.
It's times like this I thank GOD I'm a a secret agent man.
Erm, I mean, a Canadian.
I'll start dusting more places on the bench off
for the inevitable flood of layed off tech
workers.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Ridiculous.
What else is for sale?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Bottom line is if they do this they'll have a Jolt crazed tech geek attacking their office with a Nerf(tm) crotch bat. I need my Speakeasy DSL service.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
It is all done over the phonelines, but there many many DSL companies competing (although only a few get mainstream attention). The competition gives the 'hardcore' internet users much choice, but in the end the DSL network is all owned by BT.
Between this and the initiative to loosen the rules on media ownership, it's clear that he's got a soft spot in his heart (wallet?) for monopolies and oligopolies. And golly, he's a Republican! Who'da thunk?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
But it's not too much of a problem, as you can still get such services over Cable TV wires. Here in the UK the two main methods of consumer broadband Internet are over the phone lines (ADSL) and over cable (using a DOCSIS modem).
Non-issue? Sounds like it.
E000-VB14-G8RY
ok, so what did line-sharing do for me anyway? I am in, what I consider to be, a large suburb of Minneapolis. We have about 60k people. I was unable to get QWest DSL b/c I am over 8 miles from the CO (don't ask me how).
My two other options were (ATTBI which is now over $60 w/o CATV, or IDSL through IIRC Covad for $90).
So what did it do for me? Nothing. I am still stuck with a service I am not entirely pleased with (the speeds are fine, it's the price increases and the conversion to Comcast that I am not happy about).
If I understand correctly, all Covad (or whoever) would have to do is offer voice and it wouldn't be a problem. Surely they could slap together some kind of VoIP thing and offer it to their DSL customers, then BellSouth would still have to share.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
This ruling is extra notable because Powell, the FCC Chairman, publicly disagrees with their decision: "An FCC chairman has not dissented from a high-profile FCC ruling for roughly 15 years." Powell was a very strong proponent for deregulation, and it seems this time around, state regulators and Bell want the status quo.
So how can I help my ISP run cable to my house? They HAVE to be allowed to run thier own fiber or it isn't fair!
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Let's see: Qwest won't service my line for DSL, but Covad does. That's the only broadband I can get. Guess I'm screwed.
The phone companies have been pushing for this for a while - it means they don't have to share and can basically charge what they want. I've heard rumors that some phone companies have been holding subscribers "hostage" to try to force the FCC to change the laws - they're refusing to upgrade their networks until they can be assured that they'll be the only ones to profit.
It's time for the phone company monopoly to end - it's obviously not working for the interest of the consumer.
1) Become a full-on Telco, Covad could pull it off if they tried.
2) Lay your own damn pipes.
Yes I work for a Non-Bell ILEC and frankly why should "my" infrastructure be used for someone elses profit. I wouldn't like it if Bell tried to bully their way into one of our markets, why should I be allowed to steal from them.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
I spent three months trying to get DirectTV DSL, since they gave statis IP addresses. They could never get it functioning and, of course, blamed it on shared BellSouth lines that Bell South ahd to fix. Of course, BellSouth nevber found anything wrong with the lines and my neighbor, who had BellSouth DSL, never had a problem. Screw it, I says, I'm getting a cable modem. And it works perfectly. So, this linesharing thing was a joke anyway.
No servers for you! Now your only choice will be to buy time from a responsible company that will censor you or hand you over to the Feds at the slightest provocation.
I dont like this at all. Concentrating internet access in the hands of fewer and fewer companies will lead to easier censoring by the concent cartel. The bells will be able to raise prices and act irresponsibly.
Michael Powell is a deregulation whore! Does this happen ever stinking recession?
Kiss it goodbye and place a call for a cable modem. With this ruling, the owners of the lines (the Baby Bell's) do not HAVE to lease their line's to any other companies. Thus removing the thing that STARTED the proliferation of DSL in the first place, and eliminating any competition to the Telecoms. You want DSL, get it through a Baby Bell. No other options.
This of course means that DSL can have the same restrictions put on it that cable does (no incoming requests, no servers, no static ips), which I'm sure will benefit "fighting terrorism", 'cuz we all know that terrorists run their own web servers from home via DSL.
*sigh* Anyone in the Michigan area want to share-lease a T1?
El riesgo vive siempre!
Finally the bells can use their *property* without subsidising their competitors. This will be a good thing in the long term 3-5 years. Take a look at Broadband deployment %s in South Korea for example and the costs, plus the speed: 70-80%, $30/month, and 8MBps etc. and you will see what we'll have.
With previous rules there was no incentive to upgrade their systems because then their competitors would be able to use it too. Now we can have: cable, phone, satelite, wireless, and (perhaps) power line all competing.
This is a good thing even if it is not the socialist position.
Where I live, I am 150 yrds from a box containing DSL equipment. I have thus far been unable to use it because SBC refuses to power it up as long as they are forced to resell service to other companies. Maybe now, they will turn it on and allow me to get decent broadband service. While it is bad for competitors, I *the consumer* will probably be able to get DSL now.
Sure. That make 2 of us. That's what? $500/month each?
Then fuck the FCC! I hereby call upon all slashdotters to boycott those worthless...wait a minute...oh shit...
--
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
Lay your own damn pipes.
How does one go about getting permission from the municipal government and from all the individual real property owners in the city to do this?
Will I retire or break 10K?
In the wake of the telecoms bust a whole bunch of comms companies went under: that's what's supposed to happen. The market was oversupplied, so the weaker companies died. It's competition, and it's good. Changing the rules like this is nothing more than protectionism for these companies, which is almost never a good idea (occasionally it can be justified if the company is being regulated to provide service to unprofitable areas that would suffer from the removal of the service, like train companies serving outlying districts). But were these phone companies really in enough financial trouble to justify this rule-change? The FCC isn't the greatest institution in the world, but they're not sub-moronic; does anybody know what their motivation was for doing this?
Basically, the Big Phone companies have fabricated the argument that they're getting their clock cleaned by the Cable TV companies, and that regulations are stifling their ability to compete with CATV companies.
Cable modems currently dominate in market share.
Basically, they say, "There won't be any competition in broadband access because we can't compete with Big CableTV".
This is a joke, unfortunately, many people see it their way.
The thinking is... "We don't have enough time to do what is right, we just want to make sure we at least get an Oligopoly out of this."
The whole thing is a joke, and I'm actaully kind of happy that Cable will rule the day. I consider them the lesser of two evils. Also, I like the way cable franchises are granted much better than the original consent decree that split up AT&T.
The little companies get hurt. Ma Bell is just too powerful, end of discussion.
AT&T ought to hold onto their cable a little longer. But, they've got just too much debt.
Too bad.
No cabel modem service in my area. No cable modem with 1.5MB upload speeds anywhere. I refuse to pay PacBells fees for installation since they wanted to charge me 900$ to move my DSL service to my new address while Speakeasy wanted to give me a Playstation 2 (guess which one I picked). If I get realy pissed I'll wip out the Nerf(tm) crotch missles ans Nerf(tm) Nerf.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Does this mean I don't have to worry about early cancellation fees?
I just signed up for Speakeasy since DirecTV Broadband went out of business. Now I guess I'm screwed again. THANKS A LOT FCC! Jerks.
Read my keyboard review.
From the article:
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to exempt new high-speed communications networks from requirements that they be shared with competitors, a move aimed at encouraging investment in bringing fast Internet access to consumers.
Right. Big time investment. Just around the corner. We just need to know it won't all get snapped up by our competition. But we're planning. Yes we are. Big Time Investment. Promise. Even though the economy's in the crapper. Investment. In the future. Of the internet. For Consumers. Investment.
Horseshit!
This is such complete and total doublespeak. Every telecom network in this country was built with public assistence. That's the way to "encourage investment." This is simply a move to allow the established Bells (and neo-bells, like SBC) reap more profit off of existing (publicly subsidised) infrastructure.
Where am I going, and how did I get in this handbasket!
Howard Dean for president
When I was a small business systems consultant I frequently encountered a problem with SMTP. The DSL lines for a certain baby bell would not pass outgoing email if the "from:" field did not contain the approved domain. I likened it to the post office refusing to deliver mail that was placed in a box with a return address not on the block where the box resides.
If these companies can lock down these networks, then average users (those not interested/willing to manipulate email fields) are going to be "forced" to use the email domain of the provider as a return address. This provides these baby bell ISP's with a MSoft-ish method for bullying users into using their products (as opposed to just competing on the basis of quality).
This is anti-competitive, un-American and anti-capitalist.
The best way to do is to be.
If I laid out a serious amount of money to establish COs and copper to (nearly) every house in the United States, I'd be a little pissed at the government for making me open it up to people who are offering competing services.
.. oh .. a year. When phone companies jack their DSL rates, and the competition gets locked out of the copper ... guess who they're going to turn to?
Technically, the Bells really should be able to lay down the law when it comes to who access their cables. I mean, it's their cables.
I'm all for competition, but this is kind of an awkward situation.
On the other hand -- all ya'll who are hot to trot with wireless Internet access: hop on the venture capital wagon, and start your roll out in about
I've been puzzling over something, lately. If AT&T was such a terrible beast that it needed to be broken up into (what, 11?) baby-bells, how is it acceptable that these things are pulling a T2, gathering themselves together so only 3 baby bells exist? Seems the whole anti-competitive issue begins there, not with the FCC yanking the rug out from under non-bell DSL providers.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought we all hated Covad ?
In my house, the DSL supplier ended up being Brightnet because SBC kept giving us the runaround. It looks to me like if the line sharing abandonment sticks, we may become stuck with SBC's nonsense again. :(
From a linked Yahoo article: "Essentially, the majority of the FCC opposed the deregulation plan set forth by agency chairman Michael Powell."
Excuse my ignorance (I'm Canadian), but if the majority of the FCC is opposing it, how did the plan get decided upon?
What does this mean for ISPs like Earthlink, and other smaller "mom and pop" ISPs? Does this take them out of the running for offering DSL service?
DSL Competition? Will it get me a monthly bill of less than $50? What? There is already DSL competition now? Huh.
--- What?
/sarcasm on
/sarcasm off
Dammit, thats so unfair. The government should force companies to sell their property to other companies at cheap rates. Why should companies benefit from investing in infrastructure? The big companies should just buy lines for other small companies to use for free because they have more money. Damn capitalist pigs.
Seriously? Anyone here believe in private property? I mean, would it be fair to for the government to force you to fix your relatives computers whenever they wanted because you have more knowledge then them? Or you to lone your car to the homeless guy down the street because you have more resources then them? I mean, if you want to, then sure. But to force you??
Cable.
Maybe some Comcast stock might be a better bet than some wireless venture.
with dsl, the physical layer is the only thing under control. the code layer (dsl) and content layer (isp) is NOT controlled. it's open.
with cable broadband access, all 3 layers are controlled. you have to abide by WHATEVER the cable provider says. they have been proven on slowing down connections to sites that are competing with them or their network, and even blocking those that they see fit.
this vote is an abomination to the end-to-end openness that the Internet once was.
The government should Nationalize the lines that run from the central office to homes, and rent those lines out to anyone for cost of maintenance.
Too bad most consumers are so scared of socialism, even though it has a place in situations like this. Ironic, that socialism could give us a truely free market.
The lines run through public property. They cross millions of private property boundries. They should be a public resource.
Then the Phone Companies could compete on products and service. And the Baby Bells would probably all go under in less than a year after exposing their actual incompetance in a suddenly open market.
What you all must realize is that the ILEC's have been given HUGE tax relief on behalf of the federal government in exchange for their responsibility to deploy and upgrade next generation networks. Theoreticly, the last mile option these ILEC's are fighting for are owned by US taxpayers. There has been much relief and many writeoffs done by ILECs for years on this infrastructure, however they have neglected to fullfill their promises in a timely manner.
/early 90's. It wasnt until deregulation in 1996 that we started to see DSL.
You must realize that before deregulation, the telco's were selling us $1,500/month T1's and per-minute ISDN service. DSL technology is old and could have been deployed in the
Wait five years from now after deregulation occurs and we are still paying $50/month for 1.5Mbps ADSL when the rest of the world will have fiber strung to their doorsteps. The Bells have a history of stagnation and emtpy promises, thats why the telco act of 96 was created in the first place.
Oh good God no....I had my first DSL with BellSouth...it was a joke...no customer service...and they kept charging me for 6 months AFTER I quit and switched to Mindspring/Earthlink.... Geez, how did they sneak this one through??????????
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think the main point of this post isn't to make Covad become a full fledged telecommunications company. Quickly putting together a voice service would qualify them to use the lines at cost again, but what would it cost them? Directly, you're point is "Next to nothing," but if the customer signs up for this and the service sucks, they aren't going to like Covad. They aren't going to drop Covad voice, they are going to drop Covad and get Bellsouth dsl or whatever.
Whale
According to Reuters, the FCC today decided to greatly curtail the laws that force incumbent phone companies to share their lines with their competition at cost.
ILECs have not been forced to share their lines at cost. That is a myth invented by the baby Bells to convince lawmakers that linesharing makes them lose money. Actually what the 1996 Telecom Act says is that they have to rent their lines to outside customers and they must charge everybody the same rate, including internal customers.
A popular stunt among the ILECs is to rent lines to their own internet divisions at way below cost, thus making their internet business seem more profitable than it is. The 1996 Telecom Act just evens the playing field in that respect and prevents the Bells from using their local loop monopoly to prop up other corporate divisions.
The new rules do force line sharing as long as companies are willing to offer voice service, but this essentially states that if you are not already a phone company, you cannot offer DSL.
This is actually not as bad as it sounds when you consider that FCC Chairman Michael Powell *spit* wanted to completely sweep away ALL the regulations that require the ILECs to share lines. His proposal was defeated with respect to local phone service because Republican commissioner Kevin J. Martin jumped the fence and sided with the Democrats. So while this may suck for Covad, Speakeasy, etc., at least it won't totally eliminate DSL competition for now.
Probably both sides are going to be unhappy about this. Expect this battle to go to the courts next.
This article has more good info.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
And I was just getting excited about signing up for SpeakEasy after years of a dial-up static IP.
Oh well.
*sigh*
Hopefully one of the big guys out there will offer business-class DSL that allows static IPs, servers, and multiple computers for under $100/month. And doesn't get pissy if you use the connection to earn your living.
Please Covad, start offering some VoIP or something.
What is the solution? Christ, I had an ethernet jack in my college apartment, no port blocking bullshit.... NINE YEARS AGO.
So, being a user of EarthLink DSL for the past two and a half years, does this mean I should start looking into Verizon's DSL price plans? :( It's a shame, EarthLink is far and above the best ISP I have ever had during my nine years on the Internet, ranging from both other national ISPs to regional ones.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
We have Bell South in the Area, they are currently offering DSL through them, also can get Earth Link DSL, there maybe some others venders who offer it, but the monthly price is the same for each ISP that I have checked on.
TWC(Time Warner Cable), is offering not only their road runner and AOL but also Earth link, and one other also I can not remember the name.
Out of all of the broadband services Bell South cost more because the charge a setup fee and to get a discount you have to add extra phone services.
With TWC, you get free installation, free modem vs. bell south who wants a $99 dollar installation fee and higher monthly price.
I guess that is why if the cable people show up this weekend will have Earth Link cable broad band.
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
I gave up DSL and got a T-1 a little over a year ago. $400/month and I share it (and the cost) with my neighbors (802.11b). All the IP's I want (within reason) and it has never once gone down. Money well spent.
Convince people your service is beter than Bell they will hound their officials to allow it or risk finding a new job.
How does an upstart convince a first city that it can provide better service, when it doesn't have reputations in other cities to fall back on?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The lack of competition is going to hike the prices, but it isn't going to last long. Cable dsl is not going to be affected directly by this, and with time more lines - fiber optic in my area - will be laid.
It sucks for us, but there's validity in the argument. Why should they be entitled to use my property without me making a profit off it? If they laid the lines and paid for them theirselves, they should have the rights. I mean we're not in China now, we do have rights.
...besides necessity is the mother of invention, and wouldn't you like something better anyway
Finally the bells can use their *property*
Who bought the initial infrastructure? Was it entirely Bell's investment, or did the local governments pitch in some funds as well?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I live in the Washington, D.C. area where our local telephone monopoly is Verizon. About two years ago, my housemates and I tried to order DSL from them. When they finally turned it on (several months after we ordered it), it worked fine for a few days, then went completely dead. So we called tech support. After waiting 45 minutes or so to get through:
...another 10 minutes of pointless troubleshooting...
Us: Our DSL doesn't work
Them: Is your computer on? Is the modem plugged in to the phone jack?
Us: Yes, blah blah
Them: What color is your modem?
Basically, Verizon's tech support was completely useless, and the DSL never worked again. A month or so later we ordered DSL from Earthlink (with the line provided through Covad). They connected us within a week, and the line has worked flawlessly ever since.
If Earthlink, Speakeasy, etc. go away, getting useful broadband is going to be very difficult.
Basically, local telco monopolies have absolutely no incentive to offer acceptable customer service, and in my experience, they don't.
Don't you feel just a tiny bit offended?
sulli
RTFJ.
If it's just the cost of maintaining the line, then where's the incentive to put in new lines and roll out new services?
Best Slashdot Co
So the phone companies have monopolies on the wires running to your house, and you have no alternative but to use them... Exactly whose fault is it?
* The phone companies who own the wires running to your location?
* The local governments, who regulate how many wires can be put up, and extort plenty of cash from anyone who wishes to emplace new ones?
* The state governments, who already charge heavy tariffs on current communications methods (hey, it's a monopoly, we can milk it as much as we want), and also put more tariffs and more barriers on newcomers to the business?
* The federal government, which severely limits anyone who wants to try a wireless solution?
Forcing non-telephone companies off the lines of existing telephone companies' wires was a stopgap to the monopoly that brought an end to ATT.
Make sure that you understand: if it hadn't been for the FCC forcing the phone company to share its lines, then the Internet (and along with it, any innovation based on it) would not have come into existence as we know it.
As it stands, cable TV controls the physical, code, and content layers of TV broadcasts. Think about it: is there more than 1 wired cable TV provider in your area ? no, because it's a regional monopoly system. With this voting, the FCC is essentially giving that SAME control to the phone companies. when the phone companies are the only ones providing DSL service, then they will be controlling both the physical AND code (dsl) layer.
Most of the rules that stop competition are local.
What stops you from running your own copper or cable or anything else to people's houses? Your local municipality. They essentially grant a monopoly to your local cable company, local phone carrier, etc.
Of course, they get a cut of the monopoly profits in the form of taxes.
Where I live, it's 5% of the GROSS, not net, of what the cable company takes in. You think your local government is going to give up that kind of money?
There's always wireless....
Maybe it's retaliation against the growth of VoIP, and the fact that regulation of it is still pending (if not shot down already).
Hey, that's an idea! Demonstrate VoIP for the dingbats at the FCC, to reinforce the idea that any ISP (owner of the lines or not) can do voice service!
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
I don't see why that is 'lucky', they're both closed source formats! No PDF viewer on my linux desktop!!! It's EVIL!
(luckily for me, I don't run a linux desktop, because it would impair my work too much, I just run Windows, with MS Word + Acrobat reader)
<grub> Reading
Let's run an experiment to see if not-very-subliminal advertising works on the moderators.
"You get what you pay for after all." --
The real big problem with broadband is that you can't know whether you are allowed to have it until you try to get it. This has kept me from moving! I would rather stay in my apartment where I have 1.2 megabit dsl, static routing, etc., (costs $109/mo from the ISP + $65/mo from Qwest!), than to try to move without knowing in advance whether I can get the same service. The telco would expect me to move first, close a real estate deal, get a phone line and THEN find out whether or not DSL is available.
If I were to try to move, I would have to do two things. 1. Stay at the current address until the deal is setup at the new one, phone line is installed, DSL is working, THEN cancel the old service and move. This will increase the cost of moving substantially. 2. Ensure that the real estate agent or landlord understands that it's a deal-breaker (escrow money is refunded, deposits returned) if it turns out DSL is not available, and that it might be a month after closing before this is discovered. I'd need that explicitly written into the contract, and absolutely clearly understood by everyone involved.
If I'm looking at a piece of real estate, I want to know what utilities are available, as the very first items to evaluate. I want to know if it has running water, electrical service, natural gas, if there's garbage collection, telephone service, cable tv, and, DSL. Since my career depends on the internet access, it's actually on the same list as running water and electricity. And I can actually work around the lack of water and electricity, but if there's no DSL I'm stuck.
So, why can't I find out BEFORE getting involved with a piece of real estate, whether it has this service available? Also, what kind of approach can I take to force the issue? I don't want to sign a contract or a lease without knowing in advance whether I can get DSL, what signal rate it will support, and what providers will offer the service.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
DSL has been shall we say "less than optimal" in a number of ways compared to other technologies. Like how it chokes on simultaneous uploads and downloads.
This will force Covad to come up with other solutions. Like last-mile wireless, or possibly ethernet or fiber.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
You and me, with our tax dollars. All of that infrastructure was subsidized with tax dollars and priceless right-of-way. Only seems fair that something we all paid for ought to be open to competition!!
They have made this argument before, (we won't upgrade until we can do long distance) and were granted that right on condition of allowing competition on their lines. Now, they're refusing to upgrade again, saying that the competition is unfair. And the FCC has just handed them a huge monopoly.
..if you laid out a serious amount of money to establish COs and copper to (nearly) every house in the United States, you wouldn't be an existing telephone company either.
Here's a hint, they didn't - the public did.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
I currently have Earthlink DSL. Will this ruling mean that the local phone companies here won't have to offer Earthlink access to their lines? In other words, does this mean that the only company you'll be able to get DSL through is your phone provider?
jf
Nope, it's your cable. They built it on public easments with monopoly protection. Keeping others off those lines is about as bogus as keeping others from being able to run their own last mile network, but that seems to be the way it was and is. Now demands have been made that others can use those lines AT COST and offer services that the Bells were unwilling to offer.
I'm hoping that Powel plays this well. As someone else pointed out, he does not agree. This is just the kind of thing that will turn Powel into a houshold word, if he can pull it off.
If he can't, I expect the Bells to start pushing their high priced and highly restrictive service. Woot, I might get to chose between two really lame monoply servers who own the internet.
Screw them. Build your chunk of the wireless mesh today.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Now, most people who do not live in high-density areas do not get any DSL at all. This way, at least the service will more likely be offered. We do however, get cable modem broadband. Now, maybe we will get some competition.
by easing these regs, it makes it more attractive for phone companies to invest in system upgrades. now, they don't have make all the investments, take on all the risk and be forced to share with competitors for very little cost. limiting competition? probably. but i think people would rather have better service than more choices. like your telephone service.
I agree! Humor like this makes me want to fling monkey poop. Suck my dick if you agree.
Don't for a second believe that T-com 96 wasn't the result of some well-spent lobbyist funds. A great act of competition designed for consumer benevolence... Phooey
You want to see competition? Stop regulating and only let the people with real business plans compete.
This is just great with me.
Now maybe the Bells will have some incentive to invest in technologies (read: FTTH) without the fear that some company that didn't invest a dime in this infrastructure will come along and get to use it at "cost". It BLOWS that the federal government can come in and say "Yeah, you and the stock holders paid for it, but you gotta lease out your private property/investment whether you want to or not." Truly socialism, if not communism, at its finest.
We've been stuck with crummy ADSL for over 7 years with no real increase in speed/decrease in cost since it started. This 1996 act should have been repealed a long time ago and is the worst piece of legislation I know except for the DMCA.
This whole thing could backfire in the long run.
I seriously considered turning off all of my landline services last year. The only thing that stopped me was the announcement that DSL was finally available in my area.
If no competition in the DSL market causes me to turn off my DSL service, I'll likely turn off my landline phone as well, and go strictly cellular.
What we could see happen, with wireless technologies becoming more and more viable, is the elimination of any wired communications to the home.
Eliminate the "last mile" of copper and you eliminate the Baby Bells.
Ha ha ha. That's so funny.
You moderators suck.
And you know it.
Go ahead, moderate another insightful comment -1.
do it. push the button. submit to your stupidity.
Unless you're me, who lives in an area Covad will service, but SBC will *not*. So this consumer's going to lose his service. Thanks, FCC!
The only solution I see is to federalize these copper lines because of they years of protected monopoly status for the bells and allow linesharing. Powell is for protectionism.
SBC promises to serve you after they get their next freebie from the taxpayers. Or maybe the next one. You know, new name, same great company!
sulli
RTFJ.
I'm the admin at an architecture firm who utalizes Allegiences services. In all three of our offices they drop a T1 which is split phone and Data. 6 lines, and 500K both ways 16 IP's for about $600 US per office per month. No other company comes even close to this deal. Including our local phone company. I am sure we are not alone on this but companies like Allegience have provided small bussinesses with an excellent communications life line with regards to voice and data. Until Baby bells gear up and start providing T1 type services for competitive costs the FCC I hope really shouldn't choke off smaller companies.
Tell them how you feel through the "Email the Chairman" form located at http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/powell/mkp_email. html.
G
I wish there was a fscking blue pill
In Canada the local phone company basically has a monopoly over the last mile, and we're known to have some of the best DSL and Cable internet access available in the world.
The problem isn't lack of competition, quite the opposite, more competition means more companies each with redundant staff and bureaucracies. The solution is to actually have the FCC mandate service quality. DSL service sucks down there because the phone companies are free to do whatever the hell they please.
If you had a government regulating body which looked out for the best interest of the consumer and dictated that the Bells must meet these service levels for customers things would be rosey.
But ooooh no, regulation is bad for business. BS! In natural monopolies like this it's the only way to go. You simply TELL the company they must provide quality service, no excuses.
Until this happens we're going to continue to see the weekly story on slashdot of people whining that their DSL is too slow or they can't get service.
Those lines were heavily subsidized by tax money, and the phone companies have priceless right-of-way for their lines. (Try calling your government and asking if you can put up some poles to run an ethernet cable to your ISP)
It's hardly "private property" when public money built it.
And to top it off, it's not "free," either. The CLECs (like Covad) must pay the phone companies the *same* rates they charge to their own DSL divisions. Covad pays SBC the same as SBC's DSL division pays SBC. And on top of that, SBC (or whoever your ILEC is) gets paid for the damn phone line in the first place.
So, they get paid for the line, AND paid AGAIN for the line by Covad, AND tax money, tax breaks, government assistance, and right-of-way to build the lines in the first place, and you think that keeping the lines open for competition isn't fair?
Screw that.
You mean that country with this highest rate of broadband adoption? That country where broadband is subsidized in a true socialist fashion?
Yeah, that would be a good idea.
Oh, and if the bells' lines are their "property" then their property is illegally tresspassing on my land. I demand rent starting now at $1000/day, or I'll dig them up. I expect them to also begin paying rent to the government for any of their equipment that passes through public property, under streets that my tax dollars have paid for, for example.
This is the way to go if you can get a few people to chip in and cover the costs. This is about the only option left for the majority of people. High Speed cable coverage in my area is very spotty. If you were lucky to get it before before Adelphia declared bankrupcy you are all set. The rest of us are hosed. You can get DSL, if you are near a CO, and there is room for colocation in said CO, and Verizon is in a good mood, you can get it.
I think that was a Mac user.
If history is any indication[1] they will do that.
BTW I IMHO think that a LEO[3] (Low Earth Orbit) sat. net. would easily take care of the last mile problem. just look at what DirectTV has done for the markets it has been introduced, in direct competition with Cable TV?[2] Rememeber a lesson from OSS. You can either play by their rules, and get kicked in the ass, or you can play by your own rules, and leave them fuming that they can't touch you[4].
[1] Now why don't more "/." posters study history?
[2] Don't forget the FCC ruling that allows Dishes under a particular size. That was the turning point.
[3] The latency issue is more managable, and the pipes can carry more (higher frequency).
[4] As for who pays for it? Another OSS lesson. Share and all benefit. Alturism at work.
From the /. editor:The new rules do force line sharing as long as companies are willing to offer voice service.
Actually, if I read it correctly, it forces undbundling only if the DSL provider rents the whole copper loop, hence there will be no "line-sharing" like today (i.e. the Bell transmitting analog voice on low frequency, and the DSL provider transmitting DSL on high-frequency on the same copper pair) anymore. The FCC paper talks about a 3-year transition period to switch to the new rules.
In practise:
a) The DSL provider will have to rent the whole copper loop at a higher cost (the FCC paper explicitly mentions that the price shall go up during the 3-year phase)
b) Since the loop belongs to the DSL provider, the local Bell won't provide the original voice service over this copper loop (even though this is technically possible, since that's exactly what they're doing up to now)
c) To keep the voice service going either:
- The DSL provider offers his own voice product (which is an unprofitable pain in the ass in itself), needing to upgrade ALL his access sites to support telephony (either analog or VoDSL or whatever), with the voice-traffic clogging his high-capacity lines back to his network.
- The DSL provider buys voice service from the local Bell to resell (a zero margin business - if you're lucky)
- The customer (you) has to buy a new separate voice line from the local Bell, who can collect setup fees, make you pay extra to send a guy to your house to twiddle 2 new wires out of the bundle going into the building, change the tariffs, etc. etc
All in all, this preserves looks like a pretty heavily biased decision, as it not only protects the Bells business model no matter what happens, but actively attacks the DSL provider's existing technical and business models. Good luck getting DSL in the American outback, as there will be less competition driving the deployment.
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
I'm not familiar with LEO satellites. How much better is their latency figures? Good enough to be a avid quake3 gamer?
-Brian
The phone company will start gouging and the wireless networks will really start to grow...
Got Code?
"Oddly, the news agencies seem to be reporting this as a minor change to the rules"
The major media are the main tool of the corporate oligarchy. All this "liberal media" nonsense is simply a pose adopted as camoflauge.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Goodbye 1500 down / 768 up / static IP / $50 a month / NAT & servers allowed / Linux support
Hello 768 down / 128 up / dynamic IP / $50 a month / No NAT & No servers / yeah, right
Can't go cable, they own that too.
Well, maybe they'll offer some real cool personalized content to make my Internet experience better, and some parental controls to protect my family.
I recently bought a new house. I got a cable modem. I wanted to get DSL from Verizon, but that didn't work out. I only have a cell phone because I don't like being legally harrassed by telemarketers.
/>
But when I called up Verizon, they insisted that they needed to know my Verizon-serviced phone number in order to determine whether or not it qualified for DSL. Not address; Phone number.
Here's the problem: They're leveraging their monopoly power (local voice phone company) to break into and build exclusionary walls around a different business market (high-speed internet).
Wasn't there some other company that was found guilty of similar behavior? Something about "We own this layer of infrastructure under the user's Internet experience, we can just build right on top of it so that our customers don't have to be bothered with our competitors..."? Was that criminal action perpetrated our dear friends at, Microsoft? Nah, couldn't be -- they only want what's best for the customer! <smirk!
**You want to see competition? Stop regulating and only let the people with real business plans compete.**
yeah like MS.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Yeah, and furthermore the dems want to tax the holy f*ck out of me and give my hard earned pay to welfare slackers and then have the govt be my nanny and protect me from myself in everything I want to do. The reps don't want to tax me so much, but lean toward fascism/police state-ism and take away my freedoms and let big corps run ramshod all over me and my rights too. You can;t win for losing. I think we need a new political party, all composed of professional wrestlers, to take over and set things straight again.
Requiring companies to lease their lines at cost is *REGULATION*, not deregulation.
Deregulation is letting those who own their lines lease them at the prices they want to, or not at all. See any regulations there?
Exactly.
Best example is the California power system "deregulation" that caused all those blackouts - what was billed as "deregulation" wasn't deregulation at all - just a different set of regulations that turned out to be much, much worse than the old set.
Point of the matter is you should not trust anyone's opinion on what deregulation will do if they do not even know what deregulation is in the first place.
paintball
Why is it "lucky" that they provide PDF's as well as Microsoft Word files? What office suite do you use? I use OpenOffice and it opens Microsoft Word documents just fine for me. Perhaps your experience has differed. Or maybe it was just another one of the snide jabs at Microsoft that is all too common in the story headlines on slashdot.
-Matt
Duke '05
When I moved into my new place last May, I was able to determine availability of DSL with a little bit of detective work. The problem is that everything on the phone company's end is linked to a telephone number, not necessarily an address. :)
I found out the phone number of the guys living in the place at the time and checked online for availability using their phone number and address, and was able to find out that BellSouth offered DSL in that area and Covad didn't.
However, if you don't have a phone number for the place, odds are bad that you can find out what local loop it's on and thus whether that loop has DSL.
If the phone companies really maintained an exacting database of addresses corresponding to local loops, it would be simple, but their systems tend to be so patchwork and arbitrary that they don't. Plus, they probably never needed to know this before. All local loops are roughly equal for voice.
I'm not aware of any quid pro quo arrangement with farmers regarding subsidies (though who the hell knows.) When the Telcos received their subsidies (not to mention their exemption from Antitrust lawsuits), the government made it clear that it would reserve the right to regulate those lines. A great deal for the telcos, by the way, who have been consistent earners as a result of the arrangement.
This isn't a case of a government handing out gifts and then suddenly claiming the right to nationalize an industry. The understanding was in place from the get-go.
what's your point?
While technically feasible, the concept of line sharing IS stupid. The physical infrastructure is the monopoly issue, and should be treated as such: DSL service providers should be leasing the physical copper wires (to the extend that they are physical copper wires, anyway) from the customer to the CO.
I don't want POTS on my DSL line! I have no need for POTS! My cell phone is my primary phone number.
The market should embrace novelty, and if the cost of doing that is a second pair of wires to your home to accommodate POTS, so be it! (With the important market caveat that other people must feel the same way...) Splitting hairs over the incramental cost for DSL above POTS service is not productive.
Make the 3rd parties offer "full service" for them thar copper wires!
All local DSL competition in my town has either gone bankrupt or driven out of bizness by the local bell, who offers expensive DSL with strict terms of usage attached (no home servers, ports blocked, etc). The local calblemodems are way too expensive to get a fixed ip address and they too forbid home servers on the $50/mo dynamic ip addresses (and throttle you to 500-700Kbps bandwidth).
I've now signed up with a new local WISP who's giving me 2 fixed ip addresses and 11Mbps to the tower, but only 1.5Mbps from there to the backbone and about a dozen customers are sharing the tower right now for only $45/mo. Not too shabby but my DSL provider had better general overall thruput at the same 1.5Mbps (they had better routing provider) before they went belly-up.
Overall, this seems to be a mixed decision, the summary at top not withstanding. Covad, et al, might have more difficulty, but the Bells did not get everything they wanted. Frankly, this seems like it will be in the courts for so long, it will easily drag out past 2004.
/reality on
/reality off
Most of the lines that are being leased were paid for by the public by means of government subsidies to the Bell(s). Not only were they subsidized by the public, but they have been paid for many times over; so they aren't losing any money. And they are definitely NOT private property. Even so, the CLECs ARE paying for the use of the lines (and the lower cost is not any lower than what the ILECs pay).
Covad has an enormous network of hardware and cable, they are only needing the last mile of wire to the home. Now they can no longer lease that small segment of the line that's ALREADY there.
Now, there was some sort of provision for new networks that were deployed to newly developed communities, and I can see the Bells being a bit ticked off about that...
"The Bells also won't have to let rivals lease access to new fiber lines that they lay down to connect new housing developments or businesses. Even that decision, however, is bound to cause confusion in cases in which portions of the Bells' networks are composed of both copper and fiber."
but that is only an issue with them selling their new network to phone carriers since Covad uses their own equipment and is just leasing a section of the line (as opposed to the CLECs phone guys who lease every bit of the line and the hardware that connects it).
Powell actually wanted full deregulation EXCEPT in the DSL market. What happened was the opposite. While this will help keep phone costs down, there's no reason at all that this will help lower DSL costs (it might, however, help DSL availability since the Bells have more incentive to offer it).
The other big issue is what is the point of having multiple phone lines going to the same building? Powell said ending the leasing of lines would encourage AT&T et.al. to run their own lines to offer competitive service. Does he realize how expensive AND wasteful that is?
IANAL, but I play one on
If you can't find one of the PDF viewers for Linux/*BSD/Mac/BE/whatever you're an absolute moron.
hmm sausage!
This regulation of forcing the baby bells to share their networks at cost is killing the large telecom companies. You know, the ones that laid the fiber in the first place, invested all that money, and employ many more people.
These "virtual" phone companies that ride the carriers _at_cost_ have been largely responsible for part of the telecom bust. It's the same model as Enron. Selling things that you don't actually own or maintain. If something goes wrong, you have to pay the carrier $$$ to get it fixed.
A few months ago slashdot was bitching about why cable was clobbering DSL and was taking over broadband, and there would be no more competition. Do you want to know why? The reason is that SBC (in my area of the country) is forced to give up their lines ANY TIME SOMEONE WANTS TO USE THEM, for free (at cost, but that bandwith is lost to SBC).
If you want real broadband competition you cannot cripple the companies doing the investment into the network of DSL.
Cable companies do not have to share their lines. The telecom deregulation act did some good, some bad. (We got worldcom and a bust, but attributing everything to that is not the best idea.)
I get long distance for 5cents a minute, and may soon switch to MCI for unlimited local and long distance calling.
Don't whine about access to a network you never built!
The ISP I work for just spent quite a chunk of change to get DSLAM's for this, and we were expecting about a 2 year turnaround before making any real profit. Now we only get a year of that before we have to pay out the ass AND offer voice services.
It's not hard to get fiber run to your door, assuming you are willing to pay what it costs to do so, up front -- and also lease right-of-way between yourself and your ISP.
The reason people don't do this is because it's jesus expensive, especially if you live in butt-fuck nowhere where cable has be to buried across five miles of farm land.
Hell, most people would be upset at just having to cover the cost of the horse food.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Suppose I live close enough to the CO to get DSL in the first place. Could I rent a bare copper line (the "alarm" scheme) to the CO and have them tie that into my preferred ISP's DSLAM?
The SCO lawsuit makes me wish my company were in Utah. We need a new building.
This may be the thing that pushes Wireless Broadband out the door.
Finding God in a Dog
FCC Chairman Powell writes:
I do, however, dissent from the Majority's decision to immediately eliminate line sharing as an unbundled network element. Most of our policies to promote the goals of the Telecommunications Act have produced little yield to date. However, line sharing has clear and measurable benefits for consumers. It has unquestionably given birth to important competitive broadband suppliers. That additional competition has directly contributed to lower prices for new broadband services. By some estimates, 40% of DSL providers use line shared inputs. The decision to kill off this element and replace it with a transition of higher and higher wholesale prices will lead quite quickly to higher retail prices for broadband consumers.
What keeps getting me is that they don't bother to make it clear that they are being forced to sell below cost. It keeps coming out sounding as if they are merely being forced to sell below maximum profit.
Phone companies want to keep the things the general public granted them, but not give up anything back to the general public in return. Any "right of way" they were previously granted should be stripped from them, and then we'll see how well they do in an actual competitive environment.
The public never granted right of way. The companies purchased it. Securing "right of way" is sometimes the most difficult (and in certain parts of the country expensive) part of laying fiber. Mineral rights can work in the same way.
Of course, those cables are run over, under, and through other people's property -- namely, other people's real estate. The phone companies were granted the right to do this, even if the owners of the real estate didn't want it there, because the public utility of having a phone network was deemed too important
Wrong again. You most likely do not own the mineral rights to your property. In the same vein, you do not own that right of way. In some counties here in Oklahoma, the entire mineral rights are owned by an Indian tribe. The property rights of a landowner (who is not a member of that tribe) go approximately 6 inches deep.
When you purchase property, it is up to you to review your deed, title, and contract to see what is yours and what isn't. If you aren't satisfied, don't buy that property.
I'm sure they would mind if my parents', who happen to have a major trunk line that runs under their property, decided to dig that up.
Not to mention the fact that since they essentially have a government-funded monopoly, I'm not allowed to go digging up public land to lay my own cables, so I couldn't compete with them even if I did have the money. The ILECs want special rights, they can allow *competition* (That silly thing that I thought conservatives/libertarians were supposed to be *for*) as the cost of those rights.
Links:
Low-Earth Orbit Satellites: Technologies and Trends
LEOs Dance The Jitterbug
HTTP Traffic over Satellite
In short, because of the youth of LEO it's a bit hard to say. Also don't forget this is for the "last mile"[1] problem. The ones that will be using this, already have their own terrestial networks.
[1] Think of it as an "extended" last mile. Also you could gain other advantages. VoIP,Internet,TV, and the freedom to live were you want.
BTW Watch the dates on some of the stuff you read.
No matter how good the business plan, it will do you no good if you don't have product. Regulation makes product available.
The phone company has been using DSL internally since 1992. At the time they had no incentive to sell cheaper broadband since they were making plenty of money selling T1s. There never ever was any fair competition. Initially the Bells were not allowed to sell DSL to foster competition. To escape this provision of the law, SBC created a company called ASI to destroy competition. While a seperate company legally, ASI technicians drove a Southwester Bell van, wore a Southwestern Bell uniform and serviced their connections first. I can't believe whats happened now....how long will they keep their right to steal from us? These guys will use whatever measures they can to ensure they keep bilking us for as long as we let them.
--Gentoo Baby!
and with just a little more effort the Republicans should be able to finish restoring the country back to the turn of the 20th century model that they and their big money sponsors love so much. At last there's a government in power that understands that all that openness, competition, rights and freedoms, anti-pollution and love thy neighbor bullshit of the last century was truly evil. 1903, here we come!
HMMMMMM. I don't fucking get it. Slashdot modifiers need to go see Chris Rock . That guy should get a 5 on the Unfunny scale.
Every telecom network in this country was built with public assistence.
*sigh* I went through this the last time. The only real telephone networks that were subsidized were the extremely rural networks in the 1930's (part of the New Deal). Everything up to that point had been built with MaBell's investments. That bill was to get rural farmers electricity and phone lines. No other government program has existed since. So if you are talking about investment out to farms, you are *partially* correct. Everything else you are 100% wrong on.
The government does NOT subsidize the telecoms. Many a telecom has gone broke by laying too much fiber (that it had to pay for) If you are thinking of the internet, the only internet that was paid for by the goverment (and/or subsidized) was the old DoD network. Everything else has been private investment.
Is it too much for you to check the facts before you post?
Instead, they financed the construction by handing it off the phone company with a monopoly so that they could charge what they saw as fit. (Unless you're talking about rural areas or poor people...)
The money to build this infrastructure did not come from any company or government. It came from the individuals that paid for service.
Now we're in the situation where the phone company thinks because the built and maintained the system, that it belongs to them.
Anything this important to society should be communally held, possibly by the government.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Thanks a Lot G. W., we are one step closer to making this Country exclusivly for the Rich.
I was just thinking about this in the shower. Let's say that Mr. Deregulation-Powell gets his way sometime soon, and the whole of the phone system is deregulated. This means, de facto, that the phone system is under private ownership. The phone system was paid for by public funds and SHOULD be a public holding, yet increasingly it is not being treated as such. Handing it over part and parcel to the TelComs would be a seriously Bad Thing for the consumers, except...
If the phone system is completely deregulated and basically owned by the TelComs, then every private citizen has no obligation to let their land be used for free.
That was part of the bargain. We The People get a telephone system, if we agree to let our lawns get dug up and subsonics-emitting telephone lines placed over our houses. If the telephone industry is ruled to be a private venture, then this deal goes out the window - and every citizen in the country would have a completely legitimate right to demand compensation for the use of his property. (no difference than cellular networks paying to place relays on private property) A big enough class action lawsuit would effectively cripple the nation's telecommunications, UNLESS the government stepped in to restore some balance.
(downside, they could swing the other way and rule that we HAVE to give up our land in exchange for nothing. And that would be far more communistic than the system as its supposed to work, and very unlikely to stand up in court)
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
So where is this mythical competition?
I surely haven't seen any. Everyone, from cable to DSL is the same damn price for similar service.
The only time its cheaper is when its a teaser rate.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The Bells' lines are on your property because the city or county let them be there because of utility easements and that would prohibit you from charging rent. Yes you own the land the lines run through but the government dictates what you may or may not do with that easement. You should read your title policy and they specify this.
While there is no contingency at this time to deal with things, the support tech I spoke with did think there was nothing really to worry about. Of contingencies, we suggested that Speakeasy orients themselves to offer phone services. (Another user suggested this here as well, and noted that it didn't have to be cheap or all that great, just that it had to be phone service.)
Perhaps another idea is to contract with communities. I know that AOL/TW has a contract with the apartment complex I live in, but what if you don't want to be anywhere near AOL/TW? Maybe the user cooperatives would be a little better.
This sig no verb.
At one in point in Canada, when Bell was rolling out ADSL, they were told to lease other ISPs ADSL at the same rate it was leasing to its own ISP (Bell Sympatico). So what did they do? Sympatico leased lines for $260/month, charged consumers $40, and wrote off $220/month/sub to the parent company -- who leased them lines in the first place! Obviously, no ISP could compete.
Fortunately, that didn't last long -- eight or ten months, I'd guess -- before ADSL on PPPoe was available from third parties.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Well, when you pay someone to build something for you, isn't that contracting? Doesn't that mean whatever got built is YOURS? If the Gov't paid for the infrastructure to be built, it doesn't matter who did it, it only means that it belongs to the Gov't, doesn't it? In which case, it would be perfectly fair for them to say, "Alright, everybody can rent them for $10 a pop, and we'll be contracting with other guys to maintain those lines." Wouldn't it?
^_^ Maybe I'm just massively over simplifying.
So, when's lunch?
B!G !3u55l|\|u55 0w|\|z U! Brought to you in part by the Elite Hax0rs of America (LLC)
For real, speakeasy has to be the best ISP I've ever used. Everyhting about them is "well run". If they get whacked and I'm forced to choose between Verizon and Comcast, I am going to get a crotch bat.
I work at a small-sized ISP in northern california. Specifically, I work in the broadband department. With only around 12k customers, it's not economically feasable for us to offer voice communcation service. So, our DSL service goes "poof". If ILECs aren't forced to share, they won't!
We're already losing lots of customers to the cheaper rates of SBC (read: offered at cost to SBC), since we have to add a bit to our service charges to barely recover operating expenses.
DSL will once again belong only to the phone company. Cable access will only belong to the large cable operators. What's left? Wireless. $1k for equipment - yeah, lots of customers love that.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Why do you people keep insisting that it's okay for an incumbent company to kill the employees of incoming challengers in its market?
Full deregulation *only* benefits incumbent players and cannot possibly solve any problems that exist in the system now. If we restarted everyone from zero and let them compete freely that *might* have the effect you think it would have now. That means what? Well, it means sell *all* of the lines and equipment to the government, liquidate all of the assets of all the phone companies, lay off all of the workers and knockdown the buildings that house the telecom equipment. Then we let anyone who wants to start a telecom build their own buildings, buy/build their equipment and lines and run the company as they see fit.
De-regulating businesses incumbent in an industry means only bad things for competition and for consumers.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
There's no room for economic sense when people begin viewing property as public. Tragic ideologies thrive amongst all things common.
Another way: There is no free lunch, not even for CLECs.
The FCC's original intentions were good: To encourage competition where a some-what natural monopoly had taken root. However, it quickly discovered its regulatory actions were far too inadequate, and that rectifying the situation would be terribly costly. Alternatives to DSL exist in both cable and satellite. Wi-Fi community networks are next. There's no reason for beauracracy when market forces and private enterprise are working. Michael Powell recognized this, and acted upon it, despite the un-popularity of his stance.
Good on him.
make the companies that control the wires stop offering services? It would be like a toll road; they could sell bandwidth to anyone who came along, rather than having to compete with their customers...ie, the people who control the wires should have the internet service providers as customers, not individual consumers.
AAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!
Right now I have very nice 1.5/768k ADSL through a local provider known as "Cyberonic" using Worldcom's bandwidth. It's really cheap, very nice, very fast, very little downtime. Oh yeah we get static IPs and no filtering too...
If this was implemented, I might get stuck with Verizon Online. NOOOOOOOO Just the fact that they've called my house during dinner no less than a dozen times asking if we want to switch to their (slower, less reliable, and less feature-rich) service makes me think I'd rather go without a computer entirely than use their service. Gaaah
This is NOT a good thing for the customers. The big telecoms are buying the FCC and congress out.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
See what happens when you take state governments out of the loop? I swear, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment just keeps on seeming like a better and better idea...
The government only subsidized the building of phone networks in the 1930s as part of the "New Deal" to get phone lines and electricity to the rural areas. Everything to that point was built by private investment.
There has never been a spending bill or investment like that since.
I honestly dont know where you get this:
Yeah, the problem is though that the government subsidized the creation of Bell's infrastructure in the first place.
because it's just not true. This parent should be modded wayyy down. Right of way is purchased, not given freely. The government did not subsidize, at least not in the scale you and so many other slashdot posters seem to believe.
"Oh, and by the way, wherever there's a cable company there's competition. "
Except where the cable company (like, oh, Comcast) is owned by the phone company (like, um, AT&T). Expect THOSE areas to see price hikes and quality drops. Bully for you if you've got options, but this sucks mightily for a LOT of people.
Before the 1996 regulations, the "Innovation and Competition" was limited to very pricey T1s and ISDN available from a single source (your phone company), despite the fact that DSL technology was available.
Honestly, I would prefer the government own the lines (like they do the roads). But failing that, I'll take mandated competition over oppressive, incompetent, taxpayer-funded monopolies any day.
Please, eveyone realize the only thing that has been done is the federal rules have been removed. It is now up to the states how to handle things. If you are displeased with how things are going, get someone in your state's offices to get things fixed. I myself am young and am not old enough to remember when att and the origonal papa bell was broken up, however, my parents say the service was better for cheaper... as in it was better quality for the money they spent. Basically, line shareing is crap in my opinion. Last mile monoply is a stupid catch phrase. I really don't see all of you fighting the power companies to let other people use their lines. I don't see anyone complaining about the gas companies. If some other company wants to offer service, fine... lay your own lines and quit your bitching.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
I'm a Libertarian (card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party) and I think this is exactly the way it should go (and I'd expand it to include TV).
... I'd tend to agree with you that state oversight might be better, as states tend to be more effecient than the federal beaurocracy (though with the corruption at the state level and less public interest, that advantage might be muted).
My only quibble is that I think it should be the states that do the "nationalizing".
I have often argued this point as well, though whether it is states or the federal government is of less interest to me than simply getting this resource out of the hands of monopolists.
Telephone lines are like highways. Can you imagine if every shipping company owned its own set of roads going to your house? There is a time and a place for public works, and a time and a place for private land ownership. Highways, water mains, telephone lines, the public airwaves, and data lines are clearly the former, while my home is clearly the latter.
State Highways vs. Federal Highways
Unfortunately, such an approach would cut into the FCC's power, and Baby Powell would almost certainly have a hissy fit, putting the entire thing in jeapordy (and the courts) if the states tried to do it. On the other hand, if the federal government were to do it, it might be more successful, and even if it were ultimately less effecient it would still be vastly more effecient than the oligopolies and monopolies we suffer under today. Witness rural canada's exceptional DSL service, not to mention S. Korea's, Japan's, etc...cheap, multi-megabit bandwidth standing in stark contrast to the limited availability and slow connection speeds available at any price to those of us beneath SBC Ameritech's yoke in downtown Chicago.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Your analogy is pointless. Farmers get subsidies. We get cheaper food. Because for a given area, there are thousands of farmers serving it.
If my town had 500 phone companies, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
As if your company PAYED for the bloody lines in the first place !!!!!! NO I THINK NOT. They got HUGE government subsidies, and enormous amounts of tax dollars in the way of "recovery" surcharges, not to mention the government arranged, read forced the right of ways needed using emminent domain, and THEN PAYED for the Fair Market Value of the access property. All the Bells have EVER HAD to do was maintain the lines and grow FAT on the profit, and they can't even do that.
"I mean hell if they were allowed to sell DSL AT COST you people would still throw a shit fit because DSL lines ARE EXPENSIVE!"
NOT, they are just bloody existing copper lines. If a responsible entity had DONE ANY sort of decent upkeep over the last 40 years, there would be no issue, but instead they sucked up the profit, blew it on useless expansions in areas that were NOT their field, now they want us to pay for their mistakes...I say we nationalize the infrastructure, it is after all a BUSINESS REQUIRMENT these days, and then appoint someone to operate it and let the bells become tenants just like everyone else.
Note, I don't mean this as a personal attack, it just sounds like you are leaping to the defense of your employer....Archfeld
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
You guys fail to realize that municipalities control exactly what wire, where, and when flows over their easements. Most municipalities have already decided that only one cable company may run wires in the community, and only one telephone company can run wires. All others are screwed, the best the municipality will do is let others bid when the 99 year telephone services contract is up in the city before they renew the contract for that lucky one company to run the wires. So there is NO chance any other company can come along and run their own wires/cable. In this scenario, therefore, there is no way to have a choice because the municipality decided who the monopoly is for you.
If you really want competition and still preserve the 'you run your own cable, you're the only one who gets to use it' mentality, then get the federal government to superscede local municipalities authority to limit who can run wires, and make the easements available to all. Until then, linesharing is all there is to keep competition.
I agree with the immediate parent. How can an company make money off its lines if it is forced to open access to them and then be unable to make a profit on them?
The lines do not belong to the public any more than the cable lines do.
Most people don't live within range of a central switching office, so DSL isn't available to them anyway. We're talking about a technology that is available to a lucky few who just happen to be in the right place to get the service.
Most people are going to end up with cable or satellite service, and eventually, many are going to migrate to the power companies' and their network-over-power-lines idea. If you haven't heard about this, it's probably going to be a relatively big deal one of these days. Lord knows what else they're going to come up with.
I've got cable, my folks have satellite... It costs around a hundred bucks a month, but you get a fast connection plus about a thousand television channels. You're stuck with one provider, but the service is generally pretty good.
I'm not saying this FCC ruling isn't unfortunate, I'm just saying it's going to affect a limited number of people, and ultimately, will be irrelevant. I strongly suspect DSL service is going to go the way of ISDN before too long.
Just my opinion...
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Does "being a government-granted monopoly" not count as assistence in your book? What about "being given right-of-way to build lines?"
And to top it all off, I see no links or references to back up your claim of the facts, either. Is it too much to ask for you to verify what you're saying?
I would like to thank Chairman Powell, who discented to the majority opinion with rather strong language. If you read the opinions from all five commissioners it becomes obvious that Powell is the only one with a seat on the clue train. Commissioner Adelstein spends most of the brief talking about how late they all stayed up, and how this was his first decision as a new Commissioner, rather than the merits of the Mojority Opinion.
Powell suggests that the Majority Opinion is in dire legal peril since it is almost exactly like the previous telco rulemaking proposal which was swatted down by the supreme court. For them to pass the same, obviously flawed, argument all over again is idiotic.
Powell must be saying to himself: "I am surrounded by fools and peasants."
She follows me around and tells me to sit in a
corner and that I'm a newbie. You have made the
mistake of actually making sense in a reply to my
pet troll and she may follow you around now!
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
My guess is that this is a ploy by the FCC to give the appearance that the Bells own their own DSL networks. Now they will upgrade them, looking to be able to compete solely with cable instead of other leech DSL providers. After a few years, when the infrastructure is in place, the FCC will change the rules again and screw the Bells, allowing others once again to use the lines. In the end however, this technology is obsolete, and will eventually be replaced by fiber to the home. The govt. will no doubt regulate this pipe as well.
Vote for Pedro
Already did this -- I am landline free. Unfortunately, most cellular services in the US are not robust enough to depend on 100%. Poor quality, dropped calls and the like really become a problem when you cannot say "I'll call you back on my other line."
However I am quite content being a true bleeding-edge adopter. Down with copper!
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Right of way costs money, it's not free. You are an obvious troll, but I'll bite.
Read what I said: subsidies and investments. I could link to the New Deal law if you would like...but being a coward I wont waste my time.
It wasn't government granted monopoly either. Bell & AT&T existed because they were the biggest, and existed long before anti-trust laws.
Think before you post!
Eh, cheaper food because of subsidies is an illusion. The money doesn't come from nowhere. you pay the government to pay for those subsidies in the form of taxes.
_______
2B1ASK1
"Is it too much for you to check the facts before you post?"
You know I normally leave such comments alone. After all what damage can I do compared to the original comment? BUT Your just begging for it.
Re:Finally the bells can use their *property*
And
Corrections to the Summary
And
Subtle move
And
we have paid
And
Think a little harder.
And under your nose to boot. Shame.
To file a Public comment with the FCC
Since now the DSL vendors have to string something for the last mile, how about fiber? They can use the extra bandwidth to outsell the monopoly telcos by providing higher bandwidth Internet service, digital phone service and video on demand. Since they don't have to worry about carrying the overhead for the obsolete stuff, the cost of doing this can be quite reasonable. Using VOIP for the phone service they could offer services that the POTS telcos could not! Use the video on demand to sell the Internet portion. Since there is plenty of bandwidth, provide a complete package to tie in multiple computers, multiple TVs, multiple phones and wireless. Since they are no longer telcos (as defined by the FCC rules) they don't have to worry about the regulations.
If the DSL providers compete on a different level they can win this. This decision was a result of the FCC being bought by the telcos. Plain and simple.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
if you think state and federal tax dollars did NOT subsidize the local telcos you are wrong. your thinking is smaller minded and plays right into the hands of big business.
I don't remember where I saw it, but there was a recent posting regarding a research paper, I believe out of AT&T Broadband, on the topic of determining the number of actual computers behind a NAT. Clearly they are working on ways to identify and then charge for each computer you've got even when you are hidden behind a NAT.
You are linking me to slashdot posts? Thats your facts? HAHAHAHAHAHA
Thats hillarious. Especially since everything you have referred to is in the past 50 years or so, when most of the network was already built (phone wise).
also, TAX RELIEF IS NOT A SUBSIDY! That is a faulty premise in of itself. So does the government subsidize your child when you get tax relief for him/her?
Linking to slashdot posting is not linking to facts. I also see you are posting anonymously.
I hope this doesn't get modded offtopic but.. oh well.
I think this decision by the FCC is really sad, and it's just the latest in a very long trend line i've seen from the USA recently.
We've yet to see a nation really fail because they were too capitalist. Well, as far as I can remember anyway. Hence capitalists always go on about how capitalism is better than communism because communist countries like the USSR have failed miserably whereas countries like the good old USA are doing great.
Well I think that argument may be on the verge of going to the sharks. You know, the *real* reason capitalist countries do well is because the have the right mix of free market capitalism and regulation, not ultra-capitalism. Capitalism can be just as shit as communism if you let it run its natural course.
I'm gonna make a prediction that the USA will become a *major* failure if things keep sliding the way that they are now. Total deregulation of nearly all industries, support for 'intellectual property' rights of enormous companies, and general all-round favouring of large corporations over the consumer is going to cause the power (wealth) to be shared between a very small number of people at the top in America, even more so than it is today, just like what happened in failed communist states.
Things could take a turn for the better, of course, but I don't see it happening. There is no effective way to get big business supporters out of government with the US's flawed voting system, there is no way to prevent them being bribed (lobbied), there is no way for people without power (wealth) to really effect change in America, apart from getting an enormous amount of people together to protest, which not only is difficult unless it's something really emotive (war) but also is usually ignored by the government ANYWAY (war).
The USA - the world's first ultra-capitalist state, and the first to fail because of it.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
So Covad will partner with company, providing voice service over their internet connection (Vonage for example), big deal.
But the big deal is, as I understand, that new high speed networks don't need to be shared. With this Bell's argument that "we don't want to build out into rural areas cause we'd have to share" is no longer valid, and they will have to build out to gain much wanted monopoly.
Of course there's also a chance the whole thing gets thrown out by a court.
Hyperom.com
One of the original reasons for the legal utility monopolies was to reduce the amount of redundant infrastucture. If you look at old urban photos, you will see poles choked with cabling and equipment. Where the power industry is deregulated, the power company doesn't have run new power lines to your house. Why is the telecommunications business different? Many of the facilities the RBOCs own were built while Ma Bell was a legal monopoly. Since the break-up, the RBOCs have fought tooth and nail against other companies from entering their markets. Why don't people recongnize the enormous advantages in market share, brand recognition, infrastructure, and facilities that the RBOC have over start-ups?
Right now the Phone company must provide lines to the independents for super discounted rates - and they still have to maintain them. I have heard from employees that upgrades to the network have been held off because they didn't want to offer it to the competitors but they are forced to by law. Hopefully we will see cheaper DSL and more coverage by this.
The first Baby Bell breakup had everything to do with deregulating long distance, and that did wonders for the American consumer.
However, with the modern approaches to communication, the Baby Bells need to be broken up in another way I have not yet seen mentioned:
Separate the dial provider from the infrastructure provider.
Check this out: You RBOCs would be split into two separate entities, your dialtone providers, and your cable-line providers.
Unfortunately, the infrastructure generally lends itself to a natural monopoly, similar to electrical service...but in most places, we can choose our energy provider...but still need to pay the distributor.
This could work well with phone service. Once company would own and maintain the infrastructure, and provide the physical path for anyone who make service available on it. Then the costs of the line would have to be paid by the service providers you choose, be it Covad, Verizon, or AT&T.
It would be nice then, because any companies could provide competing service if they all have to cover essentially the same wireline costs to reach the consumer. However, if the bells get to keep the whole ball of wax, then there'll never be any good service.
I've got my Covad IDSL line because I have no restrictions on what I can do with it...and I have a block of IPs. Compare that to the "business-class" Verizon DSL and cable modem service, and I get one IP...no routable netblock...and a ton of service restrictions (i.e. no servers).
In short, unless the physical plant is made into a separate operating company, we will never truly have competition for telephone service.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
I commented on this in a post previously regarding telecommunications. But I can't remember what the topic was and I'm too laszy to search.
Basically, and this is only my opinion, of course, but the only real solution that I see is to remove services from infrastructure. Let a single recognized monopoly exist that does one thing: owns the copper. Thats it, nothing more, and never allowed to provide service.
Then bill access out to any and all comers from Sprint and AT&T to Billy-Jim's Telephone and Crab Shack to provide the actual voice and/or data. If there is ever a new technology that needs to roll out, let the cost of the system be shared between the infrastructure company and those service companies that see themselves as providers of that service.
But that is an even more drastic change to the telecommunications industry than was the Bell breakup.
It would be nice, but so much for my well-supported Earthlink/Covad DSL...
What?
They have really helped communications in this country by keeping out innovation and screwing the little guy.
When you wonder why broadband uptake is so low in the U.S. (compared to other countries), look at the companies that have asked the FCC to keep them alive and prevented real competition.
Thanks for nothing, FCC.
If you've been thinking about cancelling your extra lines (fax/dialup) or your primary phone line (because you have cellular), NOW is the time to do it! Nothing like socking the bells in the pocketbook to make a point (they make oodles of money off of regular voice lines.) Plus, if they get desperate enough, they may very well decide to lease lines to competitors in order to recoup costs on idle infrastructre...
In some sense, I think this was inevitable. When one company is responsible for the infrastructure and is required to allow other companies to use that infrastructure to compete with it, it's too easy to make an argument that that's not a fair situation. That argument is incorrect in this case (see various posts above), but that's not the point. The point is that sooner or later, the local telcos were going to muscle out the competing ISPs.
So what happens now? Once the rules get fully phased in, the rates will rise as the telcos milk their monopolies on internet service. At some point, someone will complain, the government will step in, and internet service will become a regulated monopoly.
In the end, I don't think that'll be a bad thing. Local telephone service is a regulated monopoly, and it's been pretty good so far. But it might take awhile to get there.
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Line sharing doesn't have anything to do with whether Covad can get loops from Bell. Covad can continue to rent dedicated local loops from Bell. They just can't force Bell to allow Covad to provide DSL service over a loop that is also attached to Bell's phone switch.
This raises the price to the Covad customer. Bell DSL can still go over the phone line at a lower cost than what Covad has to pay. In some cases, a second loop won't be available for Covad, so they are blocked from providing service.
CLEC's that also have phone switches can provide both services on the loops they rent.
In the markets I used to work in, the cost to a CLEC for a copper loop was more than the residential basic phone service cost. So there was no way we could provide residential phone service with DSL and make a profit. We just sold DSL without voice on the same loop.
I searched around a bit and found there were AT&T + 7 baby bells. Three have been gobbled up by the other four. Although, I was under the impression that there were only three remaining baby-bells from something in the news recently, which I can't corroborate atm.
On another note...(OT) I ran out to pick up some rice and found Zebra brand basmati rice, which is:
ISO 9002 certified (How? Perhaps the company is compliant, but why is this on the bag?)
ANSI-RAB-QMS Accredited (Again, how does this apply to the rice?)
Exported by DATA CORPORATION of Pakistan (ah, ok, so the rice is a Data product..., I'm still confused...)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
OK so here's my thing: Tax money was used to subsidize laying down the copper for the telcos, but wasn't it also used to help the cable companies run cable to my house? In my neighborhood the phone lines and cable tv lines run off the same poles. This reasons that the cable companies should also be forced to allow competition on those lines. (Or maybe not anymore, as in this ruling). Why treat the 2 any differently anymore?
This is why someday wireless is going to be king. Can't wait.
http://www.phonebillcentral.org/companies/glossary .html
In particular, note the SLC charge instituted in 1984 to pay for the lines after the AT&T breakup. You are right that is not a tax, since it does not ever go to the government-- but it is a government-imposed additional fee going straight to the phone companies.
See also this page. Search for "subsidies". The relevant paragraph says: "local rates are currently subsidized" as well as "federal regulators were eliminating subsidies from long distance rates." (the latter indicates that ther e WERE subsidies on long distance.)
Also, this report, which you have to pay for, has an entire chapter titled "types of regulatory subsidies".
Note that these are ALL recent events, and do not take into account the advantage of being a government-mandated monopoly.
Is that enough for you, you lazy, undocumented fuckwit?
Talk about a land grab! The FCC seems to want to use the Communications act of 1996 to DECREASE competition in the marketplace. First radio, now TV and telephone! What's next? BANNING VOIP???!!! There are a few Commissioners who have fat swiss bank accounts because of this!! I cannot believe this bad decision, whose ramifications will do more to hurt net that any single other decision ever made! THIS IS BOGUS!!!
Oh, and you meant "whomever". Where have all the grammar nazis gone...
Are you sure? Let's simplify the sentence:
All that Covad would have to do is X.
'Is' the verb, and 'X' the object. The whole mess 'All that Covad would have to do' is the subject. 'All' is the noun, and the rest is a clause specifying all of what. In this clause, Covad is the subject. Thus, if we were replacing it with a pronoun, the correct choice would seem to be 'who', not 'whom'.
I could be missing a subtle difference, but another sentence along the same lines is "All (that) we are saying is give peace a chance." In this one, it's more obvious that 'we' functions as a subject and should not be 'us'.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Are you forgetting that the cable company, as per the 1996 Telco Act, can provide dial tone?
There is already competetition between cable and DSL. Soon cable companies will be providing dialtone as well. Forced line sharing does nothing but cripple the Bells and allow the cable companies to dominate.
You guys fail to realize that municipalities control exactly what wire, where, and when flows over their easements. Most municipalities have already decided that only one cable company may run wires in the community, and only one telephone company can run wires.
That may be true (here it is not) but those "exclusive franchises" you refer to are always for a limited time, say 5 years or so. They are only given by the cities to encourage investment in the network. I know where I live, a vote of the people has to pass before that exclusive franchise can be given. ALso they are of a limited time, and the cable/phone companies are generaly required to meet certain requirements of investment or they cannot apply for a new franchise.
Here we actually suffered because the voters refused to grant the cable company that exclusive franchise, and millions of dollars were sent to another city's infrastructure.
If you really want competition and still preserve the 'you run your own cable, you're the only one who gets to use it' mentality, then get the federal government to superscede local municipalities authority to limit who can run wires, and make the easements available to all
Do you really want the federal government to have this control? Or your local government where you can actually have a direct say in the matter? I prefer local government.
Until then, linesharing is all there is to keep competition.
Not true. Cable companies are the direct competetor to the ILECs. They could provide dial tone now if they wanted to.
From Chairman Powell's Dissent
I do, however, dissent from the Majority's decision to immediately eliminate line sharing as an unbundled network element. Most of our policies to promote the goals of the Telecommunications Act have produced little yield to date. However, line sharing has clear and measurable benefits for consumers. It has unquestionably given birth to important competitive broadband suppliers. That additional competition has directly contributed to lower prices for new broadband services. By some estimates, 40% of DSL providers use line shared inputs. The decision to kill off this element and replace it with a transition of higher and higher wholesale prices will lead quite quickly to higher retail prices for broadband consumers.
I also believe the argument that removing line sharing is a form of positive regulatory relief to stimulate broadband is ill-conceived. Line sharing rides on the old copper infrastructure not on the new advanced fiber networks that we are attempting to push to deployment. Indeed, the continued availability of line sharing and the competition that flowed from it likely would have pressured incumbents to deploy more advanced networks in order to move from the negative regulatory pole to the positive regulatory pole, by deploying more fiber infrastructure. This decision actually diminishes the competitive pressure to do so.
I agree with Powell, what we need to do is share the copper-networks like we've been doing, BUT we need force the competition to build thier own facilities, which will in turn force them to buy lots of equipment from Lucent, Nortel, etc.
We need to stop dicking around with copper, and start investing in REAL fiber networks.
Lastly, We need to get rid of these horrible Right of Way laws preventing the competition from building thier own networks.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Lobbyists: $1.5 million Payment to RNC: $ 1 million Payoffs to FCC Comms: $ 500K Rewards: PRICELESS! For the rich, there's richer. For the rest of us there's getting screwed!
...the average person does not have $400 a month to spend on internet service, even if they share it with their neighbors. The average person, for that matter, probably doesn't have neighbors who've even heard of 802.11b or 'wireless networking' or any of that, or who need anything more than dialup to meet their needs. (Presuming they have home internet access at all.)
I'm sure there are a lot of broadband subscribers who *wish* they could have an arrangement like that, but I don't think it's practical for most of us just yet.
Why not 802.11(a, b, g, your-favorite-letter-here) broadcast to customer premise equipment ("CPE," e.g., mini-dishes a la DirecTV)?
I'm currently on a free trial dial-up account while I wait for my new DSL to kick in. I was on our local bell's ADSL from almost the first moment it was introduced in 1999. They offered very little value for the price and that was fine until competition rolled in. I switched to DirecTV Broadband (formerly Telocity) about 4 months ago. In other words, about 3 months before they went out of business. I switched to DirecTV Broadband in part because they offered a static IP address for only $5 more than what I was already paying.
Last week I set up an account with Earthlink DSL (they use Covad for the last mile) and am still waiting for service to begin. Now I wonder if it ever will. The reason I picked Earthlink is because they offered a static IP for only $15 more than I was paying with the last company. For the same service via Bellsouth, I have to get a business phone line (which is much higher than a residential), get a business DSL plan (which costs more than a residential plan) and then pay an additional amount. The DSL would cost over twice as much and that doesn't include the business phone line.
You would think that Bellsouth's prices would be better than their competitors but the opposite is true. Even so, the costs aren't the only nor even main reason I didn't want to go back to the local bell. The service is. Even with the current competitors, Bellsouth's service is horrible. In the first months of offering DSL, they got away with murder. At one point, they actually told a business that called them that not only were they booked up and couldn't sign them up, they weren't even taking any more requests or booking installations until further notice. Nobody ever showed up for my first installation appointment but when I called to complain, the appointment was listed. By that time they had started their 'self-install' program so I had them mail the modem to me. The service was unpredictable for the first 6 months or year, but was pretty reliable after that. Customer service was a different story. I occassionally recieved "service addition confirmation" postcards in the mail, thanking me for signing up for some new premium (meaning 'not free') service from them. I still recieved bills in the wrong name months after changing the name on the account. I moved my DSL to DirecTV in November and I am STILL getting charged by Bellsouth for my old DSL account (which is still listed under the old account name, almost a year after changing it).
Even with Covad as a competitor, Bellsouth's prices and service are unreasonable. I shudder to think what will happen if Covad goes away. I really don't want to have to go with RoadRunner.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
But I guess the slashdot editors would rather bitch about it in retrospect than do something about it beforehand.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
" You are linking me to slashdot posts? Thats your facts? HAHAHAHAHAHA"
That's funny coming from someone who's failed to back up his original claims, and failed to refute what any of the other slashdot posters have said.
"Thats hillarious. Especially since everything you have referred to is in the past 50 years or so, when most of the network was already built (phone wise)"
What? And the network suddenly got up and walked away" It's there and it's being used.
"also, TAX RELIEF IS NOT A SUBSIDY! That is a faulty premise in of itself. So does the government subsidize your child when you get tax relief for him/her?"
Of course it is. Go read up on the relevant laws.
"Linking to slashdot posting is not linking to facts. I also see you are posting anonymously."
Uhh...hu, right Mr "Starrider"
My company just about an SDSL line through SBC, but Covad provided the router/modem, Covad installed the connection, Covad services the connection.
Do I make myself clear to you? There's only so much POLE SPACE!!!!! The fact is that the wires that the telco's own were depreciated YEARS AGO!!!! Any $$ the telcos make from their wires is PURE GRAVY! I suppose that you'll be HAPPY when cheap long distance goes by the wayside (in the next FCC decision that will unbundle Long distance) But HEY you won't mind...'cause they'll be only ONE HUGE CHECK to mail instead of TWO MUCH SMALLER ONES!!
If you are going to call me a fuckwit, at least have the gall to sign in. Otherwise you are just a coward.
Also, that charge was necessary because it meant that the baby bells were now paying for access to the long distance network. Thats not a government mandated fee, thats a judge ordered settlement.
Local rates were subsidized as per the breakup I believe. It takes a long time to separate a company like AT&T into profitable AT&T & baby bell companies. The baby bells had to fend for themselves, for the first time. The government was taking responsibility for the breakup order.
The fact that they are ALL recent events points to the 1984 breakup, which was mandated by a federal judge.
The government did not build the lines, it did not pay for the right of way. If you had paid attention to my first post you would have seen that. Subsidize post 1984 are due mainly to the fact the government did not want the bells to go under after breakup.
If you split up M$ into two companies, you might also see subsidies to keep the two companies afloat (to make sure they don't merge back together, and they survive as two separate companies.)
You are definately missing the big picture. But why am I bothering to reply to someone who is posting anonymous bs?
The internet is dangerous to a lot of people. Traditional media companies don't like it because it provides "unwantedly democratic" alternatives to the traditional mass media. It allows free trade of digital media (i.e. P2P), threatening the publishing/retail trusts. Internet radio is nipping (ever so delicately, just now) at the heels of traditional radio. Heck, it even threatens the phone company's monopoly on voice calls (i.e. VoIP, which is growing exponentially).
Clearly it must be stopped.
Their goal is to reduce the ownership of all user-facing internet services to a managably small set of large owners. Coincidentally, these will be the big media and phone companies that are threatened by the internet in the first place. When all the independents and smaller players have been eliminated, and less than a dozen RBOCs and cable operators control all broadband (and thus almost all internet access) in the U.S., they will kill what threatens them by simply raising the price.
Some number of months from now, users will find that their ISP has suddenly renegotiated their deal. The new choices will be cheap but brutally capped broadband that is useless for P2P, streaming media, and VoIP... pay-per-K offerings that ensure these things are prohibitively expensive... and classic, "business class" $1,500+ T1-style service.
Surveillance of users will become not only more pervasive but more standardized, as the Internet trust announces trade groups and landmark deals that support both police and "private" law enforcement efforts.
Of course, in addition to prices going up, this guarantees that investments in new infrastructure (to provide better services) will now entirely cease. Without competition to threaten offering anything better, the bells and cable companies will do what they have always done (before TA96). Absolutely nothing.
Oh, you thought the cable companies and bells would compete with each other? This one really slays me. Why spend billions competing when you can just form a trust and price-fix instead? This is capitalism 101. And when the number of players is that small, it's virtually guaranteed to happen.
I know, I'm a paranoid lunatic. None of this could really happen here, right? I mean, just because it's already happening in Australia, Canada, and England... pure coincidence.
Of course, this tragedy will cause lots of collateral damage. The first victim that comes to mind is the video game industry, which has lots of innovative, "harmless" uses for massive, cheap bandwidth. There are many others as well.
But for all you folks watching in amusement as the big players stumbled trying to crush P2P, VoIP, etc. with lawsuits and bribed-legislation, this is the other shoe dropping.
On the bright side, the market for wireless technology might be looking up... that is, until the FCC turns out to be less than forthcoming with licenses, rules, and considerations necessary to allow wireless broadband alternatives. Watch for it.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
I'd like to point out that just saying "it ain't so" is not a valid argument, either. While not anonymous, you have provided no citations either, which hardly lends you credibility.
If you have some information you could show us that would back up your claims that the phone network is not subsidized, please post them. It affects this discussion a great deal.
This wired link indicates a subsidy (the rural-access subsidy, I believe), as does http://www.thedigest.com/111/111-28.html. The second article refers to subsidies buried in long-distance charges.
Neither of these articles is a great source of info, but they indicate *some* subsidies. Finding historical info on the 'net is harder. If you have better sources indicating that there are no subsidies and that there have been no subsidies historically, PLEASE post them. It changes the whole picture.
Subsidies are not the only government benefit. As you point out, tax breaks are not subsidies. But they DO give these companies a financial boost. As do fees imposed on your telephone bill by the government, which aren't taxes because the money goes straight to the phone companies.
Anyway-- post what info you've got! The whole issue is not black and white. There are some subsidies, but how big? There are tax breaks, and grants of right-of-way, but some right-of-way is purchased. Was the purchase discounted? By how much? The CLECs are paying for the lines they use, and the 1996 Act dictates that the price be the same as the telco pays-- but states can change this. How many changed it, and which changed it to amounts below cost? Covad built infrastructure, too-- a huge backbone, and they use their own switches. All we're talking about access to is the unused high-frequency portion of the local loop. NOT telco backbones, switches, or other equipment.
Anyway, show us what you've got!
Bah, you all just need dedicated unbundled loops and SDSL connections. Line-Shared ADSL? Blah I say. Not to mention this does not effect ILEC provided Line-Shared services (Like Qwest DSL). The ILECs are required to provided these services, and the times coming when they better have it, or pay the price, thanks to that fiasco of a '96 telco act. What does this do? It forces CLEC's to get their acts together. Very few CLEC's that exist do what they were originally intended to do, compete against the incumbents! Compete with, not have the incumbents subsidise their existance... God I love my 1.1mbit SDSL connection, I love my 30-40 ms away from such sites as yahoo and google, my 99.99%+ uptimes. I think my ISP did it right, they are fairly small fish in the world, but they are a PSC regulated, Tier 2, CLEC, that creates it's own private infrastructures (FTTH, FTTB, CTTH) or uses dedicated unbundled loops from the ILEC, are triple-redundant, ds3 and oc3 connections, and all of this where? Montana of all places. Rural broadband? How about a dark fiber loop to your home?
How so? All Covad or speakeasy or whoever has to do is start to offer basic voice service. It doesn't matter if anyone cares about their voice service, just that they offer it.
It could be looked at as an attempt to remove an 'unfair' advantage of a company that only does DSL without needing to worry about the (less profitable) voice.
The net result here will be more competition in the voice arena, and less in the DSL arena.
If you ask me, the best solution would be to have the actual infrastructure controlled by the government (like the city or county government, not fed), who would then treat all service providers equally under the law, rather then having one company control all the lines.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
instead of the CRTC website. That's where I've been reading about the specifics of Canada's policies on forcing telephone companies to share their lines. As the parent says in another post, cable high speed access is widespread, but there isn't a lot of choice (usually only a couple cable providers even in large urban areas). Thanks to the policies in Ontario (and also thanks to the fact that I live in Toronto), I have lots of choice when it comes to DSL providers. If you head over to Canadian ISP, you can get an idea of what sort of providers are in what areas. In Toronto, there are 51 DSL providers listed, thanks to regulations, but only 1 cable provider (there are actually at least two cable providers that I can think of, so the website isn't completely reliable). I went with DSL because it's cheaper.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
There's no valid reason to force any private entity to make its private property available to anyone else for whatever reason.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Slashdot sucks so bad that they don't mod dicks like you down to the ground.
Now them bastards couldn't be trying to make the barrier higher to becoming a producer, could they? I mean, now that there is no more competition on the last mile, baby bells can implement their own strict rules, and what are you going to do pay more for less or disconnect? It seems as though Powell's decision has made bandwidth less of a commodity, a great thing for the internet business, in the middle of a recession, NOT!; does someone get the idea, that today's decision will hurt the future of net?
Those in washington, sure know how to piss off it's peon population, perhaps it's time to do something crazy again, eh?
Now them bastards couldn't be trying to make the barrier higher to becoming a producer, could they? I mean, now that there is no more competition on the last mile, baby bells can implement their own strict rules, and what are you going to do pay more for less or disconnect? It seems as though Powell's decision has made bandwidth less of a commodity, a great thing for the internet business, in the middle of a recession; does someone get the idea, that today's decision will hurt the future of net?
Those in washington, sure know how to piss off it's peon population, perhaps it's time to do something crazy again, eh?
monopolies for many years. Those lines partially belong to us because we killed all their competition. I like this whole thread. Throw in Cable TV and the RF spectrum. It's being hijacked and the belong to us and not the highest bidder.
...but it would make sense if the rates charged to CLECs were the same cost they provide to their internal DSL service.
The ILECs define their "cost" of service, and they always somehow manage to still undercut any CLEC's price...
CA's deregulation was "half" deregulation. But the power companies signed up for it too... and don't forget about the Enron factor in CA's power problems.
Well how about Wi-Fi? Bridging the last mile with wi-fi sounds like a great way to give the finger to Ma Bell.
Damn I hate that bitch.
There is a group mentioned on slashdot a while ago that has finished work on mesh-AP routing. Locustworld Has also got hardware pre-built, and software to D/L. Ma Bell dosn't want compitition huh? How about no customers as well.
Damn I hate that bitch. A Lot.
Free market disobediance? hmmm.... Sorry if I sound a little crude in this post, but I am so damn mad I could just *censored*!!!
Freenet is fully operational, if we could get alot of more the IPDroid's content out there{dvd movies and more music}, people will be satisfied with dsl connection and as the price goes up, most people will then drop cable and satillite! This could profit the bells, which is fine by me, and drive out the IPDroids out of business, which is what all us slashdot'rs dream about, LOL
For the most part, this just means no more hi-band/lo-band split where the the ILEC is required to provide low frequency analog voice while selling the high frequency broadband side to a CLEC on the same pair. The CLEC can still get the whole loop. And I don't see any specific requirement that they have to even do low frequency analog voice over the loop to qualify. It could be done as Voice over IP, or Voice over ATM, or Voice over IDSL (like PRI). And if the customer wants data only, I see no reason they have to be able to offer voice at all.
Combined with local/state regulations, this may still result in some complications. For example I have 2 copper loops to my apartment. If I wanted just data and nothing else (I might use a cell phone for all my voice usage) I could use those 2 copper loops just for data, and a CLEC could offer services for just those of us that want data only (although I doubt there is much of a market in that).
People do want voice. And they may not be satisfied with having to get that voice over a different copper loop than the data loop. So there may be requirements that voice be available somehow. But I don't actually see that in the FCC rule change summary.
That said, offering voice is NOT hard to do. I already know of a company in my area that is offering data + voice over ATM over T1, and they outsource the voice via a trunk to a CLEC, and get the T1s via a trunk to a different CLEC that is facility based and leases whole copper loops. That company is essentially nothing more than an ISP adding voice. They just happen to do it on T1 instead of DSL because they are oriented to business rather than residential offerings. In theory, it could be done over DSL at a lower aggregate bandwidth, especially with SDSL or IDSL. And compressed voice only needs about 40K rather than 64K anyway. I don't see anything in the new rules that prohibit this over any kind of circuit technology.
But I could be wrong. The links are incomplete summaries, and especially the impact with existing state rules is unclear. But even state rules could change. Just understand that what this means is that having a CLEC provide hi-band data, and requiring the ILEC to provide lo-band analog voice over the same pair is what I think this is ending.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It wasn't government granted monopoly either. Bell & AT&T existed because they were the biggest, and existed long before anti-trust laws.
That's partly right. But the AC had the bulk of it right, too.
Early in the history of telephony -when it was still local - there was competition. And the competing companies refused to interconnect and complete each other's calls. (In particular, Bell, the big gorilla, refused.) So businesses (like hotels, banks, legal firms, newspapers, telegraph offices, and cab companies) had to have phones from two or three companies to be sure all their customers could get to them.
Bell used their own reluctance to aid the competition to convince the government that telephony was a "natural monopoly" and thus needed to be regulated. (At the time gas and water distribution were considered to be "natural monopolies" because it would cost N times as much to install pipes for N companies, so supposedly a monopoly under price regulation could deliver the service for less than the cost of multiple copies of the infrastructure.)
So the regulators set up a system where "franchises" - regional monopolies - were given to various companies. Of course where a local phone company already existed it got the franchise, and where multiple companies existed the big guy typically got it and the little guys had to sell him their equipment (or trade it for equipment in a less-lucrative market they also shared).
If I recall correctly, Bell was the big gorilla at the time because it had had selective access to Bell's patents, another government monopoly. (Bell made it to the patent office a half hour ahead of another inventer with a virtually identical device.) So in the early days Bell had the best equipment and others had to work-around, and once the patents expired Bell was the big kid on the block.
Under regulation the prices were set at levels that guaranteed Bell about a 6% return on investment - and whenever it dropped below that they could petition for and receive a price hike.
(Bell Labs actually existed to spend as much money as possible on research vuagely connected with telephony, because for every dollar spent there Bell could bill customers $1.06. It was the biggest failure of the system, because basic research pays off big. Virtually from the start they made more money licensing Bell Labs inventions than the lab cost.)
As long distance became possible, Bell (who had by then bought out most of the little guys, except for some rural co-ops and small towns wired by the likes of General Telephone) became the regulated monopoly for interconnecting the cities.
Bell continued to be a government-mandated monopoly until a series of court decisions.
First the Carterphone decision led to the "foreign attachments" tariff - and you could stop renting a phone built by Western Electric (Bell's manufacturing subsidary) and hook up one bought from an independent manufacturer. Phones went from a paper cost of hundreds of bux to cheap disposables over a few years.
Then Microwave Communications Inc. (MCI) took advantage of that tariff and inflated long distance charges by setting up their own inter-city microwave hops, renting local lines, and bypassing Bell. Bell sued, MCI counter-sued for antitrust, and the fallout was that not only was MCI (and others) allowed to continue, but Bell was required to let them hook up on the same basis as Bell's own long-distance operation. And to keep Bell from playing accounting games to subsidize unregulated long distance from monopoly local bills, Bell was split up into AT&T (long distance), Lucent (Western Electric & Bell Labs), and a handfull of "Baby Bell" RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies) to continue the monopoly local/short-range long distance service.
Meanwhile, virtually all the local copper was installed by Bell Telephone or the Baby Bells while they were regulated monopolies, with government-mandated monopoly pricing for their service subsidizing the cost. A new competitor in a deregulated local phone business would have to wire a whole city and then pay for it with money made while charging less than the established RBOC, which is sitting on paid-for subsidized copper and can cut prices to the bone. Can't be done.
Eventually the RBOCs were allowed back into the long distance business - at a price. They had to provide DSL service and rent their local copper to upstart competitors at a wholesale price. It seemed like a good idea at the time, because the long-distance service was where the money was. Players there were mostly AT&T, MCI, and SPRINT. (The Southern Pacific Railroad had strung fiber along their right-of-way for their own communication. Fiber has a LOT of bandwidth, so they rented out the surplus bandwidth by becoming a long-distance phone and long-haul data carrier.)
But about the time that deal was cut, several upstart long-distance companies completed THEIR long-haul fiber loops, and the price war started. Suddenly the Baby Bells had no revenue from the shiny new long-distance operations. So they started dragging their feet on the DSL deployment. As for installing more copper to expand their own service and rent to their competitors, it no longer makes ANY sense with the only revenue coming form local service. So they won't do it until the ruling is reversed.
Meanwhile the competitive local phone carriers never really materialized (except for the cable operators, who also had existing copper installed). And the little DSL ISPs - except Covad which re-organized out of bankruptcy, dumping ITS startup costs - are pretty much dead, from their own price war (and from the local Bells' tendency to raise their service costs by screwing up their local copper). So from the regulators' point of view the competitive market they're trying to protect hasn't, and won't appear. Thus the release of the Baby Bells from the wholesale price controls, in the hope they'll start installing more cable.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
WE DON'T NEED TO INVEST IN COPPER NETWORKS
Let's get this straight. Line sharing doesn't create a disincentive to invest, because the network ALREADY exists. Secondly, We need to stop pouring our money in copper networks. Cutting line sharing was the worse thing the FCC could have done for the deployment of broadband. This will effectively kill the competition (Covad), who has played a key role in deploying broadband where the Bells didn't want to. This was a retarded move.
WE NEED TO INVEST IN FIBER NETWORKS.
We do this by forcing entrant competition to build thier own facilities and fiber networks (THESE ARE THE NETWORKS YOUR DON'T WANT TO SHARE). Facilitiy based competition will truely help in lowering costs, create new jobs, build a redudancies in our important communications network, and lastly give Lucent, Nortel, and the shot in the arm they need by giving them new business.
The Bells and Democrats just used your own conservative zealotry against you, and turned slashdotters against thier best ally, Michael Powell, who would have kept line sharing.
That's how dichotomies are played...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I'm sick and tired of all this fighting over f***ing copper! - Its absolutely useless ..
....
Cheap, competitive, smokin-fast broadband aint ever going to happen over those douchebags' last mile.
Until a wireless solution is feasable we're all beholden to the Satanic Bastard Corporation (SBC)
now ask me how I realllly feel
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I live in Fairbanks, Alaska. I was talking to a friend recently who told me the following story. His friend a tech at the local Telco was told not to install or upgrade any of the equipment, no new lines, nothing. They are doing a slowdown so they can kill the regulations up here that requires them to sell their infrastructure at cost.
The complaint is every time they upgrade or expand the competitor just comes into the new area and takes the customers. Problem being that the competitor does not install any infrastructure.
I would be for the competitor coming in and getting the service at cost + 1% that can only go into future infrastructure/upgrades.
I live only 5 minutes from our local university and I can not get cable or DSL. I have been signed up for two years. I have friends who last summer were told the whole summer the equipment was in and would be installed next week so their area would have DSL. In the end it never came and they were only told again it will be installed next week, now it is next spring.
We have a monoply up here, and a leach. I would like some real progress and service.
The UNE-P decision is left to the states which is a good thing at least for me. The Bells won on the fiber-sharing issue. Not a big deal since there is an abundance of fiber out there. Notice the drop in Baby Bell stock prices after the announcement.
the govt may not have paid actual Dollars to the phone companies over time, but the regulators have always stepped in and made sure that the companies made a profit. Too many downed lines this year due to storms--extra "recovery fee" to make up for it. Cost of new equipment--extra "recovery fee" to cover it.
The govt has controlled the monopoly using our Dollars directly!
And get ready to spend, spend, spend for that cable modem. I just found out yesterday that my Cable Modem prices will be going up $15.00/Month since Comcast bought ATT Cable. The new price will be $60.00 USD/month. And get this, I found out about the increase because a Comcast telemarketer called me up and said that the cable modem would increase by only $5.00 if I signed up for their crappy cable TV service as well.
Time to start paying my upstairs neighbor to share his SBC DSL connection via wireless. Although I'm sure it won't be long before the monopoly factor sets in and his DSL prices shoot through the roof as well.
I agree that many of his previous decisions were intended to help current monopolies rather than foster competition.
But you can't blame him here. He didn't agree with the DSL rebunding. According to his statement it was actually Democrats claiming "states rights". I'm serious... I know it sounds like BS. Go read the PDF files. Maybe he's lying, but on the face of it, he supports unbundling.
Thanks for putting some sense into the discussion. The phone companies were protected by the government for years. Sure, Bell did some nice research, but they didn't provide very good service. They charged huge amounts of money ($60-$100) for telephones! You weren't allowed to hook up your own phone.
Competition in long distance has worked. It can work for the local telcos too.
Why can't we just change the local telcos into line-lease companies. The actual phone service and "high frequency" service portions of the company could be split off to compete fairly with Covad and other DSL providers.
It is not because the government created these companies and gave them land and money and a license to be the only service providers. Competition was not possible. So to just say "ok, we are no longer publicly funding the local telephone companies" doesn't create competition.
They still own all the damn lines buit with taxpayer dollars.
I don't need 30 different phone lines running into my house.
What are you smoking?
You can't lay "your own damn pipes".
When a new development is built they aren't going to allow 30 different companies to all run wire to the houses.
The local telephone companies are a natural monopoly. Well, at least the local-loop part.
What is not a natural monopoly is bundling of phone, long distance, and DSL service.
We split off one successfully. It looked like we had split off all three.
I guess competition isn't considered a good thing to this administration.
I too agree with this. In fact, I think it should have been done 15 years ago. But I suspect that wireless solutions on the horizon will make the whole issue mute in a few years time.
It might not be worth it at this point.
You think the government building and maintaining a monopoly, then "deregulating" by giving a single private company in each locale the sole right to run lines as well as the previous monopoly's assets is fair?
Sounds like a corrupt form of socialism to me.
It's not fucking private property.
The government forced us to pay for it back when the phone company was a government-managed and approved monopoly. Those lines are laid in public land.
Other companies didn't have the right (and still don't) to run new lines.
So that argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Not to a capitalist... or anyone with more than a few brain cells.
Due to massive corruption and misappropration of assets?
As Lessig argued in Future of Ideas, the forced access given to competitors on phone lines helped keep the game honest and reduced the ability of phone companies to leverage control on content. The cable companies don't have the same competition on their lines and exercise incredible control over what you can do with your network connection. Limiting bandwidth, barring any kind of server, blocking ports, etc. I'm not sure if they've started granting access controls in the sense of slowing down particular sites or routing you to preferred portals yet, but it will happen. You won't be able to see what you want on the internet, at least not as easily.
Just like how typing "google" into the address space on Explorer takes you to msn.com, companies with control over access to content can and will route you to preferred destinations. DSL competition on the lines helped preclude this, and I was hoping to see phone-line style forced access pushed on the cable companies. Now THAT would have fostered more competition, creativity, and helped to ensure the robustness of the internet than what we saw here today.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
Monopoly protection subsidised what the govenment did not outright buy for Bell. Sure, there were some requirements for that protection, now it's time for more as the old deal is dead. You sum up with:
But it seems to me to be a fundamentally unsound premise that a long ago repaid, mutually beneficial, regulated monopoly agreement between the government and a private industry (an agreement, by the way, that was ruled to be illegal, and forcibly broken by the federal courts) can be used today to prop up competitors who are not being asked to provide very much in return...
The competitors don't need proping, they need to be freed. You would have them prop up the old restrictive monopoly based on obsolete technology. I've been at the receiving end of BellSouth anti-competitive behavior so I don't have any sympathy or gratitude for them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
the upstream of Cable sucks.
depends on the cable, i get a full Mb up on optonline. and they don't reeeeeaaly enforce the ToS unless you're clogging up the network...$40/mo well spent.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I live across the street from Speakeasy headquarters down here on 3rd and Blanchard. I just talked to a representitive (Neil Honomichl) on his lunch hour and he says that they are totally unworried about it, that it will get overturned, or at least be in court for the next 20 years because it goes against the likes of AOL Time Warner.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
...with the tinfoil hat rant about the 'net Empowering the People and the established oligarchy desperately trying to keep the all-encompassing Enlightenment of the Internet away from the igorant unwashed masses, I might have actually given you some cred for the astute observations you made later on. As is, you sound like a ranting conspiracy theorist.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
How many flippin' times do I have to pay someone to run a wire into my house? I *already* have (1) an electric line, (2) a phone line, and usually (3) a cable line. Nevermind the mess out on the telephone poles. There is no difference here than with other similar situations.
So make it simple. GAS and Electric deregulation will (and should) lead to regulation of the infrastructure provider and deregulation of the content provider. No difference here, OR WITH CABLE FOR THAT MATTER.
What I mean is (1) and only (1) provider of a fiber to my house (next step, right?). That company is a regulated monopoly, renting out to any retail content provider with whom I want to setup a contract. This means telephone, cable/video, and broadband internet (and later who knows what else - real picturephones anyone?).
The FCC's concept of encouraging "competition" by having different "monopolies" compete (where "monopoly" here refers to a company with existing infrastructure that costs so damn much to build that the cost of entry for a new competitor is prohibitive) is just silly (see the NY Times Magazine article on Powell the younger from a while back - this seemed to be the concept).
While it may seem to be sensible to encourage a Cable company compete with a BabyHuey-Bell (my term for what the BabyBells have become as they merged), in reality this has not worked. the problem is however that the Bells had DSL competition, but multiple providers on the Cable situation was not as realistic.
All you folks that want to say I have this wrong - I don't care about the details. What I am saying is STOP TYING TOGETHER THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE CONTENT CAPABILITY!! One is a monopoly, but the other should have active competition. Putting them together gives me the worst of both worlds - no choice and high prices.
The best analogy here is the "Union Station" concept. Long ago, the Internet of that day was the railroad. So in each major city, every railroad had its own terminal. Only after everyone got tired of this concept did we get one terminal for everyone (not always, but often). The same thing for airports. Think of how it would be to have the airports dedicated to specific carriers.
It is a huge waste of our money (whether regulated or not - we still pay for the construction of these lines). There is still some value in thinking about competition via technology (wireless, satellite, etc.), but that is like rail versus trucking.
One more time - one wire (preferably fiber), multiple providers. Yes, they can sign me to a long-term contract; they just can't sell me both as an exclusive bundle. everybody pays the same access fees; even the BabyBell content providers to their own (regulated) infrastructure subsidiaries.
And to all those telecomm lobbyists that paid the FCC to do it their way - I would just like to keep you from continuing the process of getting me to pay for another round of a telecom bubble.
What else do you think will happen if monopoly profits are allowed to return?
-That's Mr. A.C. to you-
...SBC owns it now. Squabble all you want about how it was paid for and whether or not it should have been handed over to Bell back in the day, but facts is facts, and the lines are owned by SBC. I mean, unless you support the right of the government to take private property and place in the commonwealth, and not just when it's agreeable to *your* ends.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Why is it when they are eliminating competition, they try to act like they are doing consumers a favor? If they are "unbundling" why don't they force baby bells to offer dsl without having to pay for a phone line also?
I mean, surely that is what unbundling means, not forcing customers to pay for one service they don't want, in order to recieve another.Excuse me - the california power markets were abused, criminally so, and deregulation had nothing to do with it. Criminal enterprise, in the guise of big business, manipulated the market by a variety of illegal schemes.
If not, go and give it a shot. Powell dissented on the continued regulation of the local and long distance phone service, not the de-regulation of broadband services.
Oligarchies and all-encompassing enlightenment? You just need to take a little more time and read more slowly, I think.
Boy, that Louis Rosetto... now whenever you have anything positive-sounding to say about the internet, people suddenly flash back to his dayglo wacko-rag and think you're trying to sell them scientology.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
I think there is only one way to guarantee DSL competition. Forbid the local phone company from offering it bu require them to lease the lines at a reasonable profit. Turn them into a basic commodity. Anyone, with enough investment, can become a DSL provider on an equal footing with everyone else. What will differentiate them is quality of service, how reasonable is their AUP, price, and speed.
What I want: decent speed with no usage limits (speed is what will limit me), an AUP that allows me to run a server, and no ports blocked. Oh, and at a price I can afford.
I don't care who I get this from, as long as they will be in business for a while (I've been considering cyberonic.com, but I can't believe they can do what they promise at that speed for such a low price and stay in business).
-- Will program for bandwidth
http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/030201-tk.html
...And God forbid that the supreme court ever sticks its fingers into this mess.
FCC = Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is the regulatory agency formed with the passage of the Communications Act of 1934 that has the authority to regulate interstate communications within the United States. Intrastate communications are regulated by state-level agencies such as public service commissions, public utility commissions, and state utility commissions.
n du stry/definitions/
DSL = Digital Subscriber Line is a digital local loop that provides high speed data delivery over copper wires to the end user.
CLEC = Competitive Local Exchange Carriers are companies that compete with the Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILEC) on a selective basis for local telephone exchange and other services, following the introduction of competition with the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
UNE = Unbundled Network Elements are the technical part of an incumbent local carrier's network that, individually, may be utilized by other competitive carriers.
UNE-P = UNEs constitute a UNE-P, or Unbundled Network Element - Platform, when combined into a complete set in order to provide an end-to-end circuit.
RBOC = Regional Bell Operating Companies. At the time of the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, seven RBOCs were formed to carry the former MaBell's local telephone traffic. Four RBOCs remain today as a result of industry mergers, including BellSouth, Bell Atlantic [soon to merger with GTE], SBC, and U S West [soon to merge with Qwest].
LEC =Local Exchange Carriers
source:
http://www.worldcom.com/us/about/publicpolicy/i
But the point is that subsidies dont increase the price of food. Now tariffs on imported food are a different story.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
thanks FCC fuckers, took long enough.
" (an agreement, by the way, that was ruled to be illegal, and forcibly broken by the federal courts) "
Much like Microsoft. Just having a Monopoly isn't illegal (especially a government granted one), but the abuse of one is.
God %#!!&^% Slashdot. Here's the URL.
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id246.htm
Actually, it is now (as it should have been) on the hands of the states to decide. The states can still force the BBs to share the lines but the federal government wont anymore. You may think this is a bad thing but the feds giving power back to the states is a GOOD thing.
By definition:
1) The CLEC provider must collocate their own equipment with the ILEC/Bell/Evil Empire; therefore, the CLEC must pay recurrring collocation fees, a one time "setup fee", and additional application-for-space fees to the ILEC (and that shit ain't cheap!!! $5000 just to apply; multiply that by 2,000 offices!!!)
These fees are in addition to purchasing the equipment in the first place (DSLAM's, ATM switches, and DS3 multiplexors are not small or cheap), hiring/paying their own technicians to install/maintain it (technicians that can't access that equipment without jumping through "building access authorization" hoops), and paying for support contracts with the vendors of that equipment (ever bought a Cisco support contract? that ain't cheap either.)
2) The line-shared service must be provisioned over a line with existing POTS service; this means that the loop/pair/last mile was ALREADY delivered to the end user's premises and the end user is ALREADY paying the ILEC for their POTS service (note that POTS service recurring revenue is supposed to pay for any premises dispatches by ILEC technicians for loop quality issues related to voice services)
3) The CLEC still has to PAY the ILEC to connect the DSL equipment (which they ALREADY pay to keep in the ILEC office) to the end user's phone line (for which the end user is paying already)
4) The ILEC charges a monthly fee to the CLEC for providing a simple set of equipment cross connects in the Central Office; remember that this is over and above what the end user is already paying them for POTS service
5) UNE DSL lines are not cheap either, but CLEC's still pay more then end user's for the "privilege" to lease a dry copper pair. Most ILEC's will lease an "alarm pair" for under $20 month to an end user; many CLEC's pay nearly twice that for a pair with nothing on it!!!
Forgive me for saying "below cost my ass!!!" If the Bell monopolies weren't so uber-bloated w/r/t their business practices, human resources, logistics, etc..., perhaps they'd be making money hand over fist instead of bitching about not having any money or incentive to buildout in rural areas or extend buildout further into urban/suburban areas. I wish I could get the government to subsidize my business; then I could screw my customers every which way I could think of in order to lure shareholders in to giving me even more money.
While I find this decision a nice retarded step back, at the same time, I think that the FCC has realized that more of the Bells were soon to follow SBC's lead and roll out Pronto boxen of their own to destroy the competition.
For those not "in the know" on DSL tech, Project Pronto is a circumvention of the FCC's requirements of linesharing. See the current regulation requires sharing of space and lines at the CO (central office). While this gives people close to the CO nice speed, you get the usual drop offs with distance. Proto boxen are a RT (remote terminal) connected to the CO, usually by fibre, that gets the DSLAMs out to neighborhoods where access to the CO would be impossible or slow. FCC regulations have nothing on RTs, so its either the Bell way or the slow way for most users. This is also why in SBC areas, rather than compete, most (e.g. DirectTV DSL) DSL companies instead are just a re-branding of SBC service, and rather than pay cost, they pay around $40 or your $50/mo fee to the local bell for service.
If you think about it, the FCC might be rolling this out to force the genuinely competing DSL companies to get off their duffs and fight for fair competition (I know, I am being a bit hopefull on both sides there).
I have been a DSL user with SBC for about three years and only lately have been getting spam from SBC to change my service over to "SBC/Yahoo" with a whole new slew of TOC's and invasive software and kiss my static IP goodbye...
Now, the strange thing is that it came from SBC!
Why are they pushing customers away via email, while at the same time launching a massive television advertising campaign promoting SBC and demonizing the usurpers of their hard toiled infrastructure? Something smells fishy to me.
Here is the email: (stripped of a lot of links if anybody has a full version that will fit on Slashdot, please post it)
Dear SBC Internet Services Member,
The time to upgrade to SBC Yahoo! DSL is now. Act today and enjoy the added features and functions we've designed for the way you use the Internet. Here are three great reasons to take advantage of this enhanced new experience:
It's free - there is no cost involved.*
It's fast - it takes only minutes.
It's easy - one click and you can register online.
is seamless because your email address, monthly price,
billing method and high-speed Internet connection will all stay the same.
A home page that is fully customizable.
25MB of email storage space and 10 extra email addresses, each with 10MB of online storage space.
110MB of online storage with SBC Yahoo! Photos and Briefcase.
Two premium services at no additional cost.
20% off on as many as three premium services
Three premium listings in both SBC Yahoo! Classifieds and SBC Yahoo! Auctions.
A host of money-saving premiums and discounts.
The best part is that you can customize your upgrade to fit your needs.** Select any or all...
SBC Yahoo! Browser Environment Software
With this browser, you'll get the full SBC Yahoo! DSL experience, complete with easy access to the functions you use the most and built-in multimedia capabilities.
SBC Yahoo! Dial Connection Manager Software
Log in with your existing email and password even when you're on the road.
SBC Connection Manager Software
Diagnose any connection problems and get automated help to resolve the issue.
With SBC Yahoo! DSL, the freedom and flexibility to do everything you want online is finally yours. And you can get it all for what you're paying right now.
If you would prefer not to receive further information about your free SBC Yahoo! DSL upgrade, This selection will apply only to SBC Yahoo! DSL upgrade announcements. No other account preferences will be affected.
*Your basic monthly price does not change during your existing term commitment.
**Minimum systems requirements are provided online for the options you choose to download.
SBC Yahoo! DSL is an information service that combines DSL transport, Internet access and applications from SBC Internet Services, with customized content, services, and applications from Yahoo! Inc., to provide the customer with high-speed broadband access to the World Wide Web.
Yahoo!, the Yahoo! logo and other Yahoo! products and service names are the trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. SBC, the SBC logo and all other SBC logos and product and service names are the trademarks and/or registered trademarks of SBC Properties, L.P. All other brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
© 2003 SBC Properties, L.P. and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
I had cut out a bunch of "Click here for content!" types of links out but you get the general idea.
I hope this is fair use.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-985430.html
I think that you have misunderstood the wording of the FCC decision. I agree with you that forcing the phone companies to share their backbone bandwidth (which they have mostly paid for) makes no sense. However, the FCC decision *forces* companies to continue sharing their systems to voice companies (UNE-P, I believe). UNE-P linesharing makes use of their whole network, and is costly and somewhat unfair-- even though it does seem to be benefitting consumers. (AT&T is undercutting SBC's price here in Indiana now through UNE-P sharing)
What IS lost in the decision is the ability of providers who have their own backbones and switches (like Covad) to use ONLY the high-frequency portion of the local loop. Covad has no need for and is not asking for access to the phone company backbones-- only the last bit of wire that connects to your house. Note also that not only do YOU pay the phone company for that wire (and your voice service) already, but Covad pays them an additional fee on top of it.
There are two points. UNE-P sharing has been upheld. High-frequency local loop sharing has been cut down. So, for customers-- it's a win on POTS telephone service (the UNE-P sharing), but a loss on DSL, since competing companies get shut down.
Despite the funny wording of that article, all Covad leases is the local loop. Not the "Carriers' networks". They have their own backbones.
> Yeah, and furthermore the dems want to tax the holy f*ck out of me and give
... WHUT'CHA GONNA DO, BROTHER, WHEN POLITICS RUN WILD ON YOUUUUUUUUUU!!
> my hard earned pay to welfare slackers and then have the govt be my nanny and
> protect me from myself in everything I want to do. The reps don't want to tax
> me so much, but lean toward fascism/police state-ism and take away my
> freedoms and let big corps run ramshod all over me and my rights too.
Hmmm. My issue is that the current administration is trying to grab the perks of both party philosophies while igoring all the repurcussions.
Imagine this, from the perspective of a businessman: Your company posted yearly revenues of about two billion dollars for 2002. But on the same note, they spent roughly 2.1 billion dollars in the same year for various business-related purposes, including several expensive instances of sending money and aid to competing companies. Your company has been operating in the red since World War II, upwards of half a century now, requiring you to borrow money every year, often by increasing degrees. Your company's debt is now $6.4 billion, more than three times your revenue for a year.
You became CEO in 2001. Even though the previous CEO did not back your promotion, he convinced the board of directors to pay you twice as much as he earned per year.
Every CEO's first year or two can be problematic, especially when the board of directors differ from you philosophically. But this year, you were able to get all your friends onto the board, so they'll unilaterally agree with whatever you decide.
So what do you do to fix your company's financial woes in 2003?
In your 2003 Annual Report in January, you declare that the company will drop prices, lowering revenue. And you announce that spending will increase substantially this year and likely sequentially over the next decade as well. As a result of that, the company will have to borrow more money this year than it ever has borrowed in any year before. You announce new policies which allow for increased surveillance of both employees and customers. You almost unilaterally decline membership in IEEE and ISO standards and any other standards that weren't specifically set in motion by your company.
But you end your Annual Report with the phrase "God Bless My Company", which means that you're obviously doing the right thing, eh?
Multiply everything by a thousand, and you have the US's current state. Yay, let's decrease taxes while increasing spending. Brilliant. Who's the Secretary of the Treasury these days? Groucho Marx?
> You can;t win for losing. I think we need a new political party, all composed of
> professional wrestlers, to take over and set things straight again.
Aye
Hmmm, on second thought, the problem is that all the popular wrestlers are owned by Vince McMahon, who's basically the GWB of pro wrestling. Now, I'd totally vote for an AJ Styles/Low-Ki presidential/veep bid, but that's not gonna happen.
-JC
The FCC also exempted fiber to the home (FTTH) and hybrid fiber coax (HFC) systems from unbundling requirements. I am no supply-sider voodoo economist, but I think that building up new infrastructure using new technology should be exempt in order to encourage more investment. Competition in the local loop exists, especially in green field development but also overlaying the network. Cheers, Don
I live in Fairbanks, Alaska. I was talking to a friend recently who told me the following story. His friend a tech at the local Telco was told not to install or upgrade any of the equipment, no new lines, nothing. They are doing a slowdown so they can kill the regulations up here that requires them to sell their infrastructure at cost.
The complaint is every time they upgrade or expand the competitor just comes into the new area and takes the customers. Problem being that the competitor does not install any infrastructure.
I would be for the competitor coming in and getting the service at cost + 1% that can only go into future infrastructure/upgrades.
I live only 5 minutes from our local university and I can not get cable or DSL. I have been signed up for two years. I have friends who last summer were told the whole summer the equipment was in and would be installed next week so their area would have DSL. In the end it never came and they were only told again it will be installed next week, now it is next spring.
We have a monoply up here, and a leach. I would like some real progress and service.
Here's what I posted. Basically, it boils down to the fact that the only reason I can even get broadband is due to Covad. SWB can't be bothered. ...........
I can only get broadband because SWB is forced to line-share with
Covad. For 2 years I tried getting DSL from them but it was always
3 months away. I live 11000 ft. from my CO in an area where most
houses are less than 10 years old in a growing metro area and yet
SWB hasn't seen fit to get their copper in shape. I spent 4 years
paying $200/month for ISDN since they never saw fit to offer a
reasonable consumer version. SWB couldn't be bothered to offer
IDSL, the only flavor of DSL that will run on their suboptimum
lines, but Covad does. My 'net experience is now more reliable and
while pricey at $100/month for 128kb, at least I can get it and can
get a static IP, another thing that SWB is loathe to offer. As a
technology professional, decent infrastructure like broadband with
static ips helps me improve myself and benefits my employer and the
economy, but if left to SWB, I'd still be on dialup or praying my
fly-by-night ISDN provider didn't go out of business (as had
already happened to me once).
Please save our competition. SWB cannot be trusted. They have
proven that over and over. Trust must be earned, but even under
regulation, they continue to try and undermine the public for their
own competitive, childish purposes.
I like lots of people. That doesn't mean I go carting them around the galaxy with me. --Dr. Who
The cost of high speed interent access is offtopic? On a broadband story? I call shinannegins!!