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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."
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
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
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.
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!"
It's good for the D.C advertising market. The Washngton Post was absolutely chock full of advertsing directed at perhaps a dozen people. I would imagine that the radio stations were full of strange commercials.
It's rather comiic-- multibillion dollar faceless oligopolies, all jockeying for sympathy.
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
...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 ]
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.
Yes it is full internet access (well they are blocking outbound Kazaa now, but that's not important). They are actually our competitors but they are a public utility who ran Telescrips cable out of the market by killing them on price/chanels/service. The cable modems came along as a result of the need to monitor electric usage (wired meters) they had a fiber loop around the city and decided to backhaul inet access on it. They turn a healthy profit as well, both on cable modem and tv service.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
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.