SBC Hit with Antitrust Lawsuit

mrtaco01 writes "Four Internet service providers have filed an antitrust suit against SBC Communications, alleging that the Baby Bell unfairly inflated wholesale prices for high-speed Internet access."

Comments

How is this illegal?

[mandalayx]

The suit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Central California, claims that the rate SBC charged the companies for digital subscriber line (DSL) service was too expensive for them to resell profitably. Linkline Communications, Inreach Internet, Om Networks and Red Shift Internet Services are seeking $40 million in damages and a discontinuation of alleged "price squeezing" from SBC, according to the court filing.

Attorneys for the California ISPs say San Antonio-based SBC must discontinue its pricing system in order to give smaller companies a chance to compete for DSL subscribers.

Looking at the way the article was written, I get the impression that some ISPs are suing SBC for providing a service which was hard to resell at a higher price.

In other industries, this is known as not having a good business plan. I'm unaware of how this is illegal and wanting clarity on this issue..

Re:How is this illegal?

[banzai51]

The problem is that SBC owns the lines going to your house. SBC also sells DSL access. So they open it up to everyone like they are legally supposed to, but then start jacking up the prices so all the other DSL businesses go under. This leaves SBC as the only DSL provider in your area. Prices and restrictions on users go up. Not good for the public that has to pay more money for less service. This type of behavior crowds out good ISPs like Speakeasy.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also known as 'bait and switch'...

What you aren't reading is that SBC conned all these ISPs into jumping on the DSL bandwagon, and signing up thousands of DSL subscribers...

After they did all the leg work, SBC then lowered the price they offer the public. Hence making it too expensive for the ISPs to compete with SBC (since they still are paying the old rate, they actually pay MORE for 'wholesale' DSL access then SBC is selling to the public for)

Part of the problem with DSL is that the OWNER of the copper last mile has all the advantage. Even though you may be buying DSL Internet from any one of a half dozen ISPs, they ALL rely on SBC to get that last mile. Hence, they have a monopoly.

The courts allowed them have this monopoly, on the understanding that access was fairly given to competitors to 'resell' those facilities at a fair price.

Droping your retail price below your wholesale price doesn't seem very fair, and since it was the FCC that mandated this (ie, they made it a law), that is why it is ilegal.

Re:How is this illegal?

[panda]

In other industries, this is known as not having a good business plan. I'm unaware of how this is illegal and wanting clarity on this issue..

It's because ISPs and phone companies operate in a regulated market, and not a free market. Telcos are pretty much required (for the moment) to offer wholesale access to their lines to competitors at a rate that is fair because the telcos usually have a monopoly on the lines in a given geographical area. This was all spelled out in the Communications Reform Act of 1996 in the USA. It is up to the regulators and the courts to determine what is fair pricing, and these things are usually determined by lawsuits such as this.

Re:How is this illegal?

[mblase]

In other industries, this is known as not having a good business plan.

Actually, in other industries, this is known as falling victim to a monopoly. That's why it's illegal.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

because the telcos usually have a monopoly on the lines in a given geographical area.

That's because SBC owns the lines you idiot. If other ISP's want to use it, they have to pay for it. This is just like when you go to Hertz to rent a car. If you want to use their car, you have to pay for it and Hertz sets the price.

While I'm not going to argue the point of the SBC pricing game, I will discuss your alleged claims of SBC being a monopoly. A monopoly is when a company is in business and consumers are forced to buy their products. Because this is true, they can set a price to whatever they want and people are forced to pay it (sounds like I'm actually backing your stupid claim doesn't it).

The part your missing is that SBC is not in the least-bit monopolistic because companies can come in to their area and open a competing business. The reason people don't is because of the economic block of high entry cost, not because SBC is playing with their prices.

What SBC is doing is called price discrimination. However, this is legal because they can charge anything they want to consumers and a different price to retailers and enforce that price difference (of course I'm assuming that the sub-ISPs actually have a contract with SBC for the price SBC actually charges, if SBC doesn't then they will certainly lose in court for attempting monopolistic tactics).

Re:How is this illegal?

[rusty0101]

It's also known as leveraging a monopoly to expand it.

But since Microsoft effectively gets off scott free for doing this, SBC has probably decided they can probably get away with it too. Unfortunately, as noted elsewhere, SBC is in a regulated market, and Microsoft is not. This may be an interesting case to watch.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll.

You know full well that the copper plant is a market that new companies can't just "come into the area and open a competing business". Noone will fund such a venture given the existing players and capital costs.

That's why it is (and should be) a regulated industry. But you knew that.

Re:How is this illegal?

[jchawk]

That and keep in mind that Bell was originally granted a monopoly on the phone system and it's building was subsidized by your tax dollars.

Re:How is this illegal?

[ekidder]

In many (most?) cases, SBC is reselling their lines at a loss, considering that they are still the ones that have to maintain the line. The states have a pretty strict control over how much SBC can charge for lines (being the ILEC and all) and most states have kept that at a low rate. (Illinois is about $16, I think). SBC would probably be happier with it if the ISPs were also paying to have the lines maintained.

Re:How is this illegal?

[wulfhere]

I work at an ISP that resells SBC DSL. The problem is, we are paying $34.95 for each DSL line to a customer. SBC is turning around and selling DSL for $29.95.

As if this weren't bad enough, we have documented cases (but not enough money for a lawyer, yet...) of our customers being contacted to switch a week after they turn up with us. You see, we have to enter customer info into SBC's database to place the order.

And speaking of SBC's database, did you know that it returns different copper distances for SBC vs. the ISP? We have had customers whose loop was not qualified for service be contacted by SBC a couple weeks later and be able to get service.

All the telco's abuse their power, but SBC is one of the worst.

Re:How is this illegal?

[brakk]

Did you read the headline at all? Why is it do you think they have to charge you 119.99?

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should SBC have to give ANYONE access to their lines? Someone else should string some wire.

Re:How is this illegal?

[wawannem]

This isn't bait and switch... That is when you advertise one thing at a great deal, but then conveniently don't have any of that item in stock when the customers arrive. This was a common practice of Sun TV during the 90s.

Sometimes I wonder why this 'Anonymous Coward' guy is still allowed to post, he is obviously an idiot, and he posts so much!

Re:How is this illegal?

[Krow10]

Blockquoth the poster:

How is speakeasy a good DSL provider ?

Speakeasy is a good provider because they offer a reasonable terms of service without charging "Business Class" prices. Most ISP's charge more for their business class, not because of the terms of service, but because of the Quality of Service requirements. Speakeasy's QoS for their SysAdmin offering is the same as BellSouth's home user, so they don't charge an arm & a leg for it.

Those people will only sell me SDSL at 119.99$ month where as bellsouth provides ADSL for just 49.99$.

Oddly, I had the same thing in my case. I tried to order from Speakeasy when I moved into my new house, but Verizon couldn't find a loop that would do anything but SDSL. I went with cable for a while. Then I get an offer from Verizon -- three months free ADSL. I order it, and like magic, they find my original loop can do ADSL (yes, maybe there were changes upstream. And maybe they just didn't try when I wasn't ordering from their service provider.) I get good xfer rates. I log my rates over two months and then I order Speakeasy. Since I now have proof that my loop can support ADSL, Verizon has no choice. So, I pay $15/mo more for my service, but I have a sane terms of service.

Just because those people advt run your ownserver doesn't make them good.

Not everyone wants that. I do. I'm willing to pay a little more for that than for standard connectivity, but there's no good reason I should have to pay Business Class prices for it. Speakeasy is the only provider who offers this in my area. When someone offers a service that you want, for a price you are willing to pay, and nobody else offers the same, that does make them good.

-Craig

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll, huh? absolutely right.

But where did I say in my ranting that it was going to be easy to get funding to start a large venture like a telecomm firm. I just said that it is possible to start one (provided SBC plays by the rules and try to crush the competition)

Re:How is this illegal?

[brakk]

Not that I'm pro M$ or anything, but, there is a difference.

Yes, M$ has almost a monopoly on desktop OS, but if someone gets sick of them, they can just uninstall it and change. There might be some consequences, but it still can be done relatively easily.

SBC owns the physical lines running to your house. Little mom and pop ISP/phone providers can't just run more lines across the poles to everyone's house to offer them an option, they have to use SBC's.

Re:How is this illegal?

[kin_korn_karn]

This all means that they're not a monopoly on the consumer market anymore, but they ARE a monopoly on the commodity bandwidth market. If you want to be a CLEC, you buy your lines from SBC, period.

Oh, I suppose you could go through the decades-long process of running your own copper, but the government has determined that it isn't realistic to expect a new company to be able to do that and remain in the market, so SBC is obligated to sell bandwidth as a commodity, a raw material if you will, to the CLECs.

Lasseiz-faire capitalists find any government definition of or intervention in markets appalling, but then they'd turn around and bitch if SBC were the only DSL provider in the area and charged $100 a month, too.

Sometimes the government helps you, turn off the talk radio and get a clue.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Skord]

Actually, the public owns the lines. Do some research.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Fastolfe]

Agreed, but there are other issues here: a lot of the lines were run with government subsidies. Bell didn't pony up all of the original expense. So anyone trying to run competing lines would have to bear the entire expense of doing so, which is more than Bell had to do (in some cases), which also makes it prohibitively expensive.

So in order to break the monopoly, you have to force Bell to let others sell service over their lines. It's ugly and frustrating for companies like SBC, but it's what the government chose to do.

Now, if it were up to me, I'd sell those physical lines to the government, or spin off a company that is there simply to run and maintain those lines. This would be more or less like any other public utility. Then, companies wanting to put services on those lines (including the original Bells) would have to pay fairly to use them. None of this government price fixing crap.

Re:How is this illegal?

[The_K4]

I can see it now, 3 cable companies, 3 telephone compaines, 2 power companies, and god knows who else ALL have wires on the poles, i bet none of them would "acidently" break a competitor's lines while doing "routine maintenance". A pole gets knocked over by a car crash and now 5 - 10 compaines are all out there trying to figure out how to get all their guys up the new pole at once to re-atach everything. It would be a real mess.

Re:How is this illegal?

[jidar]

That's complete bullsht. $29/month to DSL providers is far away from being a loss, and that is what they charge in -most- cases.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yes, M$ has almost a monopoly on desktop OS, but if someone gets sick of them, they can just uninstall it and change. There might be some consequences, but it still can be done relatively easily.

"uninstall it and change"? Change to what, exactly? Until just a few years ago, there was no credible alternate PC desktop operating system. Microsoft successfully prevented any such competitors from ever developing due to OEM contracts, etc.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Sylver Dragon]

Ya, he missed on the name. Its called Predatory Pricing, and it tends to get companies in trouble. Especially when that company has a monopoly. Wrong name or not though, he has a point. If a company has a monopoly and then uses that position to drive out all competition by lowering prices below their cost, this is a bad thing, and illegal.

Re:How is this illegal?

[s4ltyd0g]

I don't see your point. They have to maintain their lines regardless. They wouldn't lose any money on this deal anyways. I mean, all they have to do is resell the bandwidth, the ISP is the one that picks up the tab for all the end user support. Without all those front office expenses (phone support, customer relations, technicians,...), it's all gravy for them.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Telastyn]

How about because they allow you to do whatever you want? [in addition to above poster]

At least in this area, SBC does not allow "odd" protocols such as GRE [required for PPTP connections] and in certain locations they won't even let you connect to an smtp server that isn't theirs.

Furthermore, in my experience with PacBell [before the SBC buyout] and SpeakEasy at the same location and same service [1.5/384 adsl] I found that SpeakEasy provided a much better service. Much less downtime, none of which was unannounced. Much better average response time to the internet, especially to the west coast [PacBell routed everything through SF and then back down the peninsula again...] And much better bandwidth on average.

Reliability: better.
Customer Service: WAY better.
Speed: better.
Bandwidth: better.

I mean what other metrics do you want?

Re:How is this illegal?

[jtosburn]

A DSL line is, by definition, also a plain old telephone line. Is it's maintenance fundamentally different than if it where just your average, everyday phone line? If not, then as long as someone has an SBC landline (ie. 95% of the population in SBC territory), then they already ARE paying for line maintenace.

And the idea that SBC is selling DSL lines at a loss is dubious at best. The R&D to develop DSL was paid for in the late eighties / early nineties via special permission from congress to raise telephone service rates in order to develop interactive television, and in fact, they had promised to deliver it to some large percentage of the population, so you could also argue that a certain amount of field equipment and upgrades has already been paid for, too. The installation of lines was paid for a hell of a long time ago. And the upgrades to digital switches has been mostly in order to save them money as demand increases; the benefit for DSL is ancillary, and thus those switches are also already paid for by telephone subscribers.

The DSL reseller is presumably providing the DSLAM, so where exactly is SBC's loss? Is it like one those studies IBM did way back when that determined that it would cost them $40 to develop and ship an empty box?

A company with a monopoly can only think in monopoly terms. The idea of competition is alien, and unwanted, and the longer a company was had a monopoly, the more ingrained those ideas are.

Re:How is this illegal?

[BrynM]

Linkline Communications, Inreach Internet, Om Networks and Red Shift Internet Services are seeking $40 million in damages

Speakeasy is a good provider because they offer a reasonable terms of service without charging "Business Class" prices.

I happen to be a customer of one of the litigants, Om Networks (known to me as Omsoft - the article got the name wrong). Before Omsoft, I was an SBC customer. Like some Speakeasy customers, I went with Omsoft for the business class service at regular rates as well (I have web and e-mail on a static IP). Not only did they offer better customer service than SBC (they are local and I can even go to their offices if I had to) and a Static IP address, but they seem to know how to run a company. SBC made me feel like I was inconveniencing them by being their customer. Every time I had to call SBC (they screwed up the PBX a couple of times), they had this "We wish you wouldn't call us unless we told you to buy something" attitude. It seems SBC doesn't have to care because they will get some of my money whether I like it or not.

Omsoft service is a remarkable contrast to SBC and in my opinion worth every penny - even with the SBC price gouge. I got an error from their proxy server and sent an e-mail requesting removal from the proxy. Guess what? They did it and replied to me the same day. Link problems? I just give them a call and we troubleshoot it together - which brings up another point: They don't treat me like an idiot. Run your own server? Omsoft encourages it and sees it as a way for their customers to learn technology. It's like having a local "mom and pop" ISP again. I value Omsoft and would be pretty disturbed if SBC ran them out of business with price gouging tactics. I think I'll give my ISP a call tonight to congradulate and encourage them.

Re:How is this illegal?

[banzai51]

Don't forget these are the same lines that carry your telephone communications. SBC is getting plenty of money to maintain them. They are most definately NOT selling them at a loss, but are slowly squeezing everyone else out.

Re:How is this illegal?

[banzai51]

Because the baby bells are government granted local monopolies. Our tax money occasionally gets thrown their way to improve the infrastructure. For this specail privilege, they have to accept certain regulation.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Joey Vegetables]

Lasseiz-faire capitalists find any government definition of or intervention in markets appalling, but then they'd turn around and bitch if SBC were the only DSL provider in the area and charged $100 a month, too.

Actually it's very likely that if the "government" had not granted monopolies to Ma Bell way back when, wireless technologies would have developed decades sooner, and bandwidth would be a commodity.

I've yet to learn of any government-granted "monopoly" that ever did more good than harm.

Re:How is this illegal?

[spectecjr]

"uninstall it and change"? Change to what, exactly? Until just a few years ago, there was no credible alternate PC desktop operating system. Microsoft successfully prevented any such competitors from ever developing due to OEM contracts, etc.

Don't put the cart before the horse.

No OEM in their right mind would include a completely non-credible alternative PC desktop OS... no contracts are necessary to prevent any competitors from developing.

Now if they were credible competitors, that's different... but that would also undermine your argument.

Re:How is this illegal?

[renehollan]

I've yet to learn of any government-granted "monopoly" that ever did more good than harm.

Indeed.

Unfortunately, once the monopoly is established, or, for that matter, any interventionist policy takes root (i.e. socialized medicine, government pensions *cough* Ponzi schemes *cough*), the market responds by adapting in such a way that any disruption of the government-backed entity would be away from a local minimum of other market responses to the artificial player.

Even though convincing arguments can be made that the "convenience minimum" is but a local phenomenon in the universe of all possible free-market solutions to deliver the same service, getting others to agree to take the pain to overcome the activation energy to move to an even lower minimum is very difficult: a know cost is often preferred over the need to invest over a potentially, but not guaranteed lower one.

This is the problem all libertarians face, in a well-esablished statist society: we are not starting from a state of nature, but rather a situation that, for many, is survivable, even as they complain about it.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is actually that the ILECs are giving away other services for well under cost. They charge ISPs $29 for the local loop, they charge themselves $29 for the local loop, but then they charge themselves $1 for the DS1 or DS3 they are backhauling that traffic on, while they charge everyone else $400-$600 for a DS1 and $5k for a DS3.
Using creative accounting this makes SBC able to sell a "profitable" dsl for $39/mo, while everyone else is either forced to slam 400-600 dsl customers on a T1 (the usual) or raise their price well above the offering of SBC.
The biggest advantage ISPs have right now is that in order to do this the phone companies have made a big effort to segregate their operations. The ISP division is usually hands-free of the line installation (customer as well as backhaul). Personally I think this is so when they get nailed on it they can all point at each other and dodge the blame saying that no one really knew that it all worked that way because everyone had just a little piece. On the customer service side this makes for a nightmare though. Any trouble you report has to go through at least 4 departments before it reaches someone that can look at the problem. Volume ISPs on the other hand have 2 layers, and they can press to get in direct contact with the working technician with good effect. This means ISPs can sometimes find a market selling $300-$500/mo dsl circuits to companies that want more reliability and performance. The 900% price hike is sold as pay-for-service, but in reality almost all of it goes right back to the phone company to pay for those expensive backhaul lines. Needless to say, the phone company is perfectly happy with this situation.
The old telcos are in bad need of restructuring. The amount of waste present now is insane. When you want a FDDI ring that includes your location you don't get patched into an existing ring. Instead you get your own private ring that includes 2 COs. At each CO you get your own set of MUXs that break your lines off the FDDI ring, then they are put back into a set of ILEC MUXs about 20 feet away that put it onto their ring.
Without restructuring, "fair" would mean that ILEC resold residential DSL would see a price hike up to about $150-$200/mo - which everyone with DSL would surely cry about. Cable modems are likely to be the future unless cable TV gets replaced because they are flat out cheaper. The network makes more sense for today and it's almost entirely already paid for by cable TV revenue. Unfortunately for ISPs the role of ISP doesn't make any sense in the cable modem network design. At best they become an email hosting service and a gateway between the cable company and the internet - except the cable company can surely negotiate a better deal for internet bandwidth with its bulk of customers than an ISP could getting a split of those customers.
So where things are now is a funky "I wont tell if you wont!" situation where the customers know they're paying under cost but they pretend they're not so it wont get more expensive, the providers know they're selling it under cost, but they pretend they're not so they wont have to increase costs - thus losing customers in droves to cable and ISPs and opening the flood gate for the profitable services to move to cable too, the cable companies are making money pretty good, but they pretend they're not so they don't get all the greedy ISPs lobbying to slam legislation down their throat that says they have to partner with ISPs.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

M$ has almost a monopoly on desktop OS, but if someone gets sick of them, they can just uninstall it and change

it is difficult to buy a new laptop, and certainly not most of the variety, without paying for a windows license. how does uninstalling it get your money back?

microsoft is evil, yet smart. you, on the other hand, are stupid.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Joey Vegetables]

That's a good point, and it does help explain the paradox of why so many people and institutions routinely oppose free market solutions, even though almost everyone would be better off if such solutions were the rule rather than the exception.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Pharmboy]

adding to the conversation about Speakeasy:

I have had a 384sdsl line to provide outbound access for an office of about 6 users for almost 3 years now. The only downtime I had was during 9-11. Everytime I call, I get a human. Everytime I email, I get an answer. The latency is decent, the uptime is excellent, the price is about average. The throughput is good. They never screw up a bill. Came with 16 IPs. (remember, its just 384k)

We are moving to a new building, and getting dual T1s (12 pair for phones, so 1.5 for data). I TRIED to get speakeasy to provide it for us, but they couldn't out of the CO we will be using (outskirts of town). Speakeasy isn't perfect, but all and all, I can easily recommend them.

I also have a 1.2 SDSL line with ATT/Covad. Their service sucks. Their hold line is always long. They never have answers. They try to blame the local phone co. for problems that are obviously NOT their fault. I get noticably better latency with ATT/Covad, but mediocre uptime and crapola service. Had that line for 3 years also. I can't recommend ATT/Covad.

Re:How is this illegal?

[gilleyj]

Same thing with Covad and their resellers. I work for a little ISP out in the middle of no wheres california. We tried reselling covad DSL but the pricing for US was 30 dollars more a line then what Covad themselves were offering the lines. What goes through customer minds... "Why should I pay you 100 a month when it only costs me 70 a month directly with covad?" The other big issue is when you resell for covad, YOU are responsible for tech support, they will not talk to end customers only to the reseller. SO when a line goes down, customer calls us, then we have to call covad. doesn't sound too bad execpt you end up being on hold for 1-2 hours with covad. The other really buggy thing is they wont even talk to you unless you are on site. so all and all it is totally not worth it to resell DSL at a gain of 30 a month when they are underselling you at the same time.

not sure if this is what sbc is doing but I really would not be surprised.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Crazy Eight]

as long as someone has an SBC landline (ie. 95% of the population in SBC territory), then they already ARE paying for line maintenace.

IIRC, back when I was still comparing DSL providers I heard that one can't get DSL in SBC territory from anyone without having an SBC landline account. Even though I'd just as soon ditch my home number entirely I can't without SBC blocking the line. There's no technical reason for this to be so. Speakeasy does after all pay SBC's rent after I've paid Speakeasy.

Re:How is this illegal?

[b1t r0t]

I believe the real problem comes in with the Remote Terminals. These are beige boxes about the size of a standalone freezer (or a refrigerator on its side) with lots of doors. Sometimes, particularly in California, they're entirely buried underground, with only a small door and electrical junction box above ground.

They contain a miniature Central Office, including SBC owned DSLAM equipment. SBC doesn't want to have to open up rack space inside the RTs to third party CLECs like Covad. And since the potential area to be covered by RTs is much bigger than that covered by CO's, the CLECs have to lease a full DSL circuit from SBC. As I understand it, this is often at the same cost that direct customer of SBC's Internet would pay.

In addition, SBC has RTs within what would be normal DSL range of a CO (I know, because I'm on one, even though I would probably get at least 2.5 mbits via a direct-to-CO line pair), thus increasing the percentage of homes and businesses that aren't served by a direct (and shared by FCC mandate) CO line.

I don't know what they do with the old copper that they're bypassing when they build RTs, but if they were smart about wanting to be anti-competitive, they'd dig it up or find some other way to make it unusable.

Re:How is this illegal?

[plague3106]

Look for some pictures of people with telephones before Bell. It quickly got ridiculous to run lines everywhere. Now imagine that problem today.

Re:How is this illegal?

[The Lynxpro]

SBC drove Covad into bankruptcy a little over a year ago and then acquired a large stake in the restructured company. So when you talk Covad's dirty trix, you actually mean SBC...

Re:How is this illegal?

[Cat_Byte]

I think you're still in an area with competition. It's $58 for a DSL line that's barely over ISDN speeds here. In excess of $100 for full speed.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Ian Peon]

I would love it if the courts declare that SBC was barred from doing direct customer DSL sales.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for SBC for a bit, and believe me the managment I came into contact with knew they were going to screw covad and all the other clecs.

Re:How is this illegal?

[DonGar]

I think this whole thing is an argument that, given our current setup, line maintainers should do only that, and no more.

There is no way that SBC will not give preference to themselves, when they are in competition with other DSL providers.

Either SBC shouldn't have to share (which I see as bad because there is no competition), or the person owning the lines shouldn't be competing with the other resellers directly.

The only way I can see to do this is to split SBC, and the other line owners into line companies, and resellers. Splitting a company by force strikes me as a bad thing to do, but I think the end results would be good for end users.

It would also help answer questions about things like SBC being forced to sell lines to other companies 'at a loss'. If that's true, then the line companies would just go out of business. If they don't we know that they aren't being forced to subsidize their competitors.

Re:How is this illegal?

[_ph1ux_]

"Speakeasy is a good provider because they offer a reasonable terms of service without charging "Business Class" prices"

Bullshit. I had SpeakEasy DSL at my house for a time. Actually Speakeasy bought my account as Northpoint went out of business.

I switched to SBC because Speakeasy refused to give me ADSL and was telling me that I was too far from the CO to get anything but slow ass SDSL. They had just installed a new CO across the street from my house.

THen after I verified with three different employees at Speakeasy that I had not actually signed up for any contract - and that I had already been with them for over a year, my account was a month to month agreement - they tried to charge me $400.00 cancellation fee.

They actaully billed me for it and I responded by showing them the emails that stated I was on a month to month.

In addition - they were charging more for the shitty SDSL that I had than SBC was offering me for full T1 speed ADSL.

They service was pitiful as well.

Screw them.

Re:How is this illegal?

[The Kow]

The DSL reseller is presumably providing the DSLAM, so where exactly is SBC's loss? Is it like one those studies IBM did way back when that determined that it would cost them $40 to develop and ship an empty box?


Just to clarify - the LEC, be it an ILEC like SBC or Verizon, or a CLEC like Covad or Worldcom, provides the DSLAM. DSL Resellers rely on whoever their LEC is (sometimes themselves, as Covad provides its own service, for example) for that.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Eravau]

Bell didn't pony up all of the original expense. So anyone trying to run competing lines would have to bear the entire expense of doing so, which is more than Bell had to do (in some cases), which also makes it prohibitively expensive.

Kind of like the cable companies. They run their subsidised monopolies.

So in order to break the monopoly, you have to force Bell to let others sell service over their lines.

...which the cable companies don't have to do. Is something a little lopsided here? And people wonder why the ILECs are pushing for new legislation.

They have to sell their lines to competitors for cheap (government set price limits). Their CLECs can steal their customers by selling their lines cheaper than they can themselves...because the competition doesn't have to pay the techs that maintain/troubleshoot the lines, don't have the costs of the infrastructure maintenance, and don't have government-imposed pricing.

To make matters worse, some CLECs can run up millions or billions of dollars in bills owed to the ILECs and then claim bankruptcy...and not pay a cent of it. But government regulations forbid the ILEC from cutting them off. They are required to sell (read "give") them the lines whether they'll ever pay or not.

Do you wonder why you can get cable 'net access at many places you can't get DSL access? It's because the ILECs would have to invest in the equipment to extend DSL service out to Podunk County. And after they did so, their competition would come along and buy the lines off of them cheap, steal their customers, and the ILEC would have low ROI. Companies (being in the business of making money) aren't going to invest in what is an obvious black hole for their funds.

On the other hand, the cable companies build-out with no fear. They can invest in the lines and the equipment to get digital cable and all it's glorious 'net access even out to the suburbs of Podunk County because they know that they're the only ones that can sell the access on those lines. Their prices aren't set by the government, their lines aren't regulated, and they are the only ones with permission to install there.

I like your idea of government-owned lines (to some extent)...but it's probably too late for that to happen now. Whatever happens, things need to be evened out for everyone.

Re:How is this illegal?

[The Kow]

I switched to SBC because Speakeasy refused to give me ADSL and was telling me that I was too far from the CO to get anything but slow ass SDSL. They had just installed a new CO across the street from my house.


And with a new CO across the street from your house, the chances that Covad had a chance to put their own cage in there yet are not 100%. Having done support - for Speakeasy in fact - but never having been involved in putting a DSLAM in a CO (that would be Covad, not Speakeasy), I can tell you with absolute certainty that if there was a problem getting ADSL to you, it was not because Speakeasy was incompetent.

You would not BELIEVE the things that can happen - Remote Terminal Units, fiber on the line, bridge taps, you name it. Some of these, the ILEC (SBC or whoever else) can get around with equipment they own, but are not required to give outside access to - meaning Covad is SOL.

If ADSL was not available but SDSL was, its possible that there may not have been appropriate line-sharing facilities at this 'new CO they put in across the street' (how exactly do you know it was a new CO, did you go over and ask the construction workers what they were building? I'm not 100% sure I believe your claim here), meaning you could get ADSL from a nearby Remote Terminal, but not through Speakeasy.

Either way, Speakeasy may've screwed up your bill, but you have to understand that they also saved your circuit. They did not buy Northpoint, or its accounts, the took the accounts over when your original ISP went out of business, as a means of keeping people online.

Since provisioning and activation is easily the biggest single expenditure in most circuits' lifetimes, it was beneficial for everyone involved when Speakeasy provided some means of staying online without everybody's circuit getting completely shut down.

Lastly, I doubt SBC was offering you full T1 speed ADSL, unless you're talking solely about your downstream, in which case its not full T1 speed.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Eravau]

At which point they would stop deploying DSL capabilities in their switches that don't have it since they wouldn't be making money on it. Their prices on sales to their competition are mandated by the government and don't provide any real profit...and sometimes provide a loss. And since the competition doesn't want to spend the money on the equipment, but let somebody else pay for it and then take a cheap government-priced ride...DSL would never get any further than it already has.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

"No OEM in their right mind would include a completely non-credible alternative PC desktop OS... no contracts are necessary to prevent any competitors from developing."

That may have been true a few years ago, but not anymore. Walmart is already selling Lindows, Suse linux pcs. HP is sellingmandrake linux pcs. But to this day, it is almost impossible to get a laptop without paying the M$ OS tax. Why ? That HP and Walmart are selling linux pcs are cases of exception and also point to the fact that they are too big to be bitten easily by M$ and therefore can do the unthinkable. Smaller players are not so immune. So your reasons are invalid in today's world.

"Now if they were credible competitors, that's different... but that would also undermine your argument."

The presence of credible competitors does not automatically prove that M$ is all fairplay now. It simply means M$ does and is still trying to suppress alternatives as much as possible but not being 100% successfull in its effort.

Re:How is this illegal?

[spectecjr]

The presence of credible competitors does not automatically prove that M$ is all fairplay now. It simply means M$ does and is still trying to suppress alternatives as much as possible but not being 100% successfull in its effort.

Then your course is clear:

You have options.

Make use of them.

Vote with your wallet, and Microsoft can't do anything about it.

Your argument is flawed anyway; the Mac has been around since 1984. Microsoft can't do anything about that.

Re:How is this illegal?

[bitchazz]

Nothing personal, but you are an idiot. "competition come along and buy the lines off them cheap" ?? One cannot buy the phone companies lines. You can LEASE 'em for a sizable amount though... We are a small ISP in a semi-rural area and brought Wifi fixed access to it before the phone company brought in DSL. When they finally did a year ago, we evaluated getting into the DSL resale business; we would have had to buy a $20,000 DSLAM along with paying SBC ~$35 per month per customer. With a limited customer base here, how would we make money like that? We would have had to charge customers $60 each to make like $5 per customer per month.

You may want to check your foolish preconceived ideas at the door, OK.... thanks.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh go dig some lines you Telco funded Troll

Re:How is this illegal?

[_ph1ux_]

"how exactly do you know it was a new CO, did you go over and ask the construction workers what they were building? I'm not 100% sure I believe your claim here"

Yes, that is exaclty what happened. They installed a new wire terminal box, and as I was walking by there was a guy working on it. I asked him what he was doing and he told me about the new CO. There was a room about 30 feet in the ground across the street and he told me that they just made it the local CO for the area.

He gave me the circuit numbers for the actual lines that my house was conencted to and a number to call regarding DSL. He stated that they were not yet advertising the DSL and that they would deny it - so he said to tell them the circuit numbers my house was on to get them to admit to the DSL availability.

I did just that, and they did try to deny it, but in a short time I had a new DSL provider and full T1 speeds to my home. and obviously i am talking about my downstream on ADSL - hence the name A-syncronous-dsl.

which was far faster and greater than speakeasy, but I do understand what your poitn was regarding the Ilecs shunning other provideres from their facilities.

but I assure you that when speakeasy tried to bill me for the "early termination" I was right pissed - and the whole experience with them just plain sucked.

Finally...

[kmak]

Maybe now we can get lower price broadband... 50$ a month is still a bit high, especially after all these years..

Re:Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

holy crap $50. Where do you live. I live in North Dakota (haha...make your hick jokes). I pay $26 if I want DSL or if I want Cable its only $30.

However, even though the prices in ND are lower, all over the nation they are fairly cheap (kind of, let me explain). My dad is a CEO for a Telecomm firm and he admits they make very little on DSL service. This is why there are many rural places that can't get it yet, mainly because it loses money extending DSL compatible lines out in the middle of nowhere.

However, for city areas, there is no excuse for high rates because of the density and the low amount of lines that needs to be placed to hook up so many people.

Like many companies, the telecomm industry just needs to tighten its belt and run a better business model. There are many companies that are ran very wastefully and the pass the cost of that waste to the customer. Hence, you paying $50 for a service that could be costly probably half that much.

Re:Finally...

[jefeweiss]

Part of the reason that the cost is so high is that DSL is a monopoly. A free market only works when you have several smaller firms competing. If one big firm has all the marbles the free market isn't so free.

Re:Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

If one big firm has all the marbles the free market isn't so free.

That's a big IF there. Many different companies own the phone lines. Hell, AT&T is big, right. They constantly have to pay thousands of dollars a month to my dad's company for using their lines. Many small firms do own the lines. Think DSL is too expensive, then try cable or even dial-up. Simple economics if you don't like the price, you don't have to pay it (last time I checked the Interenet wasn't considered a necessity of life).

And read an economic book for christ sake so you actually know what a monopoly really is, then research the phone industry. Then we'll talk

Re:Finally...

[rusty0101]

DSL is one of two monopolies that can provide Broadband in populus areas. CableModem would be the alternative.

Both are still too expensive, but considering that the prices for each are regulated, you have to get the regulators to recognize that fact, and get them to force the prices down.

For rural areas, there is really only one method of getting anything like broadband service, and that is Sat service. Unfortunately there is a higher up front instalation cost, and monthly costs are at least as high as dsl or cable modems. On top of that the equipment uses a modified network stack that in most cases requires a Windows based PC to communicate. (Yes there are exceptions, especially if you are willing to spend a couple hundred more for the install.)

Now if you are willing to do a co-op with the rest of the people on your block, you could get a T1 or DS3 brought in, and use WiFi to share the connection with other people on the block. Personally I say good luck, but it might be feasable.

-Rusty

Re:Finally...

[aastanna]

$50!!! That's insane. In Canada I pay about $20/month (first 4 months, then I move because I'm at University and keep starting my 4 months again). Even the full price is like $30 something. Canadian!!!

You, sir, are the victim of a monopoly.

Re:Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Tulsa, I pay $50/month for Cox digital cable. If I paid for cable TV too, they would give me $10 off, but that's still high. I think DSL is around $30-$40, but is half the speed, less reliable, and you have to deal with their PPPOE shit.

Re:Finally...

[Sylver Dragon]

$50!!! That's insane. In Canada I pay about $20/month (first 4 months, then I move because I'm at University and keep starting my 4 months again). Even the full price is like $30 something. Canadian!!!

Sorry, dumb question here but, don't they charge a setup fee each time you do that, or is that just something they pull on us here in the US?

You, sir, are the victim of a monopoly.

You noticed?

Re:Finally...

[isdnip]

Prices for cable modems and DSL-based ISP service are not regulated in the United States!

Raw Bell co. DSL bit-pipe service to independent ISPs is tariffed, but there is no particular approval cycle on the tariffs. The FCC accepts what they file, and that's that. The FCC is considering removing that requirement, so that the Bell company is as free to set prices and cut off competitive access to their wires as cable companies are. Cable is regulated under a different law, which is why it's different.

Re:Finally...

[aastanna]

You get hit with a setup fee for your phone line, but no extra fee for the internet. Assuming you're going to be getting a phone line anyway, you're paying $20/month for broadband.

Re:Finally...

[Sylver Dragon]

Ahh, there's the difference. I'm going through a DSL ISP chage (I want to put my own mail server up), my new ISP charged me with a $125 setup fee. If it wasn't for the desire to set up my server I would have stayed with my current ISP, after seeing that requirement. As it is, I simply rubbed my sore ass after the raping and got about the change over. Still, its difficult to swallow such a fee, just to be able to pay a different company for the same thing.

Less Time For Other Suits

[ThatDamnMurphyGuy]

Good. This will mean they should have less time for suing people using frames in websites, erm, I mean "Structured Document Viewer".

Re:Less Time For Other Suits

[mcp33p4n75]

That's just crazy! I'm sure someone could get prior art on that. The dates on the patent are 08/03/1999 and 08/27/2002. That's sickening nonetheless.

Re:Less Time For Other Suits

[Scummer]

Holy shit.... that is ridiculious!! Man.. you need to have a law degree nowadays just to put up a simple website so you can defend yourself later on against shit like this. What is this world coming to?

Re:Less Time For Other Suits

[Wargnus]

Oh my God! I only read Slash Dot and don't care to voice my opinion on subjects, but I had to get a Slash Dot account just so I could reply to this. I love business, hate protesters and don't even have much of a problem with Microsoft. That said, this is farking ridiculous. Where's the petition at? I'm signing it, and why don't you give me one of those picket signs too. I'm ready to have some kind of sit-in, walk-out, get-naked-because-of-injustice fest... I can't believe that these bastards are suing you over frames! It's gona take me all weekend to calm down.

It's all moot anyway

[TerryAtWork]

We're moving to high speed wireless and ISPs will go away.

Almost.

Re:It's all moot anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

what crack are you smoking? You still need a backbone into the cloud, and that's what you're paying your ISP for, not for the physical transmission medium.

This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[MtViewGuy]

I think this case could have a big precedent if the plantiffs win.

It could mean that your installed DSL line could have several different choices of ISP's instead of just the ISP officially supported by the telephone company, which will lead to price competition and eventually monthly pricing more akin to dial-up pricing (e.g., US$20 to US$22 per month unlimited access).

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[Jade E. 2]

It could mean that your installed DSL line could have several different choices of ISP's instead of just the ISP officially supported by the telephone company, which will lead to price competition and eventually monthly pricing more akin to dial-up pricing (e.g., US$20 to US$22 per month unlimited access).

I don't know about SBC's area, but for anyone else stuck in Qwest's area (I feel for you, really) you can already pick from multiple ISPs. Qwest has their ISP list so you can see who's available. I have unlimited 640k/256k access for $19.95 a month from these guys.

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[garcia]

no it won't. They are going to claim that the service costs that much. A typical DSL connection is 768k (which is a little over half of a T1).

They share the T1 between many connections at the DSLAM (usually a rack, but I have been told that they like to sometimes share two racks per T1).

So, the DSL line prices are going to either remain the same, or go down only when they share more DSL lines between T1 (thus effectively cutting your possible bandwith down -- depending on the other DSL users on your rack).

Every DSL ISP I have ever used sells you ISP service and deals w/the telco themselves to buy you the DSL line. You pay whatever DSL line price the telco offers and you pay whatever the ISP charges for it's Internet services.

Usually in the range of $15.95/mo for the ISP, and $40/mo for the line. I have used a freenet in the past and paid about $8.50 for the ISP and $40 for the 768/128 line.

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[gwydi0n]

It could mean that your installed DSL line could have several different choices of ISP's instead of just the ISP officially supported by the telephone company

First of all, this is already the case. In my last apartment, I had dsl, and when I was shopping around, I must've browsed through twenty different ISP's. I originally tried to go with Speakeasy, which was just getting rolling, but as they didn't have a Chicago POP at the time, and I'm in Michigan... It caused a few problems having my gateway in Seattle. (minimum ping to anywhere of 150) In the end I went with Telocity, which later became DirectTV DSL, and was quite happy with the service. I had 1 Mbit down and 384 Kbit up; enough to run simple services such as my webserver, an ftp server, and ssh.

which will lead to price competition and eventually monthly pricing more akin to dial-up pricing (e.g., US$20 to US$22 per month unlimited access)

Secondly, this is highly unlikely, at least not anytime soon. I would guess (and it is just a guess, IMHO, disclaimer, etc, etc.) that most DSL ISP's are already operating at a loss, and still paying for the infrastructure they had to setup. Until that overhead goes away for the company, they can't in good faith to their shareholders drop their prices. As it is, I don't feel broadband prices are too out of line; I paid $55/mo for that dsl connection, and $60/mo for my cable right now. While this may be a bit much for casual users, I definitely get my money's worth.

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[chrisbw]

It could mean that your installed DSL line could have several different choices of ISP's instead of just the ISP officially supported by the telephone company, which will lead to price competition and eventually monthly pricing more akin to dial-up pricing (e.g., US$20 to US$22 per month unlimited access).

This is already how it is.

The telco's resell DSL lines wholesale to ISPs who then provide the retail service for the customer. The problem is the cost structure is still high for providing the DSL access to the home, which is why you won't see prices in the realm of dial-up in the near term.

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you folks stop calling it a DSL Line?

Examples of proper use: I have DSL; They want a Digital Subscriber Line; etc.

While you're at it can you cut out calling ATMs "ATM Machines" and PINs "PIN Numbers"?

Thank you,
Drive Through

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[silas_moeckel]

Actualy from somebody that lives within SBC land SBC charges less for the first year than they charge another telco to resell the line. When you can get a 29.99 line from the telco or a 50 from an ISP there isn't any real compotition.

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[chrisbw]

At $29.99, they're most likely (at least through my 9 years of experience working for ISPs and Telcos) selling this service at a loss for promotional purposes.

There's a marketing advantage in selling this at a loss to consumers if you lock them in to a contract (or assume your churn rate is low enough that you're likely to recover your losses in the long term).

There is not, however, a market advantage for them to sell whole DSL to ISPs at a loss, except for maybe trying to swing users to stay on telco-based services versus cable-modem based services. However, the margins are so razor thin on wholesale DSL, that there is not really a strategic advantage to be found in that.

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[silas_moeckel]

Your missing the point that they are the telco. I know they are selling the server at a loss on the DSL side of the house but the telco side is seeing profits from it and feeding that back to the DSL side. This is pretty classic monopalistic behaviour the telco side of the businees charges 40 a month or whatnot for DSL serviceto everybody. The DSL side sells at a loss but it paying back every cent they get to the telco side and then in turn getting more money from the telco side to support a nonprofitable segment. (IN SBC CT at least DSL and Telco are two different divisions so they dont have to pay union wages to the DSL guys.)

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[PCBman!]

Only problem is that it's QWORST!!!! I'd freakin' kill to have some other company handling the lines, or better yet, 3 to 10 companies! Forget the ISP's, that's easy, I want a phone company that offers better than 2 mbps bothways for $50!

Re:This will lead to lower broadband pricing?

[Hatta]

Now if they would only do something like this for cable. I'm stuck with mediacom here, the download is allright but the upstream is essentially nonexistant and latancy blows either way. I've looked into DSL, but can only get an SDSL here that's twice the price and half the bandwidth. Well the upstream is still better.

Only SBC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this not to say that other independent ISP's shouldn't follow suit and file against Verizon who does the very same thing? I ended up paying over $80/mo. just because of Verizon's ability to "make the line DSL ready" at $42.00 a month. What a joke!

Re:Only SBC?

[Anonymous Coward]

just because of Verizon's ability to "make the line DSL ready" at $42.00 a month

you do realize that the lines do have be so new in order to actually utilize DSL, right? With that said, its not exactly cheap to replace phone lines. Have you looked out the window lately? There's shit-loads of them everywhere

Competition

[marekk]

I for one would love to see more 3rd party DSL operators/licensees in my area. A year ago, with SBC the only DSL company in town, the price was $49.95/mo.

Just two months ago, with the addition of the first 3rd party DSL provider, SBC dropped their price to $29.95/mo (which I was able to sign up for).

Granted, this wasn't due solely to the entrance of this 3rd party, but also high competition between Time Warner, the local cable modem supplier. The dramatic decrease in the pricing though just goes to show how good competition is for the consumer.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

And I am sure the price drop had nothing to do with the bandwidth either. 64/128 is becoming quite popular. (read the fine print)

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you will get lower prices in the meantime, but that means LESS LOCAL competition. Just wait a year when SBC or Time Warner becomes dominant, NO local ISPs to choose from in your area and see the quality and bandwidth of your line drop.

Re:Competition

[shinin]

Don't worry--after a year (by which time your Hi-speed modem will have failed, or you'll be unable to connect--because they suck--and they'll need to mail you new installers which takes 7-10 business days 'cause the drivers on the web are outdated-!!!!!!) they'll raise your rate by 10$ or so.....SBC sux....I'm cancelling mine..I swear to G I am

I'm happy with it.

[Creepy Crawler]

We lived about 15000 ft from the CO, and we wanted DSL. We called them, and instead of saying "GFY", they said they'd look into it and call back.

One day later, they said we could get it. Turns out, we were the first, i repeat, FIRST in that whole area for DSL. They installed a DSLAM and got rid of 2 load coils on the lines. All that for a piddly 30$ a month for a 1 year contract.

I'm usually against inflation praticies, but the cost has to come from somewhere if they're going to solve the last mile problem.

Yes, I live 8 miles away from the local city, and there's a CO near there serving OC-3 to local companies.

This is crap

[Sumbody]

I live in Chicago, prime SBC territory where SBC (nee Ameritech) is fighting for higher wholesale prices for all resellers of their connectivity and dialtone, claiming they (SBC) can't compete. My home is served by an ISP out of Seattle, who finds it profitable enough to offer me great prices on a twice-resold DSL (SBC ==> Covad ==> Speakeasy.net) and a 1-year contract almost up. These other ISPs are crybabies, or trying to enter SBC markets too late to compete. Fire their MBAs and hire some that have a better penchant for marketing and planning.

Re:This is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

What Meigs.... I didn't see any Meigs :)

Just some pretty 'X' flower gardens.

SBC in Illinois...

[BJZQ8]

SBC/Ameritech in Illinois recently was granted a huge rate increase by the State. This is on rates charged to other phone companies for their lines. Strangely enough they DID shortly thereafter announce new DSL service to some relatively rural areas...but then again, we have not gotten any closer to real competition yet.

Re:SBC in Illinois...

[chrisbw]

...but then again, we have not gotten any closer to real competition yet.

...which is probably due to people not being able to acquire capital to enter an already comoditized market. Unless someone can bring something new to the table that either (a) dramatically increases the value of the service to the customer or (b) dramatically reduces the cost of providing the service, there's not much of a compelling reason to enter into a market with razor-thin margins.

Re:SBC in Illinois...

[BJZQ8]

The same thing could be said of electrical power, and water, and gas and sewer systems. I realize that most of these were (and sometimes are) public ulilities, but many of them are privately owned and operated and operate with decent profits. I also fully realize that lots of the rural electrical service is provided by a descendant of the Roosevelt-era Rural Electrification Agency, and that many have no water or sewer service. But I'm talking towns of 5,000-20,000 people and not three hicks, a lean-to, and a sheep.

Re:SBC in Illinois...

[chrisbw]

Well you've hit the nail on the head there.

You wonder why your phone service is expensive? Well, asside from the taxes and the "Universal Service" fees (have to make sure that poor people have phones, being that it's a constitutionally-guaranteed right, and all... oh, wait...), you're paying a lot of money to get dial-tone to that sheep 15 miles away from the CO up on the top of some mountain.

And you wonder why the CLECs target the lucrative business markets (where there's density) and ignore the painfully-lossy consumer market. The only reason the Bells profit from it is they've had the infrastructure in place for so long. It's an incredibly capital-intensive business.

Re:SBC in Illinois...

[BJZQ8]

I want to say a bit about "Universal Service" fees. Most of this money doesn't go to poor people to have phones, it goes to a government-administered company. A huge amount of it goes to E-Rate, which is a huge fiasco. Billions are lining pockets for work that was never done, hardware that was never ordered, and services never provided. The forms are so complicated and contradictory that there are entire companies organized just to fill out the forms for people. It has grown into a massive entitlement program for the few in the computer industry lucky enough to get their number drawn. I work in a school, and the amount we could have gotten from E-Rate was dwarfed by the time it was going to take to fill out the forms and jump through their flaming hoops. I consider it to be a "Computer Industry Support Tax."

Re:SBC in Illinois...

[chrisbw]

All the more reason to be a Libertarian... ;)

Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[GoodNicsTken]

I have to side with SBC on this one. As a former telcom employee, DSL prices were offered a cost to compete with cable. The recent price drops are due to reduced equipment costs.

I find it amazing that the wholesale rate on a T1 line is $50 a month! Customers still pay what $300-500? It's probably cheeper for some companies to set up shop as a CLEC just to buy resold lines for their business.

Competition is a good thing, but some of the regulations are a joke.

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am very happy with my SBC they do a great job, half a T1 for $19.99 a month is bad? I think not just becuase someone does not like that fact that SBC is not allowing him to use them to make a quick buck does not mean SBC is in the wrong.

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[CrazyDuke]

Holy God! I am paying $54 a month for 768/128 cable and it is the cheapest deal in the area without going to dialup. The agency I am working for right now is paying ~$480 a month for a 256 fractional T that runs to a branch office 2 miles away. And they are leasing it from the local babybell (Verizon). How the feck can they get one for $50 a month, even if they have to get 2 (one for each office)!

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[wawannem]

Well, you shouldn't have mentioned that you are a former telcom employee. You lost a lot of credibility with that statement.

First off, I want to clear up a few things about equipment costs that telcoms hide behind. They use this as their way to jack up the rates, because after salary and wage expenses, they really don't have much reason to charge a monthly fee to their customers, so they claim to be constantly upgrading their equipment. The telcoms are sneaky though, equipment works its way from the largest areas down to the rural areas so that they are re-using the same equipment where it is needed, and everyone gets an upgrade. Sounds good right!?
WRONG

The trick is how it goes from one CO to another. Each CO liquidates its old equipment to a holding company for pennies on the dollar. The holding company is usually a seperate entity whose main stakeholders are executives at the telco. The holding company then offers the equipment back to the next CO for its *original* price!!! Think of how much money is generated when just one upgrade works its way through the COs in an area. The telco has had to re-purchase the same equipment over and over again, so then they go to the local PUCO (public utilities commission) and ask if they can raise the price since the upgrade cost so much. When they get it approved it is a double win for them, they are getting more from their residual monthly fee, and they have made an ass-load of cash from their holding company entity.

For Public Utilities, it is all about how to work funny-money through the system, they don't have to worry about pleasing the customer since their is no competition. If you really think that your local telco is out to please/help you, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell ya ;).

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably cheeper for some companies to set up shop as a CLEC just to buy resold lines for their business.

The City of Portland, Ore. is a CLEC for this very reason.

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[myside]

So they loose credibility becuase they've worked in the industry? You rant this info like you're an insider hotshot, but then imply that all insiders are dishonest! What are YOUR qualifications? Why should we beleive anything you're telling us, and don't tell me that its an opinion, because thats a "consperacy theory"/"industrial thriller", not a humble opinion.

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[wawannem]

So they loose credibility becuase they've worked in the industry?

You're right, this was an unnecessary shot at guys who work in the telcom industry. I am sorry, because I know there are many highly skilled people employed by these companies. I am only bitter because of a few bad experiences, and I should not have attacked everyone.

You rant this info like you're an insider hotshot, but then imply that all insiders are dishonest!

Maybe you misread my comment, I only implied that the executives are dishonest. I don't think that is an unfair thing to imply. Think MCI, Enron, etc. if you think that Utilities executives are honest.

What are YOUR qualifications?

Who cares? I mean really, it is up to you to believe this. Even if I cut/pasted my resume into this reply, I am sure you would nitpick it also. If you think I am unqualified, big deal, this is a forum, not a courtroom. If it was a courtroom, this would be hearsay anyways... However, the person that told me this story did so in confidence, so it might jeopardize his employment with one of the major Baby Bells.

Why should we beleive anything you're telling us, and don't tell me that its an opinion, because thats a "consperacy theory"/"industrial thriller", not a humble opinion.

As I mentioned before, you don't have to... But, if you don't believe this story, just do a few google searches on these topics. I'm sure that you'll find many other similar stories of corporate dishonesty and corruption. If I had the time, I'd look through the past stories on slashdot and find the one that shows how the telecoms greased the FCC to get out of major trouble. Unfortunately, I can't remember the details of the story.


PS. It is 'conspiracy' and 'believe', preview is an amazing thing.

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the parent poster made a good point about how the equipment flows.

I wouldn't have believed it either, except that my brother-in-law had described this practice 2 years ago when he used to manage some of the project planning for equipment provisioning at a major telco.

Re:Do you know what wholesale rates are?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing unbelievable about the story. It makes perfect sense given that telcos sell stuff to their "holding companies" which is basically selling stuff to oneself and using that to justify increased end-user rates from PUCO. In the end the burden is passed on to the customers.

YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL GRASP OF THE OBVIOUS

[Anonymous Coward]

NYTimes Coverage

[AltismoMaster]

New York Times has coverage as well (free reg. bla bla)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25DSL .html

More articles:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2003/07/25/BU143220.DTL&type=busin ess
From which quotes: "... SBC's monthly wholesale fees were between $32.50 and $39 per subscriber. At that price, he said, his clients were unable to compete against SBC when the additional cost of Internet service and modems is factored in."

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/business/638193 1.htm

http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413, 87~11271~1532530,00.html

It's high time DSL prices fell so that I can get my $15/month - unlimited download - dedicated IP - T1!!! (then hook an 801 router and be peddling th e bandwidth to the neighbors... )

Value Added Services, not just re-selling

[Cade144]

For smaller ISPs to flourish they need to offer something the Big Boys (ie SBC & co) do not, perhaps better customer support, or some sort of Value Added Service. Competing on price alone will get you nowhere

ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) own the 'Last Mile' and other giants (Verio, Level3, etc) own the upstream pipes. Between paying for the upstream access and the co-location costs at the Central Office, I don't see how anyone even expected to compete with SBC and other ILECs in the DSL business.

SBC does not even make a profit on DSL, they just hope that over the long run they don't have to upgrade any more of their plant, and can continue to sell the same (slow) DSL service for $50 a month. Recurring revenue will let them break even in the long run.

Small ISPs should charge more, and offer more at the same time. Upstream firewall service, or anonymous file swapping, or extra good spam filtering or some sort of extra content available only to subscribers.

More is more. Smart consumers will pay more for expanded and better service.

Re:Value Added Services, not just re-selling

[gwydi0n]

For smaller ISPs to flourish they need to offer something the Big Boys (ie SBC & co) do not, perhaps better customer support, or some sort of Value Added Service.

As a geek, I'd have to vote for Speakeasy on this one. I wish I could've gone with their service when I had dsl at my last apartment, but they had to set me up with a gateway in Seattle. (I live in Michigan - minimum pings to anything about 150) They offer the largest spectrum of bandwidth options I've seen from an ISP, they're Linux-friendly, and they allow you to do what you want with your line. There was a slashdot article not too long ago on how they encouraged their users to share their bandwidth over wireless routers. (I'm too lazy to go find it tho) IMO, Speakeasy is the geek's ISP. I almost wish I could get dsl in my area, just for their "feature" and geek-friendly outlook.

Telecommunications Act of 1996

[b1t r0t]

I worked as a contractor at SBC for a short time a couple of years ago, and at one point they had some sort of explanatory session about the Act, and what certain non-compete rules meant for sharing information between different divisions of SBC. The one thing that I found interesting about this was that their requirement to share DSL lines with CLECs was not due to TAo96. It was actually a condition of the Ameritech merger that allowed them to sell long distance service in that area.

That having been said, from the viewpoint of a customer getting DSL from a 3rd party ISP back then, I wasn't too impressed with this, primarily because it caused the formation of ASI (which I think stands for "Advanced Systems Inc.") ASI was the ILEC holding company formed to handle the DSL circuits themselves, and its creation caused a severe increase in the delay of DSL installation, and these delays went on for at least a year.

The second issue I was aware of back then was exactly what these ISPs are complaining about. At some point SBC decided that the resale price for a DSL line to ISPs would be (surprise!) exactly the same as what they charged individual customers for basic DSL (with ISP) service at the same speed.

My ISP wasn't too happy about this, but they really died because they got "hosed" after they were bought out by a CLEC. Another ISP in the area, TexasNet, wasn't too happy about it either, but didn't get rid of DSL until SBC decided that it would remove one mode of billing, I think the one that let SBC pass the charges through to the ISP (the other being having the charges go onto the customer's phone bill).

These days I get my DSL through SBC, fast and reliable but expensive (6Mbit), thanks to being near a Remote Terminal. I depend on them for nothing but a pipe, and have made a point of ignoring their stupid SBC/Yahoo nonsense. In fact, the only ISP service I can't and don't do myself is NNTP.

This is nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Telephone companies have for years now stifled competition by offering ISP competitors inflated T-1 and fiber optic prices, allowing them to undercut dial-up and DSL prices when selling to the consumers.

What's more, even when the telephone companies aren't competing with direct DSL or dial-up competitors, they still manage to stifle competition by disallowing access to their telephone poles which could be useful to wireless ISPs, despite the recent US Supreme Court ruling on this matter.

This is nothing new, just the same thing we see in all US industries at this point; big corporations or groups (RIAA, Microsoft, etc.) stomping out competition by any means necessary, so they can keep making the enormous profits they've enjoyed in the past.

Antitrust will be the main avenue to competition

[isdnip]

SBC and the other incumbent telephone companies grew up with protected monopolies. They grumbled when the FCC's Carterfone ruling in 1969 forced them to allow "foreign" attachments of customer-owned equipment like telephone sets, PBXs, answering machines and modems. (Before that, you could only rent equipment from them. A 300-baud modem was $25/month.) They grumbled when long distance competition was authorized.

They would have grumbled when local telephone service competition was authorized in 1996, but they got, in return, permission to offer long distance service and "advanced" services such as Internet. So having gotten much in return, they're trying to weasel out of their half of the bargain. Powell's FCC has rolled back competition. They're making it next to impossible for CLECs to lease the high-frequency part of copper that's needed to offer consumer DSL service, and even cutting off some access to plain old full-price copper wire. So the CLECs like Covad won't be able to offer the ISPs a substitute for ILEC (SBC, VZ, etc.) DSL. Game! Powell also has a pending proposal that removes common carrier status from ILEC DSL, which is what this case is about -- SBC won't be required by federal regulation to offer raw DSL bit-pipe service to competitors of its Prodigy ISP service. Set! And even dial-up is coming under increased attack; many dial-up ISPs are becoming reclassified as toll calls, as the ILECs try to worm in a back-door "modem tax". It's happening -- I'm involved in some of these cases. Match!

So the independent ISPs are being squeezed hard. Under the old pre-1996 regulations, the ILECs were not subject to much antitrust review, because regulation controlled them. Now, they're being unshackled, but they still have their inherited monopolies on essential facilities -- that's a term of art in the antitrust business. They're blatantly using these monopolies (the copper loop) to leverage sales of what should be fully-competitive businesses (ISPs like Prodigy and VZ Online). That is certainly a red flag in antitrust.

Since the regulators (FCC) have stepped aside, relief will have to happen in the courts. A number of cases are pending now; this one looks to be particularly important. Its fate will help determine if the American public will have free access to the Internet, or whether we'll be stuck behind a corporate-administered Great Firewall of Bell, paying top dollar for limited choice.

And with an Internet in monopoly hands, the FCC's excuse for broadcast ownership deregulation (extreme concentration of ownership of the media) is proven a lie. But Powell hopes we don't notice.

SBC is exceptionally weak

[Unknown Kadath]

They have an (extremely sketchy) agreement with my apartment complex under which they are the only available phone service. This locks me out of both cheaper digital phone service from the local cable company, and also a neat little promotion where I would have been getting a substantial discount for ordering multiple services. I'm talking to managment, but no headway yet.

SBC DSL is also a ripoff--I wanted to get Speakeasy, but SBC won't share their lines. Hence, my cable modem will be delivered today or Monday.

A hearty >:p to SBC. I'd cut my landline and go entirely cellular but for reliable 911 service.

-Carolyn

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[Anonymous Coward]

And exactly how is this SBC's fault that you can't get the service you want.

Come on, you talk about your apartment complex not having a certain service (irrelevant, don't bitch to me)

SBC DSL is also a ripoff

Then don't buy it.

I wanted to get Speakeasy, but SBC won't share their lines

read that sentence again, the lines belong to SBC. If they don't want to sell them to someone they don't have to. However, chances are it is because of financials. SBC said they wanted to charge so much and Speakeasy said no (again, not SBC's problem)

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[usotsuki]

Companies holding monopolies should be physically broken down. >:[=

re sig: The version I'm familiar with is "If you can't baffle 'em with brilliance, befuddle 'em with bullshit."

-uso.

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[coyote4til7]

I was royally screwed (if you totalled up the dollars and the cost of my time, etc., it was thousands of dollars) by SBC over about 6 months a few years back.

Since then one of my goals has been to disconnect myself from the _bell_ & chain. There is no Ma Bell line into my place. My TV and Internet are via the cable company and my phone service (including 911) is via a gadget that plugs into my hub. I just plug a regular phone into the gadget and make all the calls I want anywhere in the us/canada.

Monthly cost? Just under $130/mth for cable/internet/local/long distance. Back in the DSL days I usually paid that or more for local calls and DSL plus another $70-100 for the other stuff. The phone people are at www.vonage.com.

Re: SBC is exceptionally weak

[Unknown Kadath]

And exactly how is this SBC's fault that you can't get the service you want.

Come on, you talk about your apartment complex not having a certain service (irrelevant, don't bitch to me)

SBC specifically negotiated an agreement whereby they block competing services, which are otherwise available in my area. This is both their fault and relevant.

Then don't buy it [SBC DSL].

I didn't. But you already knew that, from the rest of my post.

the lines belong to SBC. If they don't want to sell them to someone they don't have to. However, chances are it is because of financials. SBC said they wanted to charge so much and Speakeasy said no (again, not SBC's problem)

They do, in fact, have to sell them, because otherwise they run afoul of monopoly laws. SBC charges too much for use of their lines, again, blocking competition. This makes them a de facto monopoly, which is not simply a dull game with dice, real estate, and Get Out of Jail Free cards, but also an illegal market practice.

It is a load of duplicitous crap for SBC to say, "we offered our lines but they wouldn't pay" when SBC knows it is charging too much for any other company to turn a profit. It's analogous to offering someone a ride, but driving too fast for them to get in the car, then saying it's their fault they didn't run fast enough.

(It may also get SBC in trouble with the whole Common Carrier thing, but I don't want to look it up and you certainly don't care.)

In conclusion, if you can't even be arsed to sign your trolls, piss off.

-Carolyn

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[Unknown Kadath]

Companies holding monopolies should be physically broken down. >:[=

I'm picturing mobs of irate villagers, wielding pitchforks and firebrands. Not sure that's exactly how to go about it...

re sig: The version I'm familiar with is "If you can't baffle 'em with brilliance, befuddle 'em with bullshit."

Hmm. Verbs aside, I find it's a maxim that has served me quite well, both in college and in the corporate world beyond.

Bless Dad's black, misanthropic little heart.

-Carolyn

Re: SBC is exceptionally weak

[Anonymous Coward]

SBC specifically negotiated an agreement whereby they block competing services, which are otherwise available in my area. This is both their fault and relevant.

Again, this is not SBC's fault. Many businesses do this all the time, its called doing business. They never forced the apartment complex to sign this deal. Blame the right people, the apartment complex management. (atleast you talked to them so your on the right track).

and since you like signage so much (because it helps oh so much to identify people), here ya go.

-Troll

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[Unknown Kadath]

I was royally screwed (if you totalled up the dollars and the cost of my time, etc., it was thousands of dollars) by SBC over about 6 months a few years back.

Their "customer service" makes me want to tear my hair out. I called 'em to scale back the services I was getting to just a phone line...you would have thought I was speaking Ancient Greek with a thick Russian accent for all the comprehension registering on the other end.

ME: I'd like to cancel the deluxe package, please.
HER: Are you dissatisfied with the quality of the service you are recieving?
ME: No, I just don't need it.
HER: Do you feel that you have had enough time to evaluate this service.
ME: Yes, and I just don't need it.
HER: You are aware that your caller ID will no longer work, callers who call when you are on the phone will recieve a busy signal--
ME: Yes. And I JUST DON'T NEED IT.

Repeat 3x. Eventually get extra services cancelled. Later that week receive a US$163 phone bill. Post to /. bitching about it.

my phone service (including 911) is via a gadget that plugs into my hub.

Any idea how good their call tracing is? I would just use my cell for everything, including emergencies, except the landline gives a name and address to the 911 dispatcher. Handy if I'm, y'know, gasping my last as the axe murderer is slowly dismembering my boyfriend in the shower--or if I'm having a severe anaphylactic reaction, which seems slightly more likely.

-Carolyn

Re: SBC is exceptionally weak

[Unknown Kadath]

Again, this is not SBC's fault. Many businesses do this all the time, its called doing business. They never forced the apartment complex to sign this deal. Blame the right people, the apartment complex management. (atleast you talked to them so your on the right track).

At least we agree about my landlords. My apartment complex made a deal restricting which services I can hire, to which nowhere in my lease did I agree. (I think I specifically agreed not to sell drugs, though.)

As for SBC--my apartment complex isn't buying their services. I am. SBC made a deal with someone not authorized to neogtiate on my behalf, which is at best a failure of due diligence, and at worst very, very illegal. I suspect both parties are counting on no one complaining.

and since you like signage so much (because it helps oh so much to identify people), here ya go.

Do I detect a whiff of sarcasm? It's only tangentially about identification. It has more to do with guts.

-Troll

I have a friend who goes by the nickname "Troll." He uses apostrophes better than you do.

-Carolyn

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[coyote4til7]

By Call Tracing... if you mean locating where you are when you dial 911, it works like this with Vonage. After you sign up, you go to a 911 Service form on their site and fill in your physical address. They use that to locate which 911 service handles your area. Then you get an email that says 911 service is on. When you place a 911 call, things are dispatched to that address. Assuming you don't typo your address, it seems to take about 2 or 3 days.

Keep in mind that Vonage is not a cell phone service. It's an adaptor hook up to a highspeed internet service (e.g. cable modem) and you plug a regular phone into the adaptor. So, you can take the gadget to another location that has highspeed internet, plug it in and immeadiately talk. But, you then have to update your 911 address.

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have cable you may have access to phone service over the cable. I have comcast (formerly ATT) for my TV, INternet, and phone service.

SBC screwed me for years paying an extra 15$ a month for a "metro" line so I could call to downtown Dallas even though downtown Dallas could call me in the burbs without the charge. I swore I would never pay SBC another cent.

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[Unknown Kadath]

If you have cable you may have access to phone service over the cable.

I tried to get phone service from the cable company. They claimed they couldn't provide it, which I found fishy in light of the fact that I was getting cable TV and Internet. So I investigated. Turns out that SBC and my apartment complex have an agreement which blocks other phone providers. Frustrating, no? And possibly actionable. Hope my landlords get back to me next week.

SBC screwed me for years paying an extra 15$ a month for a "metro" line so I could call to downtown Dallas even though downtown Dallas could call me in the burbs without the charge. I swore I would never pay SBC another cent.

I've had 'em for 2 months so far and I already want the company to die the Death of a Thousand Frivolous Lawsuits. Damn monopoly tactics...

-Carolyn

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[Unknown Kadath]

I'll look into it. Thanks!

(As should be blazingly obvious by now, I know little about telephony. But I do know when I'm gettin' screwed.)

-Carolyn

Re:SBC is exceptionally weak

[The Lynxpro]

If you don't want to support SBC at all, then make sure your cell phone (why can't we call them "mobile phones" like the British since PCS is not cellular?) is not through Cingular. SBC owns the majority of Cingular stock... Use AT&T Wireless until they merge with Cingular if that ever happens...

article text

[Anonymous Coward]

Four Internet service providers have filed an antitrust suit against SBC Communications, alleging that the Baby Bell unfairly inflated wholesale prices for high-speed Internet access. The suit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Central California, claims that the rate SBC charged the companies for digital subscriber line (DSL) service was too expensive for them to resell profitably. Linkline Communications, Inreach Internet, Om Networks and Red Shift Internet Services are seeking $40 million in damages and a discontinuation of alleged "price squeezing" from SBC, according to the court filing.
Attorneys for the California ISPs say San Antonio-based SBC must discontinue its pricing system in order to give smaller companies a chance to compete for DSL subscribers.

"Otherwise, (small ISPs) are doomed in the DSL business in long run, and SBC will acquire a complete monopoly of it," Maxwell Blecher of law firm Blecher & Collins said.
An SBC representative said the lawsuit is "nothing more than a re-hash of issues" raised two years ago by the California Internet Service Providers Association in a dispute, now amicably settled, that went before the Public Utilities Commission. "This (California) lawsuit's without merit," the representative said.
The lawsuit underscores an ongoing battle between the Baby Bells, which own the landlines that can carry DSL service, and smaller ISPs, which want a piece of the pie as well as a piece of Rob Malda's Love Sausage. Federal regulations require the phone giants--Verizon Communications, BellSouth, SBC and Qwest Communications International--to share the lines with third-party DSL service providers, a rule that they have begrudgingly accepted.
Since the Baby Bells were deregulated as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which requires them to sell data and voice-equipped lines in bulk to third parties, some ISPs have filed lawsuits against the Baby Bells, claiming that the phone companies tried to dissuade consumers from signing up with smaller providers.
For their part, the local phone giants argue that federal regulations have impeded the growth and deployment of their broadband services by requiring them to open their gates to third parties. The regulation may have helped the cable industry--which is not required to resell its broadband lines in bulk to outsiders--to make inroads into the booming market in U.S. households for high-speed Internet services.
Competition between cable and phone companies is intensifying. Earlier this week, SBC and Qwest announced deals to bundle EchoStar's Dish Network satellite TV service with their local, long-distance, wireless and DSL offerings. The deals were in response to the challenge posed by cable companies, which can offer similar packages but only with their own video services.

I hope God roasts their stomachs in HELL!

[pair-a-noyd]

SBC and their cronies screwed me for several years on DSL service, adding false charges, adding multiple accounts, EXTREME over charging, piss-poor service, etc..

Getting ass raped with sand, broken glass and a telephone pole would have been a more pleasent experiance than doing business with SBC.

I hope that they are utterly destroyed, that everyone that works there commits suicide and that their rotting corpses are dragged through the streets behind SBC service trucks..

SBC raped me over and over and over and they deserve every bad thing on the planet raining down upon their heads, a thousand times over what they did to me and may they all spend eternity in HELL with SATAN ass raping them with a 300hp chainsaw...

Re:I hope God roasts their stomachs in HELL!

[Anonymous Coward]

a little bitter are we?

Re:I hope God roasts their stomachs in HELL!

[brakk]

That's why I'm not an SBC customer anymore. Cell phone for voice, cable for internet.

Re:I hope God roasts their stomachs in HELL!

[pair-a-noyd]

That's exactly what I'm doing.
Cable (rr) is a little pricey but the speed is excellent and the service has been very dependable and I've had *NO* complaints other than I wish they would come down $10 a month. (or more)

Re:I hope God roasts their stomachs in HELL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod +1 Funny.

lol...

SBC at it for a while....

[bluesangria]

Notice those links at the bottom of the article?

Endless summer of DSL discounts July 7, 2003

FCC loosens broadband rules February 20, 2003

SBC unfair on high-speed Net, ISPs charge July 26, 2001

ISPs fight for more than DSL scraps June 26, 2001

ISPs allege Bell abuse in high-speed services October 27, 1999

Seems like ISP's have been fighting SBC's anti-competitive practices for years. IMHO, the biggest mistake the FCC made was in allowing the Bells to compete as ISP's. They should be barred from being ISP's so that the motivation for them to compete with their own customers (independent ISPs) is removed.

blue

Re:SBC at it for a while....

[jspectre]

well. they should be. but whose side do you think the FCC is on anyway? the publics? LOL. did you see how they're pushing to allow mega-multi-media corporations to own 45% of local markets?

pretty soon the american public won't be voting for a president, the stockholders will just pick a ceo.

Re:SBC at it for a while....

[SpaceLifeForm]

Did you see that the U.S. House voted 400 to 21 to block the proposed FCC media ownership rule change?

Of course, the puppet says he will veto.

Illinois increase was suspended by the court

[vjlen]

The whole thing was considered a end-run, as it as approved by the governor (a big SBC campaign fund receiver) without going to the state agency that mandates public utility rates (ICC.) And it was AT&T and MCI complaining here in Illinois, not just small ISPs.

off topic but...

[jaxle]

Why the hell is there no anti-trust suit against Comcast? They are unfairly forcing people with satellite TV who also want the best internet connection availible in the area (sadly...Comcast) to pay 60$/month for cable internet. BUT, their reasoning is, you can get cable tv from them and you pay about 60$ with cable internet and basic. It is so obvious this move is to screw over satellite tv and no one seems to be doing anything about it!

Re:off topic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just moved to the comcast area. WORST company EVER. Just dealing with them makes me feel like taking a shower. Unfortunatly VERIZON DSL is not available in my complex...damn comcast

I resell SBC adsl at a small ISP.

[Anonymous Coward]

We were only allowed to buy wholesale 44.95 per line while SBC is selling there service at 29.95. We inquired how we could get our rates dropped to at least 29.95 so we could at least compete and they pretty much told me to fluff off. Apparently SBC has never heard of the Sherman antitrust act.

Look, it's very simple

[Rogerborg]

If you want genuine competition among suppliers of a service, you can't have one of the suppliers running the infrastructure that the service is supplied over. Public infrastructure should be owned by and run for the benefit of the public, not for the profit of one particular user of it.

Welcome to the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, Now A Wholly Owned Subsiduary of Ford Motor Co. Inc. $2 Surcharge Per Axle for Non Ford Vehicles.

Would we tolerate that? Well, the Bell network is little different, it's just less blatant.

Re:Look, it's very simple

[Krow10]

Blockquoth the poster:

If you want genuine competition among suppliers of a service, you can't have one of the suppliers running the infrastructure that the service is supplied over. Public infrastructure should be owned by and run for the benefit of the public, not for the profit of one particular user of it.

Welcome to the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, Now A Wholly Owned Subsiduary of Ford Motor Co. Inc. $2 Surcharge Per Axle for Non Ford Vehicles.

Would we tolerate that? Well, the Bell network is little different, it's just less blatant.

Which is why the ILECs should not be allowed to provide end service at all. A good solution, in my opinion, is to have a fully regulated ILEC selling only wholesale service, and completely independent CLECs providing unregulated retail service. That's the only way you'll get competition when the infrastructure is a natural monopoly.

-Craig

Re:Look, it's very simple

[Cyno]

Its almost like common sense, only its not very common.

As simple as these things may seem to us they are not so simple to someone who lives their life not caring about how any of these things gets handled, or even worse, caring about making money or helping corporations make money at any cost.

When you put a mob of people in charge of something like the FCC, FBI, CIA, etc. When things get all fucked up who do they blame? Noone. Or certainly not themselves. The public's solution? Create another department of government to solve all our problems.

Microsoft wrote the software we use for our information infrustracture. What do you recommend we do?

What does the media recommend we do?

Who listens to you?

The problem is much bigger than you think. Its human nature and capitalism. Its global. And its not going away without a fight.

Re:Look, it's very simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again there should be no toll roads in Illinois, by law. The tools were to pay for the installation of the roads, nothing more and they were to be expressways everafter.

Obviously you can't trust a politician regarding a) money, b) taxes, c) the State of Illinois.

What a bunch of corrupt scumbags.

Re:off topic but... Comcast Sucks!

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

I have Comcast and they suck. The upload speed is
capped at @128k now. I'm waiting for DLS to become
available and then I am going to dump them.

Happening to me now

[El Volio]

I'm moving into SBC territory next month, and the same situation exists here in Texas. Essentially, if I want to use another ISP, I have to pay that ISP a monthly fee and a separate line charge to SBC. But if I sign up with SBC, the combined line/ISP charge is the same as the line charge to go with someone else. So I can spend $30-$60 on the line charge and another $20-$40 to stay with my ISP, or just that $30-$60 to use their ISP. As much as I like my current provider, the financial incentive to switch is too great. But that still smacks of predatory pricing on the part of a monopoly.

SBC's not the only one that does this, of course. I work for another RBOC (though not in the telco or ISP areas) that does virtually the same thing. Evidently either my understanding of deregulation is flawed (the data services (DSL) unit must charge all ISPs the same, including their own) or the RBOC ISPs are really netting $0 after the line charges. Somehow I don't believe it's the latter.

SBC Sucks.. and the ISPs register as a CLAC and..

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

How about the ISPs registering as a CLAC so they
can have access to the poles and run thier own
copper cable? Or maybe sell WiFi wireless access?
Good luck, I hope they kick SBC's ass!

Cable Companies Are Worse

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for an ISP. We provide dialup, webhosting, colocation and things along with wireless DSL.

SBC isn't as big of a problem as is RoadRunner. Giving all these things away free (i.e. installation) and undercutting us (and other ISPs in town). They've got thier own network that we can't buy into. They're also classified as a different type of "communications" company (with the cable t.v. aspect) and therefore don't have the same heap of taxes, regulations, and codes to follow.

Now, it's one thing to be able to offer your services for less than your competition, if you can do it, well, you've got the better business model. However, Time Warner can't seem to do it either, as they are writing off about 14 BILLION dollars in losses each year.

I'm not even going to get into the other uncouth things they do (as in sabotaging our wireless networks, etc).

bastards.

(phaeton sez)

SBC

[smoondog]

I'm really suspicious of SBC. Here in California they air feel good commercials that basically tell us all how good they are, and how bad everyone else is. I have a hard time trusting companies that do that, it usually means that people have a reason not to like them. Also they have ads trying to tell us that they are the oldest company, and therefore the best ("looking back, moving forward. S-B-C"). My understanding is that they have just been sucking up baby bells since the decision that allowed them to do so (mid-nineties).

-Sean

Re:SBC

[The Lynxpro]

SBC was once Southwestern Bell. They are trying to put MaBell back together. California used to be under Pacific Bell, but their management sold out. Like all the other BabyBells, they failed to grasp the importance of ISDN and botched offering that service to consumers. (my Atari 1040ST had ISDN capabilities supported in the OS back in 1986 but PacBell didn't start offering service until 1994/95 and it was too expensive). PacBell also botched another of their strategies. In the cellular market, they decided to get rid Pacific Bell Wireless thinking that if they kept that division, it would place them at a competitive disadvantage in restrictions on the amount of PCS licenses they could grab at the FCC auction. So they spun off Pac Bell Wireless (or mobile, whatever they called it) and that became Airtouch Communications. Airtouch became a major competitor and Pac Bell failed to grab as many PCS licenses they thought they would gain from the spinoff. Airtouch later merged into Verizon Wireless. After the failure of grabbing as many PCS licenses, Pac Bell management proper then decided to sell the company to SBC. SBC operated the company for a few years while acquiring other Baby Bells before deciding to rebrand everything under "SBC" and then hired Tommy Lee Jones to be their voice in their feel-good commercials. Spending a fortune on commercials while laying off 5,000 employees. They also hired William Daley to be their chairman. That's William Daley of the Chicago Daley clan. He was a bigshot in the AFL-CIO, then became the Democratic Party Chairman, then the Secretary of Commerce under Clinton, and now the chairman of SBC (or president). Funny to go from a bigwig in the unions and now is employed by a company's board of directors famous for being anti-labor to the extreme...

SBC SBC SBC

[Kutsal]

I hope they decide to dismantle their phone network and say:
"Here, you didn't like us, so here's your chance to go do it yourself and spend $10B on infrastructure and pull copper to everyone's home and run a TelCo. THEN we'll come and sue you for not giving us access to your copper wires for less than it costs you to operate them. And we'll file complaints with the local Public Utilities Commissions every single time you don't send out a tech in time to fix your line that we're making money off of..."
Let's see how long that company would want to be in business, then...

Re:SBC SBC SBC

[rossz]

Except we (the taxpayers) paid for that infrastructure. Therefore we should own it and have a say in how it is used. I say spin off a utility that ONLY maintains the last mile. They would be required by law to charge all ISPs the exact same rate.

backhoe lawsuit

[ForsakenRegex]

Someone should take them to court for failure to properly operate backhoes. I can't count the number of times they've cut major connectivity lines when they were trying to dig them up. On one day, they cut both of our upstream providers' pipes within an hour of each other. One was cut north of us and one was cut to the south.

Talk about denial of service.

Lines need new ownership

[peterdaly]

I can't see this happening, but here's the way I think this should work:

The phone company should be forced to "sell off"/"split off" a company that owns and maintains the poles and or last mile. This new company should continue to be government regulated, and maybe even get public funds. Forcing it to run as a non-profit run for the public good may not be a bad idea.

All companies that want, including the current incumbant, should have to purchase or lease access from this new company to provide copper based services.

This is what the mid 90's telecom act tried to create, but the "line owner" was virtual, and part of the largest service provider. The obvious conflict of interest caused problem. The solution? Eliminate the conflict, by making them two companies.

To take this a little further, I purchase my water from the town I live in. Why can't the copper last mile infrastructure be like that?

I know this is never going to happen, but that's my utopian vision.

-Pete

Re:Lines need new ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

The phone company should be forced to "sell off"/"split off" a company that owns and maintains the poles and or last mile. This new company should continue to be government regulated, and maybe even get public funds. Forcing it to run as a non-profit run for the public good may not be a bad idea

hmm.. Interesting. Perhaps put together something like a coopertive. If you don't pay you don't get the service. And the more members you have in the smaller geographic area, the lower your costs would be. Which could help curtail (sub)urban sprawl.

Dialup pricing? Never, and Comcast is worse.

[bs_02_06_02]

I don't think anyone will ever be able to seel broadband for $20/month. It's just not feasible. I had a large selection of ISPs (20+) to use with Qwest DSL, but then I moved, and could only get cable modem through Comcast. With Comcast, you don't get a choice of ISP. And, the courts seem to think that cableTV can do whatever they want. To top it off, Comcast raised my monthly fee to $60.00 if I don't order cableTV. I cancelled my digital cable TV and ordered DirecTV months earlier, much better picture. Talk about a monopoly!!! And no one will do anything about it. The city could revoke their charter, but they won't do that.

It's about time.

[xcomputer_man]

I see this as a welcome development, especially seeing the SBC company is rapidly growing into a huge communications monopoly right before our eyes and until now nobody has raised questions. For those who don't know, SBC has controlling ownership of Cingular Wireless and are already bundling residential phone service with wireless, and as if that's not enough, they are now jumping into the satellite TV market as well. The plan is to have people buy their home phone, cell phone, high speed Internet and satellite TV (and God knows what next) from the same company, paying one combined bill.

If that isn't leveraging monopoly power in one market into other markets to gain undue advantage (through bundling), I don't know what is. There better be more antitrust lawsuits, because this one barely scratches the surface of SBC's monopoly power.

Re:off topic but... Comcast Sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

In my area (Springfield, MO) DSL is capped on uploads at 128, unless you're willing to pay 80/month.

Do they offer it cheaper in your area?

The solution to all these problems is clear!

[aeoo]

Separate service providers from copper/fiber medium owners!

There may be a state monopoly on copper/fiber ownership, but copper/fiber corp should be strictly prohibited from offering any kind of service on top of the medium. They should only be allowed to sell access to it.

This would create a fair playing field where all service providers stand equal. Also, the copper/fiber company will be interested to sell to as many service providers as possible.

State monopoly on copper/fiber owners is not even necessary, but they should strictly prohibit copper/fiber owners from offering service and strictly prohibit service companies from laying their own copper/fiber, and all will be fine.

Copper/fiber lines should be like our public highway system, imo, where service providers are like competing trucking companies.

Re:The solution to all these problems is clear!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like common carrier to me... How many readers of slashdot would back this? If enough did, and of course provided the incentive to Washington, we can push ANYTHING.

Come on people! Dig out your wallets!

Were going shopping!

Re:SBC Sucks.. and the ISPs register as a CLAC and

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in West Texas we've got our typical pick of SBC and COX, but we also have a couple of indipendant ISPs running wireless networks. They're starting to get serious about it and I think it will spread eventually. My ISP (www.door.net) runs a half-gigabit wireless licensed (telco-grade) backbone between their towers and 2.4, 5.3, and 5.8 to the customer. I always get my 2meg (up and down)... $70/month, but there's never any finger pointing when its broken. Its great to have competion that doesn't rely on SBC to provide service.

an SBC customer

[jafac]

I'm still getting automated emails 3 years later from Earthlink telling me that they're very sorry but DSL is STILL not available in my area. I checked with them first. Then I checked with PacBell, signed up with them straight off.

I've been very happy with their service so far. Very rarely is there any outage.

However, they have jacked up the price from $30/mo to $50/mo. However, a local DSL provider who did offer me service a few years back was charging $100/mo. On the pretense that they offered "premium extras". I don't even use the extras I get from PacBell.

Anyway, I hope we get some competition in this market soon. I'm sick of hearing about how Canadians get DSL for $12/mo.

Re:an SBC customer

[Tiresias_Mons]

On the service thing, you're lucky. I get sporadic outages about once or twice a week. It was down for 36 hours the other day. Everytime I call it goes about like this:

"I'd like to report a DSL outage."

"Oh, I don't know who to tell about that, let me transfer you to DSL Services."

"Ok."

"Hello, DSL Services."

"I'd like to report an outage."

"Ok, what version of Windows are you running? Can you power cycle your modem and computer for me?"

"Ummm, the DSL is out to my area. I'm trying to report an outage."

"We don't see any outages, have you tried power cycling?"

"Ummm (makes typing sounds) one sec, its rebooting...Ok still no connection."

"Ok, give me a moment. (few moments pass) Oh, I see that there is an outage, it will be back momentarily."

Then an hour later I may or may not have DSL back. Nevada sucks, but still SBC is terrible. Unfortunately, its my only option for DSL here, especially now that the Nevada Congress passed a bill (SB 400 I think) to make it legal for SBC to not offer up their lines to 3rd Parties. Of course, fighting this would take political pressure, and when you have a state full of cattle ranchers and porn fiends, you don't get a lot of clout.

Re:an SBC customer

[RevSmiley]

Yea those extras like forced Yahoo accounts.

Re:an SBC customer

[Anonymous Coward]

What?? Where?

DSL here is $40.00 cdn, not $12.00. Forgot the exchange rate didn't you?

My cable modem is $22.00/mo at 128K, are you sure its DSL?

I can't complain, although....

[tacokill]

I live in an area that was served by a "mini" CO that was connected by fiber to the real CO (NOC). After about 6 months of phone calls, SBC finally put in a remote DSLAM and got my neighborhood up and running with DSL. Quite frankly, I was shocked at how quickly that happened (note: we were part of Project Pronto way back when....the $6 bil project to roll out DSL. I think its since been cancelled but not sure)

Since then, the prices have dropped a bit and now I get 1.5 down and 256k up -- for $49.95/mo. Not bad if you ask me but I did notice that I have -ZERO- options as far as competitive ISP's. For whatever reason, I simply cannot go with another ISP even if I wanted to....and believe me, I've looked. SBC has almost no NNTP access so it would be a compelling reason to switch if someone could offer better NNTP services.

On the positive side, I can run ANY service I want to on my home PC's. There is no port blocking or redirecting like Verizon and I have never received ANYTHING from SBC other than a bill.

Soooo, while people may be up in arms over this, I for one, can say that SBC has been very good to me considering my situation. (note: I live in the city of Dallas).

Re:Dialup pricing? Never, and Comcast is worse.

[El_Ge_Ex]

Comcast Depends on where. I've had good service from them in the past, but bad service when I moved somewhere else. QWest is the same way. I moved to one location where the only DSL I could get was QWest/MSN for a reasonable rate.

-B

PS Anyone want a MSN DSL router? They never asked for it back.

This only strengthens my faith.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a longtime member of the Southern Baptist Convention, I view this horrific government action against us to be a vindication of our faith. The book of Revelation has long said that we should be expecting something like this. Clearly, the end times are fast approaching, and you should do whatever is necessary to get right with God. I, personally, shall be running up my Visa balance.

Om Networks is Omsoft. Article had it wrong.

[BrynM]

A Correction:

The "Om Networks" in the artticle should read "Om Technologies" (known as Omsoft) like the rest of the world has it. Since I'm one of their customers, this case made my day :)

In other industries, they call this "dumping"

[hmbJeff]

I have DSL in the SF Bay Area through sonic.net which uses SBC as the DSL carrier. On my bill they list the SBC "passthrough billing" for the circuit as $39. Sonic.net charges an additional 17.95 for hosting the account (I have the 384-1.5Mb speed rather than the minimum 128-384, but I believe the pricing is comparable).

If SBC charges the ISPs a higher wholesale price for the "bare circuit" than they charge retail customers for the circuit and hosting, then I consider this a predatory monopolistic practice which is obviously designed to drive out competition. By temporarily "dumping" service at a loss, SBC can create a future where they will be able to dicate any pricing and terms of service they want (much like the cable companies do now with their service).

I totally support what this lawsuit represents--a last hope to keep the internet open through diverse channels (ISPs) rather than allowing it to be under the total control of a few cable and telecom monopolies.

If you don't want a future where your ISP can block what ports you use, disallow operation of servers or sharing of your capacity over wireless, or even potentially what sites you are allowed to access, then you too should support this lawsuit and send your business to alternative ISPs.

I work at an ISP that resells SBC DSL

[extrarice]

[quote]
What you aren't reading is that SBC conned all these ISPs into jumping on the DSL bandwagon, and signing up thousands of DSL subscribers...

After they did all the leg work, SBC then lowered the price they offer the public. Hence making it too expensive for the ISPs to compete with SBC (since they still are paying the old rate, they actually pay MORE for 'wholesale' DSL access then SBC is selling to the public for)
[/quote]

The bold part is the kicker. If SBC lowers the montly rate for ADSL service, our monthly SBC bill per ADSL line we resell stayles the same - we don't get the same price cut! There is no way we can compete with that. We are charged the "wholesale" rate of $39.99 per month per ADSL line. We are charged $125 per CPE (equipment shipped to customer). SBC charges its ADSL customers $25/month for service, with no equipment charges. How can we compete with that? Our "wholesale" rate is almost double what SBC customers are being charged! In order to break even we have to charge $60/month and have a two year service agreement to recover the cost of the CPE. There is no way this can be called "fair competition".

Re:I work at an ISP that resells SBC DSL

[demonbug]

We are charged the "wholesale" rate of $39.99 per month per ADSL line. We are charged $125 per CPE (equipment shipped to customer). SBC charges its ADSL customers $25/month for service, with no equipment charges. How can we compete with that? Our "wholesale" rate is almost double what SBC customers are being charged! In order to break even we have to charge $60/month and have a two year service agreement to recover the cost of the CPE. There is no way this can be called "fair competition".

Actually, we are charged $49.99 for ADSL from SBC. $25 was the introductory rate for the first three months or something. You are right though, the modem was free (as long as we don't break the one year contract).

Megatrends

[randolfe]

Like a lot of other slashdotters, I've been intimately involved with Telcom, Ameritech/SBC specifically, for decades. This issue is not really all that complicated, at a high level.

SBC is becoming a monopoly, or more accurately, one of an oligopoly.

Of course, this is no surprise. We are in the midst of a rising megatrend in the USA whereby a number of monopoly/oligopoly forces are rising. Look at any myriad industry; nearly all large capital markets are increasingly dominated by a very few players. Software/OS is only the latest to fall into this trend--telecom has been here before, during the last cycle.

Someday, probably 15-25 years from now, we will look back at this era and wonder how we allowed so few to control so much. I fear that we won't right this ship until much in terms of jobs, standard of living, innovation, security has been sapped for want of greed.

(Note, SBC is among many companies actively outsourcing a very large portion of their technical resource to China and India. They are masking this action by in fact forcing their vendors, contractors, and suppliers to do it on their behalf in order to win contracts with SBC. They are concerned about public perception and political backlash, but they are nonetheless still doing it.)

Good!

[eluusive]

SBC should have never been allowed to become the huge conglomerate it is! They own Pacific bell and Nevada bell now, and possibly some others. I've pretty much been forced to be an SBC DSL customer. For anything beyond their basic service, that they want you to have, they charge extravagant rates. Originally they were only charging you for the circuit which was 39.95. If you wanted to go with another ISP they still made their 39.95, and you had to pay for the other ISP service which was usually 20 dollars more on top of that! This is still the case for their über basic 384 kbps DSL. If you want 128kbps/1.5Mbit you have to have 10 dollars extra. ( They recently added the lower step in and made that the basic, and bumped every body else's bills up ) It's a bunch of *bleep*ing *bleep*! Where's our VDSL? I bet they wouldn't sell it for a decent price even if they did implement it.

Problem is the antitrust suit from years ago

[nurb432]

The original suit made the bells not able to play on a level field. It pretty much forced the bells into giving away their stuff to anyone that wanted to compete in their market..

Floor space in their buildings, lines, etc...

So technically in this case, they may have a argument, legally.

Personally I think its a bunch of garbage, as was the initial breakup in the first place.

SBC in Nevada

[Tiresias_Mons]

SBC recently sponsored a bill in the Nevada Congress which made it legal for them to do this within the state. SB 400 (I think is the number) was sponsored by SBC and is an attempt to make it legal for SBC to charge whatever they want when dealing with 3rd party ISPs. I was in the car with a few colleagues Wednesday and one of them got a call from some of his clients who went through a 3rd party DSL service to say that their entire internet connection had been shut down because SBC cut the connection to the ISP.

Its not only monopolistic pricing, they are now, at least in Nevada (and I think I heard that Indiana or Illinois had a similar measure passed) absolved from even offering the lines to 3rd parties. We're trying to start a grassroots counter-attack in the Reno area, but its going to be a long fight for certain.

Here's why:

[Crazy Eight]

Because SBC didn't wire up that telephony infrastructure all by themselves. No one is demanding public access to a private road here.

Odd moderation on parent

[Crazy Eight]

I feel more humored than informed...

Re:Om Networks is Omsoft. Article had it wrong.

[naguilum]

Actually, the article has it correctly. Om Networks is DBA (Doing Business As) Omsoft Technologies.

Re:Om Networks is Omsoft. Article had it wrong.

[BrynM]

I just found that out. The CEO of Omsoft replied to my congradulations e-mail and pointed it out to me. Such a cool ISP!

Re:Antitrust will be the main avenue to competitio

[The Lynxpro]

1969? Then the ruling wasn't being enforced that well. I caught an episode of "Kolchak the Night Stalker" on Sci-Fi a month ago, and it was made in 1975. Kolchak called in a bogus repair service call to MaBell to pick the brain of one of the line techs for some reason. The tech figured out that it was a bogus service call and then threatened to turn in the office for having illegal telephones on the premise. Kolchak then was yelled at by his boss because the boss did not want the contraband telephones (not owned by MaBell) confiscated after spending good money acquiring them in the first place.

Re:off topic but... Comcast Sucks!

[The Lynxpro]

DLS? Dyslexic perhaps?

Telco's too

[John3]

High speed wireless and voice-over-IP will eventually make the Telco's obsolete as well. It's not the near future, but technology will eventually make it possible for a communications web to exist in a 100% peer-to-peer network. There will be a need for companies to link across large expanses of ocean, but the government will take over that job (IMHO).

No longer Baby-Bells

[willtsmith]

If SBC is a baby, then I'm a embryo.

The so-called baby-bells are babies no more. FCC De-regulation has lead to reconstitution of regional "Ma Bell" style control of telecom.

I nominate that the baby-bells now be referred to as ...

FRANKEN-Bells.

They are pieces cobbled together from other entities. The name, (and it's ominous undertones) is much more fitting.

Re:off topic but... Comcast Sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe you have Comcast. Comcast is capped at 1800/256 you dumb@ss. Good luck finding a DSL provider that offers more then 128k up. Comcast offers 256 that's about 28k instead of DSL with 13k

I have their Digital Phone Service too and I am happy to say SBC is no where in my life.

Don't act suprized.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Daley's (a rich radical leftwing democrat)SBC is a criminal organization. How do you expect them to behave. If you don't go along with them they just roll over you despite the law or what is right. SBC also is a union breaking exploiter of it's employees.

I have SBC ADSL. As hard as the techs try they can't keep my line clean for more than 3 months before I start loosing sync. The persons who work for SBC are good folks. To bad the mamagement is so greedy.

Re:How is this illegal? Ha Ha Ha

[Anonymous Coward]

Its about time. In Pensylvania, exactly the same thing happens. Verizon owns the phone/DSL lines and also sells DSL service. And all other DSL providers have to lease the lines from verizon and I have not seen a single ISP which offers a rate as low as verizon. Not that verizon's DSL service is anything great. So you get the picture. It would be like Microsoft letting netscape run on windows OS where explorer always has an unfair advantage. Battlling monopoly is a big eyewash.

OT: E-Rate

[Jade E. 2]

While I don't know the particulars of how it started, one of the organizations I support at work is a vocational high school that has a bunch of equipment from E-Rate. They've got ~20 PCs total in 2 labs in different buildings, 2 Cisco Catalyst 2924 switches, one in each lab connected by gig fiber, and a Cisco 3640 handling a T1 back to our main office. So if that's where the "Universal Service" fee is going, I'm OK with it. Of course, they've also got a Cisco 4600 series CDM, and a pair of 500 series CEs. They seem to think those are VCRs, but they've never actually used them. So that's like $35,000 worth of E-Rate money going to waste. (Although they do actually have some use for the equipment, they just don't know how to use it, I'm working on it...)

Re:Antitrust will be the main avenue to competitio

[isdnip]

To clarify...

Carterfone allowed "foreign attachments" but only using a "protective coupler", which was an extra-rent box from The Phone Company. So you still couldn't plug in your own phones directly and be legal (though of course many of us did so anyway). Around 1977, the FCC introduced Registration, which did away with the protective coupler requirement, provided that the equipment was either
a) Registered with the FCC, having passed tests (this is what everything does now); or
b) Grandfathered -- if it's something that any phne company used themselves prior to the start of registration, then every phone company had to allow it to be attached directly. This legalized all those standard phones.

Last Mile problems

[Anonymous Coward]

The Telecom Reform Act of 1996 that forced the baby Bells to open up their lines pretty much caused them to not upgrade lines or fix the last mile gap. Many of the baby Bells were fined when they refused to upgrade their infrastructure. They didn't really rush because if they had to maintain and pay for these lines that would then not turn a profit because they had to share them, they would rather just say fuck it. It was cheaper to be fined than do anything immediately.

This was all done to allow internet competition. Meanwhile cable internet access had no such limitations and it boomed.

The policymakers didn't realize that the market would create competition and they regulated it ro produce it. All they have done is handicap it, since now cable is the new internet monopoly in broadband and the competition it could have had from DSL is kept underthumb with stupid sharing regulations.

Yes, it was

[Anonymous Coward]

From the FCC:

The 1996 Act opens local markets to competing providers by imposing new
interconnection, unbundling, and resale obligations on existing providers of local exchange
services. In enacting sections 260 and 274, Congress recognized that the local exchange
market will not be fully competitive immediately. Congress therefore imposed requirements
applicable to local exchange carriers' (LECs') provision of telemessaging services in section
260, and a series of requirements applicable to Bell Operating Companies' (BOCs') provision
of electronic publishing services in section 274. Collectively, these requirements are designed
to prevent, or facilitate the detection of, improper cost allocation, discrimination, or other
anticompetitive conduct.

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Orders /1 997/fcc97035.txt

Not a natural monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole idea of natural monopoly is born out of some fucked up idea that there is no innovation. Things are called natural monopolies because the regulating people/body do not have faith in people to develop a solution.

This is being proven true by cable. We now have two sets of lines in almost all homes: phones lines and cable TV lines. They can both provide telephone service, internet service, and other things. They are both simply data lines.

How is a data line a natural monopoly when we have 2 of them?

Re:SBC Sucks.. and the ISPs register as a CLAC and

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is a CLAC? Did you mean CLEC, perhaps? That still doesn't give actual access to utility poles for running their own cable. For that, a CLEC would need to pay rental fees to the pole owner (telco/power/cable/joemamma) and may need to register/pay right-of-way fees to the local municipality.

Re:Antitrust will be the main avenue to competitio

[The Lynxpro]

Thanks for clarifying this. I cannot believe I lived my childhood through such a stupid period. Renting telephones from MaBell... Looking upon that whole set-up from a 21st Century perspective sure makes it look ridiculous. Then again, I rent my cable box so I guess I shouldn't be throwing any stones! :)