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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
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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.