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Baby Bells Promise Broadband Stagnation
twitter writes "According to this NYT article the Baby Bells will not be developing their 'high-speed networks' despite their recently granted DSL monopoly because they were not granted local phone monopolies. 'Here is a lot of crying crybaby reaction to the decision.' says Mr. Powell."
Building out broadband networks is a nice personal ethic, but we're in the age of voluntary compliance, people! You get what they tell you you paid for.
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
FGL!
h tml?ex=1046926800&en=669a995afe95f3f3&ei=5062&part ner=GOOGLE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/business/27FCC.
Here's a look at the Bells' work to tax VoIP in a similar move to the ones they made in the early days of DSL. The eventual goal of moves like this would be to push non-Bells out of VoIP so they can then have yet another monopoly.
so much for Earthlink's new phone services that'll get them into the DSL market again.
Thank you FCC! I mean really, wo didn't see this one coming? They're going to squeeze every last nickel, dime, and quearter out of us, before they decide to innovate.
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
Don't you love that word.
Guess it's time to get out the red tape and seal up any hopes of low cost DSL.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Government "watched" corporations are never going to provided the services users want
when they want them, how they want them.
The only way we are going to get broadband across the board is if the government mandates
it, and takes it upon themselves to install and run it. As soon as it's left up to
a corporation todo, they're going to not provide services to the customers that are expensive.
Why? Because thats the point of a corporation. They want to make a profit. Period.
Private corporations are not the ideal method of provided uniform services, because not
everyone can be served at uniform cost.
The sooner we realize this, and stop trying to privatize everything, we'll be better off
I've heard too many cases where cities and counties are taking matters into their own hands. Just like city cable, take over your control of broadband and build it out yourself. Screw the phone companies.
It's all just business, and businesses do what they think they need to do to remain competitive, and make the most money. Maybe this decicion is a mistake (in which case they'll pay for it).
I've been dealing with the Baby Bells' general stagnation for quite a while now.
DSL is still not available in my area, and I live near two major California cities. You'd think that with all the major universities and Silicon Valley in California that they'd have little trouble creating good quality DSL home subscriber lines. But, alas, they have yet to deliver.
I really wish cable modems weren't my only option because they have outages a lot from what I hear, but it's my only choice. Hey, it's either that or a dial-up modem.
What would you do?
Join my Slashdot clan
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
Looks like theres a flaw in the market.
They were handed a monopoly on a product, but refuse to develop it due to corporate greed. Im sorry, but this is bullshit. Theres a demand and the ONLY reason the supply isnt being filled is due to some perverted hyper-greed. Give people bandwidth dammit. It should be like gas, electricity, and water. A new utility.
Can the gvt just say "fine, were revoking your monopoly then." ?
Would they do it?
This pisses me off.
no
Gotta love the flip-flop action from Tauzin. It's not just the lawyers who'll get rich from these protracted legal battles - by tying this process up in Washington for years on end, the incumbents assure themselves lots of attention (and donations) from the parties on both sides of the issue. I have a feeling that we'll be hearing about this issue for only, say, another decade or so at this rate!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Wireless is taking a foot hold - all we need is more people putting up and network their 802.11 together to form a private highspeed network.
Who's got the political agendas here?
"I believe the order we adopted last week achieves a principled, balanced approach," said Mr. Martin, who has close ties to the White House.
And what exactly is *that* supposed to mean? Nobody said anything about the White House.
The critics of the compromise included some congressmen who have been among the most outspoken advocates for the so-called Baby Bells
Sounds like someone doesn't care for "big business".
The five members of the Federal Communications Commission defended their new telephone and broadband policy in front of a Congressional hearing today, but they conceded that their compromise proposal, which requires the regional Bell companies to continue to share their phone lines with competitors, left no one happy and was not certain to pump up the flailing telecommunications sector in the near term.
I'd like to see a direct quote, please. It's not very often that someone in the government admits they fucked up. If they actually *stated* that the compromise didn't really accomplish anything and just made things worse, then why the hell did they push it through?
Sorry...but the needle on my BS-meter is pinned right now. I have no love for the Baby Bells, but this article just reeks of poor journalism. I'd like to know what really happened, other than some moderately-amusing flamebait comment from Michael Powell.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
to love verizon.
"hey, my dsl line went down two weeks ago. i opened up seventeen trouble tickets, and they were each mysteriously closed, but here's the number of the most recent --"
"would you like a new cell phone?"
"no, the ticket number is 131-"
"400 anytime minutes! nationwide long distance!"
"--055. er, you guys said --"
"oh, like call waiting?"
"-- that you'd send someone out yest --"
"i can add call waiting from here, sir!"
"-- erday to -- er, no --"
"ok, your line is activated for call waiting!"
"um, this is a data line. i have a --"
"the surcharge will be added to your monthly bill. and i'll go ahead and close up that trouble ticket for you. Thanks for using Verizon!"
*gunshot*
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
So, will there ever come a day when I can call up the phone company and say, "Hey you fucks, give me an INTERNET CONNECTION", and I get a connection to the fucking internet?
I don't want a set of "termz and konditions" that take 50 pages to tell me YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING BUT BUY STUFF FROM AMAZON.COM WITH ONE COMPUTER ONLY.
I want a plain and simple PLUG IN THE WALL that makes incoming and outgoing connections. NO port blocks, NO bullshit!
I called my phone company and said: I want a business-class DSL line, static IP, no blocking, so I can work at home and EARN A LIVING. They said: "NOT AVAILABLE for residential service" I said: "YOU MORONS, I don't want residential service, I want BUSINESS service IN MY HOUSE" They said: "NOT AVAILABLE for residential service, you insignificant FUCK".
I'm thinking about speakeasy, but NOW I'm worried THEY WON'T BE AROUND in a couple years, thanks to the government giving telcos back their monopolies.
WHAT'S THE SOLUTION! Wireless? Pigeons carrying IP packets? HELLO?? I have MONEY I want to exchange for BROADBAND. Broadband? ARE YOU THERE? Talk to me dammit!
So far the only viable solution is for me to GO BACK TO COLLEGE! Except you're not allowed to run a business with your connection there either!
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: the Baby Bells are dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Baby Bell community when Slashdot confirmed that the Baby Bells are sucky crybabies. Market share has dropped yet again, even with the government sanctioned monopoly. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that the Baby Bells have lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The Baby Bells are collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent "Unsucky Crybaby Tests".
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Baby Bell's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Baby Bell faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the Baby Bells because the Baby Bells are dying. Things are looking very bad for the Baby Bell. Their offices are dark, the tomb-like sepulchral atmosphere is all that remains. The Baby Bells continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
The Baby Bell DSL development team is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house. All major surveys show that the Baby Bell have steadily declined in market share. The Baby Bells are very sick and their long term survival prospects are very dim. If the Baby Bells are to survive at all it will be among telephony dilettante dabblers and hangers-on. The Baby Bells continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save them at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the Baby Bells are dead.
Fact: the Baby Bells are dying
Trolling is a art,
They act as if they would be doing everybody a favor by building broadband but if they decide to keep with their core business of local and long distance service they are gonna get wrecked by the cable and cell phone companies (at least some of the Bells are smart and are cell companies as well). I don't have or need a phone line or long distance service because of my cell and I have cable for internet, they are gonna get left behind if they don't invest in new areas.
It's a game. It's just like Parker Brother's classic Monopoly, except it's made specially for slashdot editors "tat kant spel no thn rite".
:-)
Hey brainiacs, would it *kill* you to add in an AUTOMATIC spell checker? sheesh
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Not only that (lack of broadband Internet access) but what about lack of competing broadband providers? Broadband is still relatively scarce in this country and a lot of places fortunate enough to have broadband have only 1 provider who can soak us for 50+ bucks a months for our internet access. Why not complain? Sure they can do what ever they want with their equipment but the consumers (thats us) far too often are getting screwed.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
It always works this way. Companies create a niche that revolutionizes the world, then, after a while, monopolize it for their own profit. Enough people complain and the government either creates its own crown corporation, nationalizes it, or strongly regulates it. This works for a time, too. But after a while, government is deemed too bureaucratic, slow and 'behind the times', so it is privatized/legislation is eased, and it starts all over again.
Unless the government process is altered, that pendulum will never stop.
Does this mean that I'm going to have to switch to goddamn SBC for my DSL access? I've been more than happy with Earthlink, and the only company I would switch to is SpeakEasy. Both of those only provide me access through Baby Bell infrastructure.
So these Bells are whining about being forced to demonopolize the telephone infrastructure which the US government financed? They want to be a deregulated monopoly on what they were given for free?
Who here (or anywhere) is surprised at this?
Form a coop, lease some resellable bandwidth like a Fractional-T1, slap wireless nodes everywhere. "Mesh" networks seem to be the latest buzzword. Use them to route around the broken segment -- aka "phone company".
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
If another stable technically advanced country like Canada or Australia or New Zealand or the UK would like a lot of sophisticated IT talent, get your telcos to offer good network services and set up an American-targeted H1-B-type visa program targeted at American talent.
You'll be able to pick and choose and will soon have a nice fat booming economy.
We're pissed about the limits on research being imposed by the asshats in office now anyway, so there's an opportunity here for the taking.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
This is exactly why they should've never deregulated DSL in the first place. They're just holding broadband hostage until they can get back full monopoly power over an area. Even if they are granted total monopoly power, it won't have an effect on increasing broadband service. All it'll do is make everything more expensive.
I just signed up with Earthlink because BellSouth's ISP's TOS are far too irritating and limiting and because their customer support is far, far more knowledgeable. (Just ask people who work for BellSouth's DSLAM; they'll tell you. Bellsouth's Broadband Support doesn't do any diagnostic work first.) It's bad enough that they'll probably be driven out of business, forcing me to have to deal with inferior service, but we'll probably see jacked up prices at no noticeable benefit. Based on the way they currently treat their customers, I sure as heck don't see an end to bandwidth caps and increased service coming down the pipe.
This childish behavior is nothing but extortion. I hope that another administration can get into office before the FCC runs the consumer Internet into the ground.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
But I digress; The real point here is the simple mathematics. If they build more DSL capacity, they have to resell more DSL capacity, and they lose more money. Thank you, FCC. First you made it so that most people couldn't get DSL because you imposed nasty penalties for downtime. This led to pacific bell shortening their supported range from 17,000 feet to 14,000 feet. I don't know the formula for measuring area assuming that every wire was straight which it isn't, but that's a serious drop in coverage. Now, you continue to force them to resell capacity, which leads to further inability for people to get DSL. Without all this overregulation, Pacific Bell would have been able to implement "Fasttrack" DSL (Now called Project Pronto, it's the DSL on fiber infrastructure project which was supposed to put DSL in every pac bell home by 2002) already and everyone would be able to get DSL. THAT would be the point to start talking about forcing them to resell capacity, not now, and certainly not when you forced the issue in the first place.
Then again, since when does the FCC act in the interest of the american people? They act only in their own best interest. It behooves them to keep control of everything they can, and they do.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's not even really their equipment. Before the "deregulation" of telephone services, much of the infrastructure was built on taxpayer dollars.
God forbid we try and have a little bit of say in what we paid for. I for one am not okay with the Bells having control of the copper. They have historically proven to suck at properly managing it.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
Still arguing over 512 DSL or 1MB?
Meanwhile in the rest of europe (UK excluded for obvious USA ass licking) we are using 10 and 100 MBPS broadband, rolling out 1GBPS.
Watch me pass you right by in the fast lane.
See ya later slow mo.
So in other words, 'cause it's allowed for other telecom companies to exist, they're not going to expand their DSL networks (into areas that they never planned on expanding to anyway)?
Puh-leeze.
I've been talking to SBC more than one year ago for the first time about DSL and was told that it would be 'available in my area Real Soon Now'. I don't think broadband-starved dial-uppers are losing much more than an empty promise here.
I personally am getting a wireless T1 (1.5M/1.5M) installed from a local ISP next week for about the same price i'd be paying for a crappy 256k/768k DSL from SBC. So Bellie, if you think throwing a fit is going to help your case, you may just find yourself grounded to your room by your customers.
from the source forgerIE, the lnux payper, etc. etc. etc..
talk about odorious execrable paralysystic hypenosys? you don't need bredband for that stuff. you need legal sparrows, & various other sharp practicing Godless LIEforms.
Oh wait. The telco's aren't making a profit. And my stock isn't worth enough for me to spend the transaction fee to sell it. Telco's are bleeding like there is no tomorrow because they are investing in all this high-tech internet stuff that didn't make them any money.
Are you sure the telco's aren't really an internet charity?
OMG!
You really need to get outside a bit more if you think that not having fast Internet access is "getting screwed".
Baby Bells Promise Broadband Stagnation!!! more like celda
My guess is that you are sitting on a nice fat pipe there at your school. If you were one of the unfortunate ones that is stuck with dial-up because a giant conglomerate refuses to develop the technology in one monopoly because the government won't hand them another, I'm sure you would be calling foul on the Baby Bells as well.
These companies have a responsibility to the public. It would be one thing if they did not have the infrastructure to support broadband or develop it. But to have it and not develop it simply because they want to be the only player on the block seems very irresponsible to me. And yet, they find it surprising that many people are dropping their Baby Bell-owned lines in favor of cellular phones and cable modem. If they're going to oust other broadband development out of business, it becomes their responsibility to develop the technology for the consumer. Sure they're out to turn a profit - but what profit do they make just sitting in the corner like little children throwing temper tantrums over not having all the cookies in the cookie jar?
If the Bells were doing their job, there would be far fewer of your crybabys yelling about lack of broadband access, and the broadband access would likely be higher quality to boot. That would allow you to download your mp3s even faster.
Here's to hoping that you get stuck on an old dial-up connection when the lustre and safety of academia wear off....
----
Wyntermute, resident psychopath
"Remember that you're unique - just like everyone else!"
Any time I mention DSL as a non-viable option in many locations, I get ./ readers pouncing on me and claiming that it's everywhere. Well, DSL isn't everywhere, and nothing is changing in that respect.
There are other ways of getting Broadband then running copper up to the domicile. I use Vista Broadband in Santa Rosa California. If a little backwater like Santa Rosa can support several wireless internet providers, then most cities can.
If the Baby Bells want to stand in the way of progress, then we will just go around them. Just think, it will not be to long off when most people will use cell phones as their primary means of voice telecomunications. Many will just drop land line services. If the Baby Bells do not act quickly, they will be dead.
Infact only the baby bells have the right to dig under streets and lie cable according to government regulation. This is what pisses off alot of clecs and other dsl companies. They claim other dsl companies should lay their own cable and not complain to us or the government. In reality if they did this companies like sbc would sue their ass to prevent it.
Its their way or the highway.
I view what is going on in deregulation of the telecom industry is similiar to what the oil companies wanted in California. To rip off customers.
In Japan you can get 100mbs for like 20 a month and even have your own server! Its the phone companies who want to limit supply to increase demand from corporate customers. They do not like high speed access because they can not sell as many t1 and t3 lines for thousands a month. Only the fat cats should have high bandwith at an outrageous cost to increase profits is what the bells want.
http://saveie6.com/
It may have been paid for by Government money at one point, but it belongs to them now. So you have no say whatsoever. That's just the way it is, get used to it.
E000-VB14-G8RY
I can't see why they care so much about his ruling. Local land lines really seem to be going the way of the old telegraph network. Will be a niche market soon enough. Unless you live far from a population center, what do you need a land line for?
In fact, most people I know who keep a land line keep it for dial-up internet access because broadband is too darn expensive. So the FCC eliminates competition in the emerging market and enforces it in the dying one? Lost me on that one.
First of all, why do the Baby Bells care so much about the land lines? It cannot possibly be a growth market, or even a nice stable cash cow.
Second of all, why the stagnating upside-down ruling on competition?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I have come to the conclusion that the most beneficial situation would be for the local government to own the actual cable plant for its municipality. With current technology the gov't could easily create a situation where competition occurs because *everyone* has equal access to the cable plant. If one company can deliver a service over the last mile then all can.
The only other option would be to forcefully divest the monopolies of their cable plants ala the breakup of the Bell empire in '84. The cable plant operators would then have an incentive to sell access to as many people as possible. In fact this option may be best as some services (ptp T1 for example) don't really need any hardware connected to them other than what would naturally exist to operate the network.
I really get the feeling that phone companies don't actually want anything to do with DSL. A friend mentioned that Phone Companies tend to like virtual circuits so they impose the totally unnecessarry and (at least in the beginning) buggy-as-hell PPP Over Ethernet instead of just running it as a bridge.
I've helped a few folks get their DSL connections running and in every case, the phone companies have managed to seriously screw something up.
I had one guy ask them to put it on the line he used for modem and fax, (cuz the wiring for that was already in his office), but when I got to his house they had put it on the wrong line - I had to rearrange a bunch of his inside wiring to get things set the way he wanted it.
Another time, the Phone Co had not bothered to test the person's line to make sure it didn't have any bridging or repeaters in it. (I'm not an expert on DSL, but I understand that the line needs to be clear of repeaters and other active components or the DSL doesn't work right) it took a couple weeks after their supposed "on" date to get an appointment to have a tech clear the line.
My own experience was one of frustration as the installer (this was early on - back when they wouldn't LET you do your own install) refused to proceed when he saw I was running NT4.0 instead of Win 9x.
The Digital Sorceress
No, I'm on dialup.
It amuses me how so many people speak of this as if high speed Internet access is some sort of undeniable right. Now if water and electricity providers started arbitrarily refusing service, you might have something reasonable to complain about. But Internet access? No way, man.
E000-VB14-G8RY
You give somebody a monopoly and then they start monopolizing things! The nerve of them!
Look at how cell's phone compitition has change features and priceing of the cell phone.
Which since the phone company does not have any real compitition it has been slow to introduce new features and better pricing.
They don't think that as soon as phone service can be provided through cable their days could be numbered.
Now for customer service, three day's after ordering my DSL line, the modem was on my door step and I was up and running. VS. the cable people after being put of for the install three times and a months time pass by. Hours on hold with customer service. That is why I went to DSL, in the first place.
Only problem has been with speed's of download's not as high as expected and at this point could be stuff on my end.
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
Sounds like the 'crybabys' are those folks complaining about their lack of broadband Internet access.
You heard him folks, it's time for us slashdotters to get off our backsides, stop whining, and invest a couple of billion dollars into building telecommunications infrastructure.
Baby Bell Blatantly Blasts "Bandwidth Bandit's" Blogs
So let me get this straight. The FCC gave the bells a monopoly on data to further the development of broadband, and now it's not being furthered? No crap! I mean, what's a monopoly's motivation to innovate? THANK THE TECHNO GODS that at least there are alternative ways of getting broadband in some places. Perhaps this will at lease case *some* competition.
the reason why the FCC passed this new arrangement killing off linesharing for broadband is because the Bells whined so heavily about it, saying they'd be able to put out more broadband and would have much more incentive to do so if it weren't for linesharing... They made a big deal about how they'd develop broadband more without linesharing, and they got the arrangement passed.
Now that all this is done, they are saying they essentially lied during the whole lobbying process. They are saying that it's not linesharing holding them back, it's their own spiteful internal decisions.
The FCC was trying to act in the best way for the public and for all corporations involved... it failed miserably in that it killed off all DSL competition (bad for other DSL companies), gave full control to an entity that will do nothing but stifle any development(bad for public), and pissed off the Bells by not going the full measure (bad for the Bells)... but that doesn't change the fact that they were trying to do good, but the Bells had no intention at all of following through with their public statements (corporate ethics is a big issue after the Enron crap).
IANAL, but I play one on
...I think I'd be reminding the Baby Bells that the same FCC that granted them a monopoly on the high speed networks they'll whine about rather than build - is the same FCC that controls the electromagnetic spectrum, and some new wireless bandwidths could 'magically appear' if they don't take the hint and accept what they've been graciously given, already.
"Sounds like the 'crybabys' are those folks complaining about their lack of broadband Internet access."
If I'm willing to pay for my access with my own money, yet I'm prevented from having that option because the "phone company" is playing political games with the build-out, how do I become a cry baby? I'd be perfectly happy to fork over >$100 a month for broadband but I don't even have the option of doing so. I know it takes capital to build-out and I'm willing to pay well for it. How the hell do you interpret this as crying?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
You spelled that wrong. It should be "crybabies", you stupid shit.
Wireless is the answer. I heard of rumours of satellite access but I do not know what happened. It seems that the project died. If babybells do not free up the lines then cable and wireless will teach them to play nice. Competition is the only thing is keeps companies going and playing nice for the consumer.
My fear is that they will lobby the fcc to ban bluetooth and wireless isp's in an effort to create a monopoly only on cable and dsl. My guess is it will fail. Another problem is alot of wireless companies like verizon sell dsl so they will fight tooth and nail to keep dsl and ban wireless so they can squeeze more profits. But lets hope that start-ups will give them a run for their money. Then if sbc cuts dsl out it will only give their marketshare to their competitors.
http://saveie6.com/
When and where did the US gov pay for Ma Bell's switches and copper? Evidence please
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
This puts a fairly heavy damper on line-shared ADSL services, but you know what? The incumbants still CAN NOT provided end user dsl services.
But what about services like Qwest DSL you ask? Qwest does NOT provide the internet bound portion of the service, they simply handle the local loop, then hand off the connection to another partnered ISP. It's called their MegaHost service. The so-called Qwest direct dsl is provided through MSN.
I really, really hate this mentalitly of complaining about prices, always wanting cheaper! cheaper! But at the same time calling for Better! Better! I should be able to have a 1 mbit up and down dsl connection, guaranteed speeds, guaranteed 24x7 for 5 dollars a month! Blah I say
I certianly hope the "bells" drag their feet and dont do anything.
There are many MANY more innovative and bright companies that will benifit from the Bell's management stupidity. Cable companies are going to be the first to put them out of business (if you got the infrastructure in place... IP telephony for the home with a analog bridge to the outdated Bell's world isnt far behind.)
and there are tons of companies and people that are taking up the slack. Hopefully they will drag their feet long enough that someone else will slide in and replace them with something more innovative and based on new technology instead of the outdated twisted pair copper.
broadband will get to everyone eventually, and be thankful that it wont be a telephone company bringing it to you.
I'd be making some monopolys magically disappear rather than handing out new goodies to the same set of parasites that can't maintain the old ones.
Grandecommunications offers phone service for $8.50 a month and high speed cable for $27 a month. Holy shit, people, those are like Canadian prices ! Let's fuck the Bells as hard as we can. I want the copper lines taken away from SBC and given to people who can manage them, like Grande. Remember that we own those lines, and we can choose who to maintain them, just like we hire different contractors to fix our highways.
Like the other person said, no troll. Had cancer. Died today:( Wanted to post it to slashdot, but also in a way that would have people wondering.
Wife is okay. Depressed as usual. Still waiting for Social Security.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The ILECs have only themselves to blame for losing money on each DSL line. The terms of the original deregulation agreement were that the ILECs had to lease capacity to CLECs at the same rates as they leased them to their own broadband subsidiaries. Since they lease to their subsidiaries at below cost rates in an effort to make them appear more profitable, they are forced to offer the same artificially low price to their competitors. If they would stop whining about this situation and raise the rates for themselves as well as their competitors, maybe they wouldn't be in such a fix... but they'd rather cry to the government, hoping Uncle Sam will make the big bad Earthlinks of the world go away and leave them alone. Sean
We have vast armies of wildlife to carry the TCP and UDP packets from point to point (once in a while they miss the wide funnel mouths and a packet is lost, but what are ya gonna do?). The reason we can do this cheaply is because of our single-payer healthcare system for wildlife, so our beavers and deer work more cheaply than US animals would.
We're such freaking communists.
So here's what I don't get. How much do the Bells, AOL-Time-Warners, and other people "owe" the public for the resources they use?
It seems to me that if I have to look at ugly utility polls, have land all carved up for right-of-ways, and otherwise make the infrastructure these folks depend on possible, they ought to be somewhat accountable to the public.
I'm certainly not saying I'd rather not have heat, light, and cable, but since they require such a tight intergration with the everyday life of the public, what does the public get out of it?
My parents don't have cable, but I can't count the times the linemen from TW have crashed down their driveway, tromped through my mom's garden, and generally made a mess to fix the lines which run along the back edge of the property. TW should be allowed to do this, but shouldn't they be forced to be just as accessable to the public?
"Baby Bells Promise Broadband Stagnation"
So glad to hear that they have finally found a promise they can keep. They've missed two DSL install dates so far at my place.
P2P + Grid Computing + Wi-Fi + Swarming = One big monster. And I know very little on this subject. I think we really could roll our own infrastructure. And at a low cost per person...
and it's instant messaging... until they start to tax that as well. I spend a lot less time on the phone now that my family and friends are hooked up via cable modem or satellite.
this is why private citizens should band together and build their own networks and pay someone for a t-3 or whatever.
lose != loose
If they want to act like babies - ok fine. More business for Cable providers and this leaves plenty of room for development of power line and other forms of broadband
Don't Tread on Me
In my area there are 2 ways of getting broadband: comcast cable and verizon DSL. when you break it down, verizon is $20 bucks more, for inferior service. some friends of mine got the upgraded DSL(1.5 downstream) and it went down fairly often. I've never had my cable modem drop out. and it is 40 per month if you have comcast cable and 45 if you dont. for the same downstream rate. and 24 hour support. however, when i signed up they didnt make me aware of the self install option (should have asked anyway) so i let their service man come out. he couldnt get it to work, and left. i sure was pissed that i wasted 30 bucks. it was entertaining to see his face when i told him i wasnt getting an IP address. his jaw dropped upon my use of that obscure computer jargon....
...if we hadn't granted Ma Bell a monopoly on rights-of-way a long time ago.
As a libertarian, the concept of a regulated, government-granted monopoly is anathemic to me; however, what is the alternative here? Do we give the Baby Bells free reign to do whatever they want with the existing copper, and refuse other companies the ability to add lines to those rights-of-way?
I'm all for deregulation, but not unless the entire thing is deregulated: it must be possible for new companies to lay their own copper or run their own wireless WAN's without government regulating what lines can go where or handing out wireless spectrum as campaign donation quid pro quos. Don't do a California-style partial deregulation in which some parties are forced out of business due to the government's stepping on some necks but not others.
Also, where are all these goddamned leftist posters all coming from? If the government suddenly owned all the copper and ran all the DSL lines, we'd be stuck with lowest-common-denominator access. I wouldn't be able run a server with a static IP (as I do with speakeasy.net today); and I'd pay LOW, LOW advertised prices while Uncle Sam reaches into my wallet for some extra cash to subsidize access for people unwilling to pay the cost of it. Fuck them: I did well in school and work hard and should get something extra for that. DSL IS NOT A RIGHT!
Cheers,
Kyle
[ home ]
It is the government's job to force companies to act in a legal and socially moral way through regulation and to slap down those companies that get out of line. It is the job of the people to get the government to do so in the way they want.
Of course, having said that, corporations have far more power these days in determining what goes into regulations than the people, because the lawmakers have been bribed with fat donations, and nobody ever gets slapped down for breaking the rules.
Don't get upset with the corporations for acting like greedy little piggies. Get upset with the system that allows them to get away with it, and try to change it.
I ain't evil, I'm just good looking.
It's only belongs to them if we decide to let them keep it. If we raise a big enough stink, the Bells are screwed. Maybe they should get used to getting some of their own medicine.
We own the wires just like we own the interstate highway system and the boulder dam. We paid to have them built. Sure, big contractors like Bechtel and Brown and Root were hired to build these things. But we can hire and fire the maintainers of our systems just as we hire and fire the people who mow our lawns.
Now, hiring and firing the institutions that maintain something like a national telecom infrastructure isn't to be taken lightly. It's not like a strip of pavement laid by one company always works as long as it touches the strip laid by someone else . . . there are "issues" here, and serious risks in switching.
Nevertheless, we can toss SBC/Verizon/Parasite Inc. just as quick as we could tell the Tennesee Valley Authority to take it's hands off a mis-managed dam or lock and hand it off to someone else.
I think that in some parts of the country it is approaching that point. Particularly the places (mis)administered by SBC.
umm.. it's called granting a monopoly. They face no competition and rake in the bucks. That's how consumers paid. There were also other things, such as granting them free access to public and private land in order to allow lines to be run, and various fees that the government lets them charge consumers.
government mandated, installed, and controlled services/companies don't provide services users want, when they want them, and how they want them. They provide services THEY THINK users want, whether users WANT THEM OR NOT, and generally, not how users want them in the long run. Trust me, I live in Canada, where our Federal government has a long history of getting their fingers into businesses they shouldn't be in! The results are poor delivery of services, with budget overruns, no or little accountability, and higher taxes. The only thing the government should be involved in is making rules to ensure everyone plays fair. Privatization done right brings competition, and competition delivers the best bang for the buck!
took your money as part of an 81 million dollar yearly salary.
It amuses me how so many people speak of this as if water and electricity were some sort of undeniable right. Now if the telegraph started arbitrarily refusing service, you might have something reasonable to complain about. But electricity? No way, pardner. Circa 1920
If the local government owned the poles and charged compaines rent to hang lines on them but allowed more than 1 company to string lines, prices on cable/telephone/internet/power would plummet.
You are getting screwed on all 4, make no mistake (and two of those are basic requirements to live in the modern world).
Murphy was an optimist.
> These companies have a responsibility to the public.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
$u(k 1t!!!!11!
Now, come back to Canada and the US. Company's can dig/lay 500 meters of fiber and hit maybe 5 people who want to pay for it. The math is simple either there is not going to be alot of it, or its going to be expensive.
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
Perhaps, the officials didn't want to quoted directly, which happens a lot when the news is "ugly" and allowed their thoughts to only be paraphrased. I loathe news reporting in the United States but this may be a case of public officials going "on background" rather than poor reporting.
Their facilities were paid for by the public, not them.
Unless the government is going to let every joe hacker string wires all over the city, and microwave repeaters on every mountaintop, they need to open access to the lines to all comers.
It's the same thing as if they handed the social security system over to Aetna.
We have no rights, only privileges.
I traveled from my home in Texas to DC. When I saw SBC advertising their "innovation" on the TV, I knew I was getting screwed somehow. When I got home I immediately started looking for a different phone provider and found one -- AT&T local service is available here. Not that AT&T have clean hands by a long shot either.
It's entirely up to them what they do with their equipment.
Actually it's not entirely up to them. They were, and in many regards still are, government regulated monopolies. Lot of effort has been put in deregulation and sparking competition in the industry and services they provide, some of them successful, some of them not because of various "special" big-money interests involved.
They are the crybabies against competition. I want competition. I don't agree with FCC's decision to allow them to be monopolies (in their respective areas) for DSL services; especially if you consider that in order to convince the FCC to make this decision in their favor, these companies "promised" in return to start upgrading their equipment and provide better and faster service.
From the article:
The committee, which is generally sympathetic to the Baby Bells, also criticized the local phone companies for their failure to invest. Several congressmen noted that the Baby Bells had received a lot of what they had asked for since the 1996 Telecommunications Act but were still not making the investments that they had promised they would make.
And now they even refuse to do that, but they get to keep the monopoly and high prices. What's their incentive to invest? There is no competition.
This means WAR!
Especially that Bush biotch.
Don't make me have to get off my ass and slap you bicches down!
but thats gone now. They are too for thay type of bashing
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
Did you do very well in a 95% minority public school school in, say, the Bronx? Or did you do well and work hard in a relatively white (skin or society) school?
Oh yes, you should definately get something extra for that. Bootstrapping yourself is very commendable, if you have the self-awareness to do so.
One technical rebuttal, as well: you do not need to run a server with a static IP address thanks to a little service called Dynamic DNS. Look it up -- or not, because its basically communism. Sorry, comrade.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Dude, before you post something, maybe you should have some insight into what you are posting...
First, last week the FCC took away linesharing for broadband (but kept it in place for telephone service). So your argument that they have no incentive to roll out more DSL capacity is crap... In order for a company to lease DSL space NOW is for them to also offer phone service. The point of the post is that the Bells are pissed that the FCC didn't take away linesharing completely. Since they didn't get their way completely, they are going to balk on the promises they made when lobbying for the FCC to take action.
Second, your argument that other people lay their own cable is both not possible and ridiculous. It is ILLEGAL for a company to just lay fibre... The government has granted this monopoly to the phone company (try to dig for a line and see what your local telco says about it). Laying your own cable like the cable companies is ridiculously expensive (note that my father still can't get cable to his house because it's not economically reasonable for the cable co... but he can get phone service fine). It is also not smart... we already have three sets of wires to each living space (phone, cable, electricity), why lay a third or a fourth for competing internet providers?
Third, they aren't losing money to their competition. They leased the line to the CLEC at exactly the same cost as they lease it to their own DSL subsidiary. Not only that, but the CLECs have their own equipment and enormous networks for DSL, they just need access to the last mile.
The more they built before the FCC took away linesharing for broadband, the more money they made (linesharers paid the same cost as the Bells to use the new lines); but they didn't make AS MUCH as they would without competition... Now they have no competition and are still balking at using the government granted power just so they can make even more money than they already do.
IANAL, but I play one on
When will the govt learn that monopolies stifle growth and innovation?
I was reading in the Wall Street Journal recently that an 8Mb/sec DSL line in South Korea goes for the equivalent of about $33US. They said that the competitive environment and lack of govt restriction meant that the South Korean companies were able to provide better service at a cheaper price while making a profit.
Contrast that to the US were many broadband companies are going tits up and only the monopoly companies remain. They have no reason to innovate. They can charge high prices for mediocre service.
Man, talk about mixed messages.
On even days, we hear about Michael Powell in favor of throwing open media ownership laws to allow even more Clearchannel-ization. Then on odd days, he's out praising TiVO or calling the telcos a bunch of crybabies.
Do we cheer him, do we hate him? He's zig-zagging all over the place! =)
"""
And yet, they find it surprising that many people are dropping their Baby Bell-owned lines in favor of cellular phones and cable modem.
"""
Previous house was getting between 5-15 telemarketer calls per day, depending on where the autodialers were in the alphabet. It being illegal to telemarket cell phones (it's like a collect call, thank God!), my wife and I began seriously pondering this.
So we moved to a new house two months ago. AT&T is advertising cable modems. Call up Verizon on my cell phone -- "Can I get DSL at my new place?" "Do you have a phone number?" "Nope." "Then we can't tell." And with that -- and AT&T building a new cell tower to go with the new suburb -- AT&T sold me a new cable modem and a bigger 2-person wireless plan.
Verizon hasn't just lost a satisfied customer, they've lost a customer flat-out. And I don't have any motivation to try to explain to their customer service department how to make their managers stop being wankers. My apologies to other Verizon customers (intentional and otherwise), but you're on your own.
Meanwhile, the Cable contractor comes out to my house, looks at my setup and says "You look like a techno-savvy sort of guy, so I'm not going to inflict this spyware on you. Here's the disc if you want to do it to yourself. Your connection is now up and running." Now that's customer service!
Of course, there are no cities in the US. And, of course, Japan is just one big city. That is the big difference! But seriously, i'm sure that it wil make some difference, how populated a country is. But NOT the difference between 20$/100mbs and 50$/512kbs (or 50$/1mbs or whatever).
The problem has always been the 'last mile'. The solution is simple, if unnatural for technologists, partnerships with developers. If the point at which 'interior wiring' is terminated all ends up outside the houses and at one concentrated point, any subdivision of 100-200 houses can get competitive bids for the bandwidth necessary to run their telecommunications. You buy T-1s and break them out between voice and data needs or just go all digital with sip phones and converters for anybody who wants to hook up a legacy analog device.
Combine that with legislation that permits a reasonable buyout of existing wiring up to subdivision concentrators (perhaps through eminent domain) and you've created an entirely new area of viable competition, one without any legislation, one with reasonably easy to pass eminent domain rules. In essence, it's undoing the monopoly at its most pernicious, one neighborhood at a time. Even better, eminent domain is something *local* governments do and that's the level at which grass roots activism has its best shot at prevailing.
What I don't understand is WHY OH WHY there are not time-tables put in place for these "promises." If the govn't had just said "ok, and you'll have x done by y or you'll be charged z" 1996 probably would have turned out a bit different.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
The USPTO granted me a patent (in 1996) on "The means to claim an acronym for the first occurance of a type of action or subject matter to be posted to a discussion forum comprised of industry-related peers, on the web."
So I think I have prior art and patent rights to all F* posts...
All your F belong to me. My lawyers will take your first born (FB) now.
You would have really liked Michael Powell's plan, and if Commissioner Kevin Martin (Bush's lapdog) had gone along with Powell, here's what we would have had.
Powell wanted to deregulate the industry much in the same way you want to, except he knew that killing right-of-way laws would in reality do little to help new entrants from competing.
Powell's plan was intented to deregulate fiber and facilities sharing, but would have still required the baby Bells to share the copper network. We don't care about investing the in copper network because it's already built, instead we want to focus on building FIBER networks.
Companies like Covad could still resell copper lines to sell DSL, but they would have to build thier own facilities rather than using the Bell's facilities.
Powell's Plan Results Would have been:
* Open (Shared) Copper Network
* Deregulated (Proprietary) Fiber Network
* Redundant Facilities (resulting in...)
* + New Equipment Purchases for Lucent, Nortel
* + Incentive to reduce facilities Costs
* + Redundant Infrastructure (Like the Internet)
It wasn't total deregulation, but it was the next best option.
That is, until Kevin Martin and the Democrats fucked it up...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
It seems like DSL may not be a major source of broadband service, the phone companies are too greedy, lazy and short sited to see the future. Fortunately we have many other options, cable modem is inceasingly available, even in outlying and rural areas, and tho way satellite systems still exist and work just fine. It is good that the baby bells are anxiuos to hasten there own demise, they refuse to understand that copper cable will not sustan a monoply. MM
Their incentive to invest is that their privileged position can be stripped away via government action. If there is a public interest in competition and the roadblock is the Bell's stranglehold on the last mile of wiring which they got through govt. action, there's no reason the govt. can't just seize it and pay eminent domain compensation, leveling the playing field.
Thanks for the link, meshing is the way to go.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
That sounds just like all the other broadband services customer services.
As in, there is no customer service, they just care about screwing as much cash out of you and seeing what ever they can get away with.
They might as well leave a prerecorded messages saying "How may we screw you today? Just kidding, we are already doing that. Even though there is no customer service despite at this number despite our claim, be rest asured we will bill you for this call anyway. Please hang up now so we tell someone else to fuck off."
Create neighborhood Co-ops lay fibre and connect to other co-ops. Go wireless or laser(home brew) where you cannot lay fibre. Get connections to local hosting companies and Larger tier1 vendors where possible.
-- Tim
TKrabec Pahh
I'm in a Verizon market (with, I guess, Comcast cable now?? Hard to tell anymore). But due to RCN, I have my cable, cable modem and phone service all through a non-monopoly provider. They understand that I have a choice, and that they have to keep me happy to keep my business. If only there were competition everywhere....
...isn't this the whole reason we have Baby Bells in the first place? Call me crazy, but I remember quite clearly that Ma Bell was cracked into the Babies when it grew too big for it's britches and gobbled up too much of a monopoly. And now we're handing them the keys this time? We're basically saying "Yep, you've got it all, and here's your carte blanche to exploit the living hell out of it."
Call me crazy, but it looks like a rather large catch 22. We'll punish you now by breaking you up, but don't worry, a few decades down the road we'll give you control of something else.
Foul. And not just by the Bells. Our own government is fucking us on this one by allowing it to happen so they can line their own pockets with lobby money. Guess if they can't drum up popular support, they'll pay for this idiotic war somehow...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
What's with all these goddamned religious market fanatics?
Are you talking about lowest common denominator service like they have in Communist Canada? My parents until recently lived out in the boonies (farming community of 1500 people). For years, they had DSL access for $50CDN/month (that's less than $35US).
You Americans with your blind faith in the market are getting screwed. The corporations couldn't be happier about all y'all suckers.
First off, You've got a good point on the downtime penalties, but that's about it. It's not supposed to be "pac-bell's" home, but you oldschool telco employees never get past the fact that you're no longer "the" phone company.
Those lines were paid for by the taxpayers, because last mile, copper technology has been in the ground for years, so don't act like the bells are the sacrificial lambs of the broadband industry because they have to share lines laid by a government funded monopoly at taxpayer expense. DSL is expensive because the Bells stand in the way of competition, not because of competition, which would actually drive the price down close to that of cable if the FCC would stop meddling.
Their offerings are marginal, their service is pathetic, and their justifications that they can't compete is just inane blather. They missed out on ISDN, and they missed out on DSL because they thought they had it all locked up. They have ridiculous overhead due to unionized labor and a culture of sloth, all because they have been sheltered from market forces for decades.
The privately owned Union Springs Telephone company in (dirt poor, rural) Bullock County, Alabama, recently announced an expansion of Fiber-to-home internet, cable, and phone service over the next few years.
Here's a link to a news story about it.
If a mom-n-pop telco can make a profit selling FIBER connections to one of the poorest rural counties in the US, certainly the big telcos could make a profit if they wanted. "Let's get the government to do it for us" is NOT the right answer for everything.
The requested URL
The more lines they build, the more money they lose. It's as simple as that. It's as simple as that.
Let's me start by destroying your entire arugment with: The copper lines have been built. The Baby Bells do not need to build more lines to deploy DSL. You do remember that DSL runs over your EXISTING phone line. Do you remember that much?
Secondly, The copper lines have already been built and paid for with all of our tax dollars. They don't need to worry about recouping on investments in copper phone lines.
They're losing money by selling lines to their competition, which I have already spoken strongly against; it's ridiculous.
Thirdly, They only reason they're losing money reselling lines, is because they were reselling these lines to thier own DSL subsiderary at a discount, to give them a competitive advantage over competition. The FCC found the loophole, and forced the Bells to resell to Covad at the same price they sold it to themselves.
Forthy, You can thank the DSL competitors for deploying DSL in a LOT of areas where the Bells DIDN'T. Covad invested and deployed DSL in my neighborhood 4 YEARS before Verizon decided we were worth it. They ONLY reason ANY of us are getting ANY DSL service is because of UNE-P (platform forcing Bells to resell lines) so companies like Covad could invest in areas where the Bells didn't feel like getting of thier assed. The Bells needed someone to light a fire under thier ass, and UNE-P did just that by introducing competiton. Again, the Bells could resell thier lines at any price, as long as they charge the competition and themselves the same price. Instead, they played marytr, and you fell for it.
Do you honestly believe Pac Bell's horseshit lies that they would have deployed FIBER DSL ON THIER OWN, rather that shoving a shitty ISDN (128 k/bits) connection at $150 a month?
You sir, are a chump.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
It is still another last mile solution (sans wires).
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
I have seen articles that suggest this will actually encourage DSL carriers like Qwest to offer higher speeds. Qwest is currently testing 7mbps service in Denver and if marketing and technical tests are good they will expand it to other areas. DSL can't afford to sit on it's butt because it is currently losing customers to cable internet.
This is precisely why monopolies must be regulated. They are the ones who entirely control broadband over phonelines, and hence have a stranglehold on it. They have the right to be crybabies if they want, but the government shouldn't allow that to interfere with services that depend on their monopoly control.
I just read this in the local rag...
How about a new law where nobody can be granted absolute control over something they aren't going to use or even allow the use of?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The Bells have just signed their own death warrant. With the spread of 802.11b hotspots, the approval of the 802.16 WirelessMAN standard and 2nd Gen Cable networks, broadband (and with it the Bell's bread & butter -- telephone service) will bypass the phone companies. The market is there & if they drag their feet on upgrading performance, they will get whacked. Why would you pay $39.95 for 768/128k for crappy DSL service when you could get 27Mbps on a 1st gen WirelessMAN...? Innovate or die, gentlemen!
IT
I suggest you ask someone at your phone company for the real reason why DSL or highspeed is not in your area. If the cost per head is too much for them, then bring them more people to help pay for it (via subscribers)
I remeber a smaller neighboorhood just on the city limits who didn't have highspeed. A buddy asked the right people why? (granted that was a long and tuff process too) They ended up saying a $20,000 was needed to get it there, and for 5 people it wasn't worth it. They also said for 100 subscriptions they would. Two months later they had over 100 requests and it was done.
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
Baby Bells PROMOTE Broadband Stagnation.
Guess they're both true, having a background in DSL Operations for a local ISP.
*shrugs*
-- R
I'd like to point out that Powell's plan would have forced the Bells to resell thier copper network for DSL providers like Covad. You can thank commissioner Kevin Martin for fucking this up with his stupid plan, which will effectively result in 50 state lawsuits with 12 different decisions which will all go BACK to the Supreme Court.
Kevin Martin and the Baby Bells are our enemy.
Michael Powell is our friend
Let's stand behind the chairman and support him with his wireless initiatives so we can kick the holy shit out of these fucking greedy, government sanctioned/subsidized, Baby Bells.
Will someone tar and feather commissioner Kevin Martin, please?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Boo-hoo, Qwest and SBC, I'm really going to feel sorry for you when you got your networks FOR FREE to begin with!
No kidding!
The remaining venue of competition is the Wireless ISP market (wISP). wISPs can deliver broadband last-mile connections using point-to-multipoint connections and new APs are coming out that make it trivial to set up the customer premises equipment. wISP can install faster than wireline providers like cable and DSL, because they often don't even need to visit the customer, the APs can be placed in a window or the like. The available bandwidth is dramatically faster than even current broadband offerings.
VoIP is better than traditional telecomm because it can run over any internet connection, bringing comptetion for telephony from the cablemodem providers, for example. Also, it uses less available bandwidth than traditional phone comm (people are running reasonable connections at 12Kbps these days) and the technology is good enough today to work without gaps and delays.
Obviously the wISPs will be offering Voice over IP service to their customers. It's a killer app, as the customer can do all of their data and telecomm through the wISP and cut the cables completely. If the Bells succeed in taxing VoIP it may not only stall VoIP generally, but might potentially also take away a substantial business model from the wISPs.
home page
When I used to be the DSL divsion manager for a fairly large local ISP, I found some interesting things out about our "high-quality ADSL".
The amound we paid to "equally" access the ILEC's DSLAM was the same as ILEC.net paid for it, but:
- We had to funnel our traffic back out through ILEC's wholesale broadband division, at rates even higher than we paid for our other ILEC lines that serviced our dial, ISDN, Colo, and leased line customers.
- We usually had to wait 2 weeks to get a port set up for our customers, but if they called ILEC.net, they could have it up and running the next day.
- We had alot of trouble with all of the lines. Mine worked great, as they knew it was mine (I know - I pushed the provision date up). They knew the general manager's line for the same reason, but alot of our others never worked right, and they told us it was the building or the installers, but if the customer disconnected from us, and called ILEC.net, it worked great (I have tested this myself).
I know the ILECs aren't up to playing fair, as they're only in it for the money, but still...
-- R
With all that the government (read: tax payers) have done for the Bells and with all of the stuff the Bells have been given (tax breaks, etc), all of the consessions...
They damn well owe us to do what they said they would.
Off Topic:
Hey, I tried typing about:Mozilla in my address bar of IE6 and I get a plain blue screen in my browser. Am I supposed to see something different?
Thanks!
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
(Note: I may not be old enough to remember this, but I'm a small Bell telephone equipment collector, and have done a pretty good deal of research on this.
1) AT&T had a great service record before they were broken up. Granted, AT&T didn't have to deal with everybody's DSL lines and such. But in the day of the Bell System, there weren't nearly as many problems, and your linemen would come fix them quickly. AT&T was known for its outstanding service record. Sure you had to lease your phone from the phone company, but they were high quality phones. Old Bell System phones still work, your new cordless phone will last you two years if you're lucky.
2) It's a common misconception that rates have gone down since the breakup. Take a look at the FCC reports. What's really happened with long distance calls is they've standardized so that the rates don't depend on the distance of the call. For longer distance calls, rates had been going down steadily up until the breakup talks.
3. Consumers didn't bring complaints against AT&T, it was MCI and Sprint that did most of the complaining to the government. They were really responsible for the breakup talks. The government had brought complaints against AT&T before, but AT&T had always agreed to new regulation or a change in policies to meet the government's demands. Along come MCI and Sprint in the early 70s and they want to play ball. They not only want to play ball, they want the government to make AT&T give up their bats, balls, and ballfields. Consumers were fine with their telephone service. AT&T often gets accused of stifling innovation. On the contrary, they were regularly innovating since the beginning, and the government was often preventing them from trying new things (like cell phones for instance, which AT&T developed 30 years ago).
Now that they broke up AT&T, service went all to heck. Rates went down and back up. Obviously we can't put Ma Bell back together, but let's at least remember that the phone company wasn't always bad.
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
This guy is correct. So let's just do something very simple. Give us about half of what the military have portioned off as "thier" wireless space. And then let the commodity market build the roads.
That's correct, goodbye forever to the ISP. Smart devices that route, and link, and mesh over the wireless domain. Owned and operated exclusively by the customer base. Oh and it's free. And yes, these devices are available at costs which are not at all prohibitive.
But as soon as anyone tries to license the wireless domain for commercial interest, then we as the voting public get to drop bombs on thier corperate HQ. Not mail bombs, real ones. I've had it with bumbling greed of this government, and this U.S. of A. corporate culture. Telecommunications have become too important, and we now have the capabilities to leave the ISP behind forever.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Last year, after much lobbying, the House passed the Tauzin-Dingell broadband deregulation bill, which would have freed the Bells from some of the line-sharing requirements. While the bill was halted in the Senate by Senator Ernest Hollings,
If it wasn't for the hated Fritz "Mandatory DRM" Hollings we would have no competition in DSL whatsoever.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
so windows is owned by you because microsoft has a monopoly, that makes it public property? Better tell that to the people who paid to lay the lines.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
competitve markets have price wars. funny T-1 connection prices barely changed...in how many years? a couple of decades now?
;-)
bandwidth costs money. but dark fiber doesn't compute.
for a $40 phone line, I pay over $10 in taxes (not including sales tax!)
FCC regulations to the resuce? come on, greased palms are faster than my dialup
THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY OUT FOLKS: TAKE THE AIRWAVES BACK!
Start: http://www.sputnik.com/
Think, "Communication Frogs". Think: "Lillypad Revolution".
For "When law begins to break you, it's time to break the law." -tsunami
:T:R:A:N:S:
Here's what Verizon had to say... From an email, and from their website
Please respond to Employee Communication/EMPL/NY/Bell-Atl@VZNotes
To: All Employees
cc:
Subject: Seidenberg, Barr Comment on FCC Ruling
CEO Ivan Seidenberg and Executive Vice President and General Counsel Bill Barr provided additional public comment Monday regarding last week's controversial FCC rulings on telecom competition.
Speaking at a Merrill Lynch analysts' conference, Seidenberg said Verizon will take legal action against the FCC ruling, declaring that the Commission's policies are legally flawed and fail as a means of creating sustainable competition in the industry.
Verizon had hoped for regulatory relief from having to provide deep discounts to competitors for network elements, also known as UNE-P. The FCC ruled instead that the decision would be left up to each individual state and the District of Columbia, through the jurisdiction's public service commission.
"You cannot take a national market like this and have 51 jurisdictions make a study and come up with any pattern that will drive consistency in the industry," Seidenberg said.
Seidenberg predicted that the FCC - as it has twice before - would lose again when the courts ultimately rule on the new policies.
"Our view is that (UNE Interconnection)...would eventually die anyway," Seidenberg said. "Because in the long term, technology would displace the bootstrapping of other people connecting to our network."
Seidenberg said that the FCC's ruling theoretically left some upside potential for Verizon in broadband markets, but added that the company needs to see the written order before assessing the practical impacts in this area. For example, the FCC's press release indicates that phone companies "may not retire any copper loops...without first receiving approval from the relevant state commission."
Barr further addressed the broadband issue in a statement to the media. He said that while the language in the ruling is unclear, if the intent is to give the states a veto over whether we can replace obsolete copper facilities as we install broadband facilities, then "the FCC will have done precious little to deregulate broadband."
Barr said that with such a veto, regulators could require that local phone companies deploying broadband facilities maintain two parallel networks, burdening new investment with massive additional costs. Likewise, regulators could impose onerous rules on new broadband facilities in return for their consent to retire the old.
"Either way, such an approach does not give phone companies any assurance that their opportunity to earn a return on massive and risky investments in broadband will not be thwarted by regulators," Barr said. "Unless this issue is clarified in the Commission's upcoming order, the FCC's effort to free broadband from regulation will be illusory."
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
From the FCC ruling, the 'Attachment' to the press release: "Line Sharing - The high frequency portion of the loop (HFPL) is not an unbundled network element. Although the Order finds general impairment in providing broadband services without local loops, access to the entire stand-alone copper loop is sufficient to overcome impairment. During a three year period, competitive LECs must transition their existing customer base served via the HFPL to new arrangements. New customers may be acquired only during the first year of this transition. In addition, during each year of the transition, the price for the high-frequency portion of the loop will increase incrementally towards the cost of a loop in the relevant market."
Okay, standard IANAL disclaimer aside, this certainly does NOT sound like a 'things will be just fine' arrangement. HFPL is 'not an unbundled element' of the loop, so ILECs don't have to sell it separate to the rest of the loop. CLECs -must- transition users of HFPL (guess who -that- is) to 'new arrangements' within three years, during which time ILECs crank up rates to the price of the FULL loops, not just the HFPL.
As for Qwest, I live in UT, and I have DSL (ISP a small company who's been GREAT for me, Qwest billing me for usage of HFPL). Qworst doesn't provide DSL ISP services, because they don't WANT to. And gee, who becomes the 'default' ISP? Why, it happens to be MSN, from our lovely friends in Redmond...
Now, let's see where that leads us. Qwest doesn't have to let other DSL providing ISPs use the high-frequency portion of the copper loops. Period. I'm sure they'll 'let' them, provided they pay the price for the FULL loop, not just the high frequency portion (and how many independant ISPs will be willing/able to abide by that?). And with as much money as our friends in Redmond can throw around... do the math on who might be the ONLY ISP on Qwest infrastructure.
I can see the future, and it involves a fat man in a damn butterfly suit......
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
Btw, his father is Secretary of State.
Listen, SBC, the reason I use Speakeasy and not you guys for my internet is because you have crappy customer service. Either improve your CS or pick up your marbles and go home. Same goes for Verizon - ESPECIALLY Verizon - who has all the technical greatness of GTE and all the crappy service of Bell Atlantic.
And if you don't give me an option, I'll move off again.
This sig no verb.
Powell will sooner or later figure out that dealing with the Baby Bells is like dealing with Chinese government. Get promises, then get f___ed when you deliver concessions.
but the only real competitor (on a grand scale, wifi is still too small) to the baby bells wrt internet connectivity are the cable companies. They could swoop in and make a fucking killing but they appear to be disorganized and generally unenthusiastic about the prospect. Comcast (in my area) has a "Business Cable" deal that gives you 1.5/512 (or something like that) with a couple of static IP's for $99 a month and that includes the modem. As an added bonus, once you get things ready, they install it in about 2 days. This is in contrast to Verizon whom it usually takes 30-45 days to get their shit together. The only problem is that you have to bombard Comcast with a steady stream of phone calls to get their ass in gear to get the installation pricing together. I've always thought that if they would allow me to sell it, I could do a land-office business in it....
Tauzin wrote that my ass....I'll bet he doesn't even know what half those words mean.
To be honest they are just pissing their own customers off. They seem to think that only they can offer broadband. Don't they realize that it is possible to cut them out of the picture? Community wireless networks are getting pretty popular and improving in quality. It is possible to cover long distances by relay. It is also possible to run our own wire in some cases. We could, and probably will, start to just cut MaBell out of the picture. Sure the Internet might have to change form somewhat to handle the change but it'd be a healthy change. It's time for the end user to be the biggest peer.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I want to get in on this... where do I sign up???
heh...I'm doing some work for a federal government office in this city that has a branch office about 2 miles away. One site is about a mile from the CO and the other is about a mile and a half from the same one. How much does a 256kbit fractional T1 that just connects the branch office to the main office (no internet)? $480 a month with a 5 year contract they can't get out of. I told them that 802.x with directional antennas on towers might be a soluction (along with others), but they are stuck with the contract.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
My anger is directed at both...
The FCC created these massive monopolies long ago (long, long before it broke them up and then allowed line sharing). I believe if they hadn't messed with it a long time ago, things would've been fine... but they did, now they have two choices:
a) Full regulatory control over all things phone related.
b) No control at all over phone lines.
If they go option a) they essentially kill all those highpaying executive jobs at the telcos and create higher taxes and stuff... but the public will get cheaper and better phone/DSL service
if b) they have to allow other people to dig their own lines, take away all special powers they've given the Bells, take away all the weird taxes they've put on phone bills that just give money straight back to the Bells (i.e. those taxes aren't real taxes right now), and really watch the behaviour of the Bells.
I do not agree that things were better when AT&T was ruling back in the day. You are right that there was no innovation, but everything except standard phone service DID cost an arm and a leg. Think about a t1 or ISDN... they were prohibitively costly. ISDN is still so because there are no competitors in its market. DSL tech was available and easy WAY before the 1996 Telecom law, but it wasn't until after it that the Bells deployed it. Of course, that was the Bells after the AT&T breakup... but AT&T was made a monopoly well before that (check the history of telcos before AT&T, it's interesting).
As for would I do anything differently if I were SBC... yes, I would. I'm actually very much a fan of helping the world in the long term instead of helping me in the short term. Of course, this doesn't make as much money so I'll never be in charge of a large corporation. The Bells could work with Covad et. al. to make the DSL footprint larger and advance the tech to drop prices... a win-win. DSL already competes in speed and close in price with the Bells actively depressing the industry and mucking up service calls from Covad...
It's the whole issue of negative campaigning in politics versus positive promoting.
IANAL, but I play one on
I especially like the line "crying crybaby" :)
~SL
How The Bells Stole America's Digital Future
h tm l
http://www.netaction.org/broadband/bells/
Or the same document as a single HTML page:
http://www.netaction.org/broadband/bells/bells.
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
We have/had a similar problem here. USWest wouldn't bring in DSL until they had xxx# requests. We still don't have DSL - but the local cable company is signing up something like 20 people a day.
Boo Hoo, USWest. You blew it.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I agree that we should be going wireless... that makes sense on so many levels.
I can't agree with your analogy about the GT40 (awesome car). The Le Mans organization did not give Ford any money to create the car, didn't block other manufacturers from creating an awesome car. Actually, the government made AT&T the monopoly it became by forcing others to sell out. Not only that, but the Babies still profited massively after the break and recoagulated to only a few entities again.
"...changing the laws on someone when they become too successful is a craven practice..." Isn't that what the FCC would be doing with going to deregulation now? Covad and the guys reselling phone service are profitting, so the Bells lobbied to stop this. The FCC just changed the laws to stop one guy from becoming too successfull. Yes, I know that isn't the truth of the situation, but neither is applying your statement to the Bells and the '96 law or the AT&T breakup.
I'm not sure I understand the point of your statement about corporate morality and how that affects its charging practices. Could you clarify how that affects this discussion?
IANAL, but I play one on
How Corporate Law
...the directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders....
... but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates or the dignity of its employees.
Inhibits Social Responsibility
A corporate attorney proposes a 'Code for Corporate Responsibility' in state law
by Robert Hinkley
After 23 years as a corporate securities attorney-advising large corporations on securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions-I left my position as partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom because I was disturbed by the game. I realized that the many social ills created by corporations stem directly from corporate law. It dawned on me that the law, in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible. So in June 2000 I quit my job and decided to devote the next phase of my life to making people aware of this problem. My goal is to build consensus to change the law so it encourages good corporate citizenship, rather than inhibiting it.
The provision in the law I am talking about is the one that says the purpose of the corporation is simply to make money for shareholders. Every jurisdiction where corporations operate has its own law of corporate governance. But remarkably, the corporate design contained in hundreds of corporate laws throughout the world is nearly identical. That design creates a governing body to manage the corporation-usually a board of directors-and dictates the duties of those directors. In short, the law creates corporate purpose. That purpose is to operate in the interests of shareholders. In Maine, where I live, this duty of directors is in Section 716 of the business corporation act, which reads:
Although the wording of this provision differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, its legal effect does not. This provision is the motive behind all corporate actions everywhere in the world. Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders.
Section 716 dedicates the corporation to the pursuit of its own self-interest (and equates corporate self-interest with shareholder self-interest). No mention is made of responsibility to the public interest. Section 716 and its counterparts explain two things. First, they explain why corporations find social issues like human rights irrelevant--because they fall outside the corporation's legal mandate. Second, these provisions explain why executives behave differently than they might as individual citizens, because the law says their only obligation in business is to make money.
This design has the unfortunate side effect of largely eliminating personal responsibility. Because corporate law generally regulates corporations but not executives, it leads executives to become inattentive to justice. They demand their subordinates "make the numbers," and pay little attention to how they do so. Directors and officers know their jobs, salaries, bonuses, and stock options depend on delivering profits for shareholders.
Companies believe their duty to the public interest consists of complying with the law. Obeying the law is simply a cost. Since it interferes with making money, it must be minimized-using devices like lobbying, legal hairsplitting, and jurisdiction shopping. Directors and officers give little thought to the fact that these activities may damage the public interest.
Lower-level employees know their livelihoods depend upon satisfying superiors' demands to make money. They have no incentive to offer ideas that would advance the public interest unless they increase profits. Projects that would serve the public interest--but at a financial cost to the corporation--are considered naive.
Corporate law thus casts ethical and social concerns as irrelevant, or as stumbling blocks to the corporation's fundamental mandate. That's the effect the law has inside the corporation. Outside the corporation the effect is more devastating. It is the law that leads corporations to actively disregard harm to all interests other than those of shareholders. When toxic chemicals are spilled, forests destroyed, employees left in poverty, or communities devastated through plant shutdowns, corporations view these as unimportant side effects outside their area of concern. But when the company's stock price dips, that's a disaster. The reason is that, in our legal framework, a low stock price leaves a company vulnerable to takeover or means the CEO's job could be at risk.
In the end, the natural result is that corporate bottom line goes up, and the state of the public good goes down. This is called privatizing the gain and externalizing the cost.
This system design helps explain why the war against corporate abuse is being lost, despite decades of effort by thousands of organizations. Until now, tactics used to confront corporations have focused on where and how much companies should be allowed to damage the public interest, rather than eliminating the reason they do it. When public interest groups protest a new power plant, mercury poisoning, or a new big box store, the groups don't examine the corporations' motives. They only seek to limit where damage is created (not in our back yard) and how much damage is created (a little less, please).
But the where-and-how-much approach is reactive, not proactive. Even when corporations are defeated in particular battles, they go on the next day, in other ways and other places, to pursue their own private interests at the expense of the public.
I believe the battle against corporate abuse should be conducted in a more holistic way. We must inquire why corporations behave as they do, and look for a way to change these underlying motives. Once we have arrived at a viable systemic solution, we should then dictate the terms of engagement to corporations, not let them dictate terms to us.
We must remember that corporations were invented to serve mankind. Mankind was not invented to serve corporations. Corporations in many ways have the rights of citizens, and those rights should be balanced by obligations to the public.
Many activists cast the fundamental issue as one of "corporate greed," but that's off the mark. Corporations are incapable of a human emotion like greed. They are artificial beings created by law. The real question is why corporations behave as if they are greedy. The answer is the design of corporate law.
We can change that design. We can make corporations more responsible to the public good by amending the law that says the pursuit of profit takes precedence over the public interest. I believe this can best be achieved by changing corporate law to make directors personally responsible for harms done.
Let me give you a sense of how director responsibility works in the current system. Under federal securities laws, directors are held personally liable for false and misleading statements made in prospectuses used to sell securities. If a corporate prospectus contains a material falsehood and investors suffer damage as a result, investors can sue each director personally to recover the damage. Believe me, this provision grabs the attention of company directors. They spend hours reviewing drafts of a prospectus to ensure it complies with the law. Similarly, everyone who works on the prospectus knows that directors' personal wealth is at stake, so they too take great care with accuracy.
That's an example of how corporate behavior changes when directors are held personally responsible. Everyone in the corporation improves their game to meet the challenge. The law has what we call an in terrorem effect. Since the potential penalties are so severe, directors err on the side of caution. While this has not eliminated securities fraud, it has over the years reduced it to an infinitesimal percentage of the total capital raised.
I propose that corporate law be changed in a similar manner--to make individuals responsible for seeing that the pursuit of profit does not damage the public interest.
To pave the way for such a change, we must challenge the myth that making profits and protecting the public interest are mutually exclusive goals. The same was once said about profits and product quality, before Japanese manufacturers taught us otherwise. If we force companies to respect the public interest while they make money, business people will figure out how to do both.
The specific change I suggest is simple: add 26 words to corporate law and thus create what I call the "Code for Corporate Responsibility." In Maine, this would mean amending section 716 to add the following clause. Directors and officers would still have a duty to make money for shareholders,
This simple amendment would effect a dramatic change in the underlying mechanism that drives corporate malfeasance. It would make individuals responsible for the damage companies cause to the public interest, and would be enforced much the same way as securities laws are now. Negligent failure to abide by the code would result in the corporation, its directors, and its officers being liable for the full amount of the damage they cause. In addition to civil liability, the attorney general would have the right to criminally prosecute intentional acts. Injunctive relief-which stops specific behaviors while the legal process proceeds-would also be available.
Compliance would be in the self-interest of both individuals and the company. No one wants to see personal assets subject to a lawsuit. Such a prospect would surely temper corporate managers' willingness to make money at the expense of the public interest. Similarly, investors tend to shy away from companies with contingent liabilities, so companies that severely or repeatedly violate the Code for Corporate Responsibility might see their stock price fall or their access to capital dry up.
Many would say such a code could never be enacted. But they're mistaken. I take heart from a 2000 Business Week/Harris Poll that asked Americans which of the following two propositions they support more strongly:
Corporations should have only one purpose--to make the most profit for their shareholders--and pursuit of that goal will be best for America in the long run.
--or--
Corporations should have more than one purpose. They also owe something to their workers and the communities in which they operate, and they should sometimes sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities.
An overwhelming 95 percent of Americans chose the second proposition. Clearly, this finding tells us that our fate is not sealed. When 95 percent of the public supports a proposition, enacting that proposition into law should not be impossible.
If business people resist the notion of legal change, we can remind them that corporations exist only because laws allow them to exist. Without these laws, owners would be fully responsible for debts incurred and damages caused by their businesses. Because the public creates the law, corporations owe their existence as much to the public as they do to shareholders. They should have obligations to both. It simply makes no sense that society's most powerful citizens have no concern for the public good.
It also makes no sense to endlessly chase after individual instances of corporate wrongdoing, when that wrongdoing is a natural result of the system design. Corporations abuse the public interest because the law tells them their only legal duty is to maximize profits for shareholders. Until we change the law of corporate governance, the problem of corporate abuse can never fully be solved.
Robert Hinkley (rchinkley@media2.hypernet.com), formerly a partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom , now lives in Brooklin, Maine and is working to promote the Code. A Minnesota grassroots group has formed to work on the code (see www.C4CR.org). Other information on the Code can be found at www.CitizenWorks.org.
From the Jan./Feb. 2002 issue of Business Ethics: Corporate Social Responsibility Report, www.business-ethics.com. Introductory subscriptions $29; try three issues free. Send your snail mail address to Karen.McNichol@business-ethics.com. PO Box 8439, Minneapolis, MN 55408. Phone 612/879-0695.
Their incentive to invest is that their privileged position can be stripped away via government action.
That's a theoretical view. In reality, which government? The government that they pay to elect? The article also says that Congress is in part reluctant to be harsher on them because they provide a good share of local employment in all areas. The government has a lot of reasons to keep Baby Bells happy, and they are not competing, they are uniting to fight against competition.
What the hell did that comittee think? That they'd wave thier magic wand and the baby bells would suddenly turn into good little boys and girls? Were these guys drug tested before they ruled on this?
The simple fact of the matter is that the bells proved the smarter of the two sides here. There are numerous agreements dating back to the early part of the 1900s between phone companies and the government, but most of these were good faith actions, surprisingly, at least on the part of the government. When faced with the dilemna of providing stable, reliable communications for the new century across the country, the government realized that private companies would not only be best suited for this, but they would also willingly support the absolutely enormous initial investment, as long as they were allowed to play by different rules than other industries.
Due to this, so called baby bells have had a virtual monopoly ever since. And they're not stupid. Phone companies are some of the most intelligently planned companies in the world, at least as far as long term strategy is concerned.
When they realized how much capital was to be gained, my local bell, Bellsouth, aggresively entered into long distance, after first spearheading the charge to get legislation passed that would let them play the long distance game with the other kids. And now, I'm employed in the sales department of their cellular branch, Cingular, which is one of their smarter moves to date.
Simply put, more and more people are doing what I do, and using my cell phone as my home phone. Rather than pay two bills, one for a landline and the other for the cell, I just enjoy the benefit of having my home phone with me at all times. Also, much like the earlier incarnations of the phone companies, cellular companies have massive agreements in place where they all use each others towers and relay points, and aggressively discourage, through lobbying and downright ugly business practices, the entry into the market of any new, radical companyies.
For example, take Cricket. Cricket allows unlimited local calls in your home service area, with an aggressive long distance plan. Only one problem: once outside your home footprint, Cricket no longer works, because it cannot receive a signal. This is because the larger cellular companies have unsigned agreements in place that prevent the sharing of resources, like signal towers and receivers, to anyone who is not already in the game. Competition? Ha!!
So, faced with the threat of their precious landlines and preferential zoning laws and permits being rendered obsolete by cellular technology, they simply all rushed in, then closed the doors, thus maintaining survivability, as well as the status quo.
The Government never stood a chance, they've been either outflanked or happily prison-raped by the phone companies at every turn.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
REF: "Because in the long term, technology would displace the bootstrapping of other people connecting to our network."
So, Verizon thinks that it's THEIR network...
To paraphrase Jeff Spicoli,
If you paid for it, and we the taxpayers paid for it, doesn't that make it OUR network ?
It should be facinating to watch the outcome of any challenge, maybe DSL gets freed and maybe the Bells get even more protection ?
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
I have absolutely no love for the bells, at least for their digital services. The bells know for a fact that their ISPs are 'shit on a stick'. They don't even bother trying to fix them anymore.
Heres a concept that I bet waould work...
Nationalize the last mile into one public company. This one company is responsible ONLY for the lines, the maintenance, laying, and signals. This company wouls have an assigned profit margin range it would make. It is after all a public company.
With this company in charge of the physical cables, the profit margin would force the company to be more efficient and responsive to its customers demands and desires to sell its lines in the form of leases to other companies providing services on the line.
If the cables cannot carry the services being paid for, there is no profit. No profit, is one company out of business. This is the preasure to provide the mose efficient solution for the situation of providing the best medium for the services on the line.
Any company, be it voice or data can lease the lines at mandated rates to provide a balance between the profit of the line company, and the expense leasing company. (Rate review board with weekly, or monthly meetings, maybe?)
With a set rate with all companies (voice and data) that can vary, the net result would be downward preasure to lower the rates. The best way to lower rates, is to reduce costs. (remember, the line company has a mandated profit magin that must be met)
This is best done by efficincy in building and maintaining the network. Not in 'the axe' of laying off employees. No employees is no maintenance. No maintenance means default on the monopoly rules. As the efficiency of the lines is increased, the cost can drop to balance the profit margin. Of course, in the beginning the rates are high, but with some time, the economies of scale will begin lowering rates.
I realize this is an absolute utopian dream, but it starts somewhere.
With this method of management of the last mile, it would take a couple dozen years perhaps to lower the rates to a point where it would be much more efficient to run the network and provide the lines to outside companies than anything we have now.
Right now, all we have is preasure to increase rates with absoultly no downward preasure to increase efficiency or capacity. The bells just want everything akin to Bill Gates and computers.
Who needs a company with to many tentacles that nobody knows if they're coming or going? Split the telcos from their internet arms and see how long they can last. The ISPs won't but what about the telcos? Guess what? No red ink.
Chew on that for a bit.
"Before the "deregulation" of telephone services, much of the infrastructure was built on taxpayer dollars."
I've seen this assertion more than once on slashdot. Are people trying to rewrite history? When did the US govt. fund telephony?
Vote for Pedro
The Gov't secures rights of way for the common good, streets, telephone, water, sewer, elecrtic, cable TV. There is absolutely nothing stoping me from forming a new utility and running my own transmission equipment, just secure the permits and start digging or setting poles. Now it gets silly to run seperate poles, but I do not have the right to invade Bell, Comcast, or Edison's poles to run my lines. They paid for them, its their property. Now cable is a special case in some municipalities, they have offered lucrative "franchise" contracts for the cable plant that some cities built. But that is stupid city administrators, not the corps fault. Those agreements come up every few years, get your councilman to vote for something other than AOL/TW, Comcast, Cox, or Adelphia or build their own cable TV system like Glasgow KY did.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Of course they will...that's the job of corporate leadership: to generate revenue for their shareholders. For this debate, let's call corporations the "right-wing" of the American economic scale.
Then there is you and I, the customer. Ideally, we'd like to have everything for free and never have to work again. Let's call this the extreme "left-wing" of the American economy.
The role of the government is to keep this scale balanced. Corporations (and companies, I'm using the term "corporations" interchangeably here) must be able to make money (so that you and I can have jobs) but customers need choices and the lower prices fueled by competition among corporations.
The balance is threatened not because corporations are pursuing their best interests with the government, but because our elected government officials have lost sight of their role in the process...many of them don't give a shit about the people that elected them.
It might feel good to rant and rave about the companies that are doing exactly what they're designed to do but that won't change anything. If you really want to change things, educate your representatives and hold them accountable. They don't respond well to
Bottom line: If even half of us here lit a candle instead of complaining about the darkness...we'd probably burn down the Capitol.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
Oh my God! What are we all going to DO if those poor, mistreated Bells stop developing broadband! This is horrible! This is a catastrophe! This is...EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS NOW!
I've lived in the same house (in a larger town) since DSL first started to catch on for residential use. Couldn't get it then and guess what? Right - can't get it now either. How many years has that been? Two blocks over, however, is no problem. Cry me a fscking river.
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
BTW, I see the relativists have marked opinions they don't like as troll or flamebait again. Funny how they don't have anything to say, but don't hesitate to shut up those they disagree with. This seems to be happening more frequently to those who post from a pro-liberty/reason perspective. Downtime for the anti-judgment marchers?
Guess that happens when you make a post that is anti-government centralization of everything. Come on folks, RTF Posting guidelines and don't mod stuff down just because you don't have a good argument against it.
Areopagetica baby!
*scoove*
Their physical lines run along roads and highways on public property. If they're going to squander the resource just because they can't accept a world in which they have competitors, then take their lines through some sort of eminent domain mechanism and divvy up the bandwidth among providers who are willing.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
So where'd you get that sig? I've used it. I may have been the first person to think it up, but I don't think it requires that much creativity. I'm sure someone said it before me, and I'd like to know who.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
The Baby Bells aren't making huge gains, but they're not being decimated like the telcos that actually have to compete. Take a look at a 5-year stock price comparison of Verizon vs. AT&T. Or (if you want to be cruel) Verizon vs. Worldcom. You can do roughly the same comparisons with the other major Baby Bells, like SBC (not US West, though, which made the mistake of merging into a competitive market, those fools.)
The Bell's flat performance ain't so bad when you note that telcos in competitive markets have seen a 50%-99% reduction in stock price over the same period of time. That's the assurance a monopoly will buy you. Hell, Verizon has done better than Disney, and almost as well as Microsoft over the past five years (don't forget, those charts don't include the Bells' healthy dividend payments.)
So everything's relative, and when people talk about the telcos that are bleeding, they're sure not talking about the ones from this article.
First, the problem with the Bells is greed. There have been numerous posts here over the last several years about the Bells' behvior. They have had better than 5 years to prepare for DSL. Many Bells still choose to buy and install non-DSL equipment while the customers are begging for DSL!
True, the line sharing cuts into profits, but almost every Bell has spent millions trying to wipe out the cell-phone industry, a plan that is blatant misapproperation of funds an order of magnitude bigger than DSL! Also, they have tried getting into everything electronic except providing better phone lines.
The phone companies want what the Cable Co has--complete power over connection and content! That power was taken for a reason and the FCC seems to forget why. Look at AT&T. They are a telco-they have no business in content, let alone cable! I still will maintain that the FCC should let the Bells buy up the Cable Co....and then hold them to the common-carrier class and forbid media-houses from controlling them. Remember the cable guys are double speaking too. Each town's cable is a seperate company on the books--the big owners use that "poor little guy" image to get relaxed laws (much like the entertainment industry)
The game isn't about profit--it's about control, total absolute control, pure and simple! It's about creating monopolies while distracting Govt. and then hiding behind the investors and "property" rights at every pointed finger. The worst part is that investors belive this stuff! These companies business plans are to create monopoly and investors are paying big bucks for essentially a mail-order racket. Now that the market is down, everyone is using the fake stock prices as leverage over the Govt to get what they want.
The consumer is just a pawn!
...keep on asking to buy stuff we don't want to sell!!
Great way to run a business.
Why is it that so many businesses seem to HATE their customers so much?
All they are doing is helping the cable industry by pitching a hissy fit because they are not getting their way. They are losing customers and they will lose more because of their inactivity. More and more prospective customers are turning to cable internet services and leaving the baby bells out in the cold.
For example, I live in a small town - around 9000. Southwestern Bell refused to start a dsl service here because it would be too expensive. They even purchased an ad in a local paper saying so. Anyway the local cable company now offers cable internet access so now if dsl service ever becomes available, swb will not have any customers.
a T1 is only 24 * 64kbit channels , .
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.... If you figure half the .
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so you end up with slow service if
you get a cpl of ppl running a
p2p app that has alot of network
packet overhead
God help you all if there was like
5 ppl trying to run them 24x7
Best deal I think is a wireless
WAN underground Coop
Everyone in a metro get together and
connect wirelessly, use ssh2 to encrypt
it all much like the Mesh AP at
locustworld.com
Then collectively buy a T3 or higher
and it should work pretty well
Hell a T3 is 28 T1's , and a OC-3 is
100 T1's
ppl use it at the same time, and you
assign 512K QOS caps you get 156
ppl signed up paying $40 a month
for a little over $6,000
The OC-3 at $9,000 Is a much better deal,
triple the bandwidth for not much more
155M/bits, oh man...
Just need to use some sort of QOS
so ppl do not download ISO's all
day and night because they sit at
home trying to max out their Cd-r's
If they want to download that fine, but
apportion a "fair" amount of bandwidth
to them
I think you could still handout bandwidth
WAAAYYY beyond cable or DSL right now
If Each major city could get one
strand of dark fiber running to each
other major US city and had one
Metro proxy, we could dump the damn bells
Just my 2 cents
Peace..
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
If you want a $9.95 a month net service,
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only way I see you getting it is a Coop.
A bunch of ppl sharing a T3 or OC-3 or higher
Then using Wireless to share it
A brilliant Linux man has taken the first
steps of this revolution, chk it
http://locustworld.com
If ppl start a local grass roots initiative
to hook up all their neighbors to the system
and then run it for free or nearly free
It will take ppl being willing to run a
mini-ISP, and it will be some work to be sure
Peace
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
...but, who else thought about cheese when reading the headline?
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
I think communities could start local WISP's .
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and then Coop the long haul, and run the
entity as a "Not for profit or Non Profit"
One of the rules of big bandwidth I have seen
is 4 times the bandwidth at twice the price
The more you buy the cheaper it gets
If communities used aerial fiber like the
cable companies did, they could connect
the townships in a mesh topology so that
if one aerial was cut, it would simply
re-route . They could keep local
traffic local, and nearby towns could
pass data with each other for a song
Single mode fiber can now push close to
200 miles without a LEM ( line amp )
Most rural townships are ALOT less than
200 miles from a major city
The majority of the population lives on
the coast
I think this would work well, start it out
small, and build on it from there
They would have to find ppl for each
community to run it, I think grass roots
starting with the local PC users groups
is the best shot
Bet you could find a few disgruntled
laid off Telecom ppl
Hell I am one of them
Peace
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Wrong on the poles ...
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The poles are shared space, my aunt wrote the
pole stats for the local Electric utility
in a CAD proggie
Everyone gets to hang off the poles, they
just have to talk to the ppl who put them
in the ground . 9 times out of 10 it is
the local power company
I still say WISP Coop is the answer to all
of this BS , and it would really put a
kink in their style
Once the WISP has enough saved in it's
"Not for profit/Non profit" accounts
it starts running aerial fiber to local
communities, and buying long haul dark
fiber as an entire Metro area
Next thing you know there is a Nationwide
WISP Coop Mesh topology, bypassing a good
portion of the "Commercial" Internet
I think it would be great
hehe, Open Source Networks
Peace
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
250 million ppl invest $20 a month .
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Aka...$5 billion dollars a month
What a system it would be
WISP in the Metro Area Network
Non-profit Dark fiber for long haul
A WISP Coop that would change "everything"
Sure would like to be part of that skinning
of the corporate cash cow
A one year pay out on this would equate
to something like $36 billion
I am pretty sure we can come up with some
bandwidth solutions between just the big
cities for $36 billion
Roll reserve cash into an account to build
out the rural area over a cpl of years
Just my 2 cents
Peace
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Seeing as how I can't afford to switch over to broadband, I want to see it delayed as long as possible - that way websites will continue to write for us slow modem users and I won't get shut out!
Of course the fact that Verizon keeps calling to peddle DSL, and then tells me they won't support Linux doesn't help much either.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
So, essentially, the FCC handed them an extortion weapon which the Bells promptly deployed. It sounds to me like a perfect reason to reverse the decision and force competition in DSL service (especially since the Bells claim they have no intention of expanding their offerings there.
Or perhaps they would like to go with total deregulation, they charge what they want to CLECS and individuals charge what they want for right-of-way on their property. It seems that even the FCC forgets that the Bells wouldn't have an infrastructure had they not been granted right-of-way by government fiat. Beyond that, they grew to their current size and power by virtue of a government granted monopoly. That growth was only limited by the big breakup that happened mostly because their service and monopoly pricing got bad enough that EVERYONE got the joke: "We don't care, We don't have to. We're the phone company!"
Perhaps the thing to do is to transfer the local lines to a non-profit and require the bells to rent them like everyone else. If that were done, I'll bet that the Bells would suddenly find a way to offer services and prices that they currently call impossible, much like long distance at less than $0.10 per minute became possible almost overnight after the ATandD breakup.
Why can't people just leave the Poles alone? All those mean jokes about them being stupid and now this?
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
aIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 :) Plenty of light that way.
MY LIGHT JUST DIED
I AM SO SAD
I'm blind! I'm blind!
Light?
Turn all your xterms to black-on-white
-- Seen on #Debian
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