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FCC's Triennial Review Released
rednaxela writes "The FCC, after six months of deliberation, released the Triennial Review order on the evening of August 21. The Order makes substantial changes to the rules governing the obligations of the regional bell operating companies (i.e., SBC, BellSouth, Verizon and Qwest) to lease their networks to the competitive local exchange carriers (e.g., MCI, AT&T) for the provision of local phone service and, perhaps more interestingly to this audience, broadband. Brief summary here, link to the order and the FCC Commissioners' statements at www.fcc.gov."
If I recall correctly, the local carrier for the Northwest United States, Qwest, has been opening their lines to competitors willing to provide DSL service. Qwest then would sign them up as re-sellers of the service, and after that the "Screw Your Friends(r)" program would take place.
First, Qwest would charge the competitive ISP a sign-up charge for each customer, so basically when signing up for DSL service, you would have the option of (a) monthly payment + sign up fee from an ISP or (b) the same monthly payment and no sign up fee from Qwest.
Second, the phone lines are opened to competitors, but they are still owned by the phone company. Meaning that whenever your DSL goes down, if you've signed up with an independent ISP, your support would be pretty much useless. "Ehh, yeah, it shows the service as down, but it's Qwest problem, we can't do anything with it, it's not our server". Meaning the only time the tech support would be really helpful is when their server goes down and they are actually in control. Hardly an incentive.
Perhaps a better solution is building dark fiber on government money and then having counties charge any phone company lease access fees. But government historically has been inefficient on managing any kind of infrastructure, just look at its state in the former Soviet Union countries.
Im not happy about the closing off of competition, but in the case of infrastructure services does it make sense ? Telco services are something that need to be there everyday rain or shine and the companies that provide them need to be healthy enough to provide that certainty.
In my local market several discount providers have gone bankrupt. This has resulted in large scale disruption of the businesses that relied on their services.
You have to ask is it worth it to risk a vital service just to provide an opportunity for undercapitalized, newcomers. Look at worldcom, quest etc etc. At least when I pick up my phone I get a dial tone.
This, folks, is called Capitalism. The government is corrupt and controlled by the big corporations.
Capitalism has nothing to do with the government being corrupt. Communist and socialist countries have corrupt governments too...
You have made a logical fallacy of causality.
----
In Soviet Russia, the overlords welcome you!
Woohoo, hahaa, heehehehe
Robert Quinn, AT&T's [T] vice president of regulatory affairs, said the FCC's released order "ensures competitors access to essential network elements as long as impairments to competition continue and thus guarantees consumers a choice of local service providers
Whaha - who else does he write comedy for? Hehehe.
Verizon completely gates MY access to DSL, and has said "NO", even thoough I'm less than 2 miles from a big urban co.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Is it just me, or does "Triennial Review Order" sound like some sort of secret society?
This, folks, is called Capitalism.
No, it's not. It's a parody thereof.
I took a look at your "new constitution"... you want to outlaw credit?? The people who came up with that have to be a bunch of kooks who understand nothing about economics. The mind boggles...
[ home ]
True. So in a few years, will people be spouting out lines like "look, capitalism was tried, and it was a failure - seems idyllic on paper but human nature just doesn't work that way"? Because I'd like to see that.
This, folks, is called Capitalism
Actually this is more socialism/communism because the government is controlling what the companies can/can't do with the infrastructure that they [the companies] own
Doesn't matter if a deity told the Bells to play fairly and open up their lines, all that will end up happening is, the Bells will start a snowball effect of price hikes to companies who lease their services (re-sellers) in which they'll end up rather expensive.
MoFscker
Congress will smile in your face while sticking it to you. What makes you think that if someone was willing to coyly place a couple of hundred thousand in the pocket of some congress*person*, that congress*person* (male/female) is not going to either take it, or seriously contemplate taking it. This is not to say that every last one of those in congress are schemers, but you have to understand, there is no guarantee that anyone will be in office the next term, so many times this feeds into the minds of those who take it.
Besides what do you think is really going to happen to them? Jail... Rarely. Look at the case of Torricelli Jersey, walked away scott-free, iisshhtt happens whether people like it or not, and making it illegal will only make *contributors* find other methods of getting people money. Offshore accounts, business trips, et. al. Congress*people* are human (I think) and as animals, humans do what they can to survive. Some methods might be more shallow than others.
MoFscker
The rest of your sentence seems to have gotten chopped off:
CLECs have a harder time getting access to ILEC networks.... where the market already hosts at least three carriers that own their own equipment.
If you have three carriers in there that own their own lines and equipment, it stands to reason that the barrier to entry into that market is not as significant as it is in other areas, where there may be only one ILEC and where the addition of another company's lines is prohibitively expensive.
The goal here isn't to help the new guy at the expense of the old guys, it's to help the new guy break into a market that the old guys hold pretty solidly. If the old guys already have a significant amount of competition in a market, what good does it do for consumers to keep letting more in?
followed by this:
So at least some of the commissioners there know and realize just what this new ruling has the potential to do, and who it will hurt. Too bad they appear to have been overruled in the process, either that or they were somehow 'encouraged' to go along with the ruling.
Too bad most of the general populace has absolutely no interest in and no concern with things like this. Even worse, it seems more and more evident every day that most people seem to not be able to think for themselves.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Where I live there's a DSLAM 8 miles away and the fucking phone company - and the local ISPs - STILL don't offer DSL because no one will spend the money to spec the ancient crappy lines for service. I doubt being able to charge a bit more for a hundred potential customers is going to help that any. But the more wireless is used and developed, the faster it evolves. And wireless IS a potentially viable option out here - but it ain't there yet.
Yeah, it sucks for people who live in the city and have to pay another ten bucks a month for DSL. Whoopdeefucking doo, at least you have service and the money to pay for it. When I lived in LA I still payed $80 a month to pacbell for shit service, which is likely more than most of you pay now. We don't need cheap DSL, because much of the country won't ever get it at ANY price - we need NEW INFRASTRUCTURE. It takes money to develop that infrastructure, and this decision will help provide it.
no matter how many rules the FCC lays down regarding CLECs, I (as the LEC), can come up with 10 miles of paperwork to push to the CLEC when they want to provision a line. It's a useless gesture.
Google on the history of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Look into how South Korea managed to get broadband into the majority of its homes and businesses. How about the examples of municipal power companies opening up their fiber optic networks to consumers? Or the Federal Interstate network?
Just because the government runs it doesn't mean it's bad, just because it's privatized doesn't mean it's good.
Personally, I think the idea of using public money to build dark fiber infrastructure and leasing it to private companies is a good one.
One thing it is reasonable for government to spend our money on is something that'll improve the economy for everybody, even for people who don't directly use the service in question.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Well, if you persist in advertising your pet cause, you should at least be willing to defend it. (Though from a libertarian standpoint, it is basically indefensible.) Your choice to advertise in an open debate forum implies both your approval of, and willingness to discuss, that which you are advertising. Actually, you should be honored that people take enough interest to comment. Nobody ever asks me about my sig...
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
Yeah, you're right. And actually, that's one of the few parts I don't like. I was just frustrated at the other posters in the thread who didn't seem to have a sense of humor.
OH NOES!!! IT APPEARS YUO DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR DIS HERE PIZZA! WAHT EVER ARE YOU GOING TO DO!?!?
Yeah, but it's built into capitalism - logically, political influence is simply another commodity to be controlled by the free market.
... verzion is the only telco (providing rsidential and as far as i know commercial dsl) in northwest indiana, the only thing keeping them from charging more then (my total bills comes to:) 59.99 for 768/128, is comcasts cable.
The reason my bill isnt less is because the verizon ISP cannot provide any more bandwidth then that of a 56k modem in my area, and even that isnt consistant, some people end up with no bandwidth while others (as close as 3 houses) expeirence full speed.
Ive known people to get verzion as their ISP get terrible bandwidth, cancel their account completly (line and isp) and resign up (line and isp) then get full speed.
maybe I should start doing some reasearch and see what the costs, permits, etc that would be incurred to put a wireless antenna on the watertower thats basicly in my backyard.
...and Communism makes EVERYBODY corrupt. Ask any former resident of a former communist country.
The key is to deligate only enough power for the government to make sure everybody is playing by the rules.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I just started a book recently that postulates in the first chapter that both the former Soviet Union and the United States now practice a similar form of economic control of production that the author terms as 'state capitalism.' Interesting theory eh? In both countries, the government controls a large chunk of the industry. There is a large amount of crossover in the people who hold government industry jobs and the people who hold private industry jobs. The amount of influence private organizations have on government is also non-trivial, as long as they do not interfere with the government's primary goal of expanding it's power. This looks to be an interesting book. I forgot the author, but the title is After Capitalism.
Capitalism has nothing to do with the government being corrupt
Of course it has to do with Capitalism. Capitalism relies on Government regulation to ensure companies play fair (for example, anti-trust regulations). It's an oppositional system, just like the legal system; the corporations have the dollar, the people have the government.
The problem is that capitalism seems to overlook the fact that the people who compose the government want to make money just as much as anyone else. How this works out in practice is that the dollar trumps the government. If you want to make capitalism work, you've got to find some way of constructing a government to whome money doesn't matter.
Communist and socialist countries have corrupt governments too So what? The grandparent said that capitalism makes corrupt government (capitalism implies corruption). He didn't say corruption implies capitalism, which is what you are arguing against.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I just started a book recently that postulates in the first chapter that both the former Soviet Union and the United States now practice a similar form of economic control of production that the author terms as 'state capitalism.'
While I don't believe that the US is as extreme as the Soviet Union was, there are definitely elements of it in our economy.
Remember, Lenin said that "First, we will take eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia, then we will encircle the United States which will be the last bastion of capitalism. We will not have to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands."
Lenin was a smart SOB. we've been constantly moving towards fulfilling his prediction.
Anyway, sounds like an interesting book, I'll have to check it out, thanks for the info.
----
In Soviet Russia, the overlords welcome you!
This means that, with a decrease in competition, we'll see a nice big hike in the cost of DSL... Welcome to America, where the government bows to the will of the big companies...
Unless I misread the FCC order, it isn't what it's portrayed to be.
Before the order, the ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers - i.e. The Old Monopoly Phone Company, mostly baby-bells) were required to sell their whole infrastructure to their competition (the CLECs), at a price less than it cost them to build more. Not just copper pair and fiber, but timeslots, switching equipment, DSLAM channels, DS1(T1 bandwidth and format - in copper, fiber, or microwave), DS3 (T3 bandwidth and format, ditto), and STS-n (SONET bandwidth and format), repeaters, SONET nodes, and so on.
Of course this meant that if the ILECs expanded the infrastructure to meet the load, they lost money. So they dragged their feet as much as possible, until virtually all the CLECs went under. And STILL they dragged their feet, because if they ever actually started builiding out there'd be a new crop of CLECs to compete with them using their own investment. And the equipment manufacturers started going belly-up, the bulk of the fiber remained dark, and the broadband market remained inadequately served.
The rule change was not to ELIMINATE this, but to cut it back to only the outside plant. They have to rent the CLECs copper pair to your house (on which the CLEC can hang their OWN DSLAM and maybe a phone switch), but they don't have to rent the slots on their own DSLAMs and switches, or connect the CLEC's DSLAM to the ILEC's POTS line (renting the DSL part of their local phone service and requiring a truck roll every time a new subscriber buys DSL from an ILEC). They have to rent the dark fiber, but not the repeaters, network node line cards, and timeslots in their bright fibers. They have to provide access to the drops, phone closets, junction boxes, apartment house/business building internal wiring, etc. where they own them.
And this is mitigated somewhat: Existing connections are grandfathered, so they can't just cut 'em off. Where they wired a neighborhood with a fiber-to-remote-concentrator / copper-to-the-house hybrit, instead of copper from house to central office, they still have to rent that out and provide access to DSL channels in the concentrator. They have to provide DS1s and up to two DS3 loops to businesses - though nothing more than signal hauling. And state communication commissions can require more on a case-by-case basis.
The result is that:
The ILECs still have to provide wire and switching for POTS service to their competitors.
The ILECs still have to provide raw copper and fiber to their competitors - for broadband or POTS.
The ILECs do NOT have to provide the electronics to DRIVE the copper and fiber (unless they've taken a shortcut that makes the copper or fiber unavailable unbundled).
The ILECs do NOT have to sell just the DSL portion of one of THEIR POTS lines. (CLECs must rent the whole line unless they cut an individual deal.)
So the monopoly-subsidized installed base of copper and fiber is made available to all on a level basis. But the new equipment to put broadband on it must be installed separately by each carrier.
So (IF the regulated prices on the copper and fiber are set correctly) the ILECs, CLECs, cable internet companies, wireless internet companies are now competing on an equal footing.
The ILECs no longer have an incentive to drag their feet on broadband instalation for fear of subsidizing their competition, and can build out, competing with cable and wireless on a more equal footing and letting the technology drive the costs
If the CLECs revive or new ones
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The idea that you can somehow mandate competion in a space where you have a natural monopoly is silly. You are better off either regulating the monopoly and wating for a technological revolution to sleep it away, or making it a public sector service (personally, i vote for the latter, even as a die hard market fanboy). Anything that requires massive lastmile and right of way issues really ought to be in the public sector, since they can use eminent domain to get that infrastructure in place, whereas things like cross country fiber have a big enough market that competion in the sector is feasible. (like long haul communication services)
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Though there are things like non-rival and non-excludable goods or services, which (may) merit government intervention depending on how bad the effect is.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
I may not understand much about economics, but from what little I do understand, I don't see your point of view.
As for our government being corrupt, should we be surprised that the prize of building a wireless phone system in Iraq goes to WorldCom?
I doubt we've had such a corrupt administration since Teapot Dome.
The FCC is being overruled by Congress on media ownership. Maybe this can be reveresed there too. True capitalist-favoring Congresscritters don't like monopoly. After all, if the business community isn't divided it competes with their own power, and monopoly businesses aren't so motivated to bid against each other for political support.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Consider this:
The first change concerns the role of state regulators will have in deciding which elements of incumbent telcos' networks will be available to competitors on an unbundled basis at regulated wholesale rates. Originally, switching equipment wasn't going to be part of the menu of unbundled network elements (UNEs). However, yesterday's released order gives state officials authority to decide whether switching equipment should remain on the list of UNEs.
Reading this, I conclude that Baby Bell local exchange switches may become available for leasing by competitors based on the whim of state regulators. This is an improvement for competitors, who before had no access to these switches, because they weren't "part of the menu". The last sentence throws a wrench in my interpretation by using the word "remain", which indicates that these local exchange switches are already available for leasing. Which is it?
The second change involves the broadband market. In February, the FCC freed the ILECs from a requirement that they lease at regulated discounted rates the portion of their networks that competitors use to provide Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) (i.e., broadband) service. The released version of the FCC's order retains a provision that allows competitors to lease complete ILEC lines for the provision of voice and DSL service, or to partner with other carriers that are the lines.
My read of this is; back in February the FCC allowed the Baby Bells to stop leasing the equipment needed by competitors to provide DSL. Now, however, the FCC says the Baby Bells must allow competitors to lease these lines. That looks like a good thing. Is my interpretation correct?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
As in terminal for DSL users wanting fair prices and decent service.
Can Bell South justify the cost to rework for the network load increase made by MCI and others to customers. This is not flame bait it is a realistic question. My take is that this forced access is not good. How can you force telcos to increase their small town infrastructure at unreasonable rates of return. You are looking to bankrupt them and then have communication kaos. Telcos were deregulated already it seems now ironic that AT&T is about to exact revenge! This is not healthy business practice it is war and will damage the American economy more than any simple deregulation.
Beginrant Not to worry though if the baby bells go bankrupt. You can count on some Microsoft .NET buyout scheme to jump at the chance to serve us better!Endrant
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
You forget that it is basically impossible for CLEC's to install DSLAMs at all POP's because there is "insufficient room" yet when the ILEC wants to expand their equipment there is plenty of rack space. While I agree that the ILEC should not be required to provide networking services for less than the cost of deployment I DO think they should be required to provide undundled access to the DSLAM. Also every expert that isn't employed by the ILECs has stated that this will do NOTHING to speed up broadband rollout and will result in higher prices.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It;s about time someone that understands the actual system speaks out. Most every comment about this subject normally comes from misinformed people or agents of the CLECs. No company should be forced to sell a product or service for less than it costs to provide(no matter what business they are in).
Now the RBOCs can add DSLAMs and fiber where they want without having to give it below cost to to anyone for less than it cost to provide.
Deregulation = BEND OVER this won't hurt a bit. Trust me, you'll like it.
I'm know there have been heaps of comments on the situation here in Aus with the incumbant Telco screwing consumers, businesses and resellers with an atrocious level of customer service.
I also love the US ./'ers telling us that's because we are socialists.
All through my Eco degree they told us that nothing is as efficient as a perfectly competative free market with no Govt. intervention. It just wasn't until third year they admitted that one of those markets still had to be found in the wild!
The last I heard was that a US free trade delegation (we are pretty open here) was lobbying for the govt to sell the incumbant Telco as it breached WTO guidelines, or at least major US Telcos interpretation of them.
Let's see, lamb, beef, sugar, wheat, steel...You want free markets, this sounds like one
Stopping myself...Abort (core dumped)
This, folks, is called Capitalism.
No, this is what is called Republicanism. Since Bush and his collection of big business ass-kissers took office, we have seen the Justice Department let Microsoft off the hook with a slap on the wrists, the EPA Clean Air Act gutted, and FCC regulations changed to allow huge media conglomerates to crush their competition. The list of such atrocities goes on and on.
I don't understand why people vote for Republicans and then act shocked that big business controls the government.
With the love of business and business' large contributions to the republican party, why, exactly is this a shock? All this proves is that republicans are more honest then democrats. Republicans stay bought.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
You forget that it is basically impossible for CLEC's to install DSLAMs at all POP's because there is "insufficient room" yet when the ILEC wants to expand their equipment there is plenty of rack space.
And when there isn't "sufficient room" for a CLEC's equipment the ILEC will be required either to MAKE more room or to rent their own equipment at the regulated price. Want to bet whether there will be room? B-)
The key is to make it possible for the ILEC to make money on leasing and expanding the legacy (and former-monopoly subsidized) wiring for broadband last-mile, without giving them a competitive advantage on their own uses of it. That's what the FCC is trying to arrange - in the same way the courts pulled it off with long-distance service while leaving the local service as a monopoly. It's a tough act to pull off. But the approach they've chosen looks right.
(Note that they're ALSO trying to break the local POTS service monopoly in half on similar lines. But for that service the switching equipment is ALSO a subsidized legacy, so they're mantaining the requirement that the ILECs share it. But broadband equipment is NOT legacy, so they're instead requiring the CLECs to buy their own, and only requiring the ILECs to share the legacy wire and fiber.)
If the ILECs had their way the FCC would have just assumed that CLECs were dead forever and dropped the sharing requirements completely. Instead the FCC is effectively splitting the ILECs' broadband operation into two businesses - dry/dark wiring and providing services over it - and making the latter half play on an equal footing with the (now mostly hypothetical) CLECs as a customer of the former half. So the FCC isn't giving up on CLECs even now that they're effectively dead.
While I agree that the ILEC should not be required to provide networking services for less than the cost of deployment I DO think they should be required to provide undundled access to the DSLAM.
Which brings us back to the situation before the regulation change - where the ILEC drags its feet on installing DSLAMs, until just about every CLEC is dead and customers only get DSL where it's convenient for the ILEC.
Also every expert that isn't employed by the ILECs has stated that this will do NOTHING to speed up broadband rollout and will result in higher prices.
Please note that I'm a system architect for an independent equipment-manufacturing company, making two kinds of the boxes used by both the ILECs and the CLECs to provide broadband service.
The president of said company made exactly the same case I just did (I'm virtually quoting him) and spent a bunch of time in Washington pushing the FCC toward exactly this ruling - in the hope that the darned Tellcos will get off the dime and start rolling out (and buying more of our equipment) before we go under.
He and I have occasional differences of opinion on some subjects, but we're of one mind on this one. I would hope that we both would qualify as "experts" on this subject. And we're DEFINITELY not employed by ILECs. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Demanding access to and proper use of wires the public paid for by protected monopoly is not stupid. Those lines were built at your expense and paid for many times over the price of free and fair compatition. The land used by the lines is public as well and regulations STILL make it difficult for competitiors to lay anything there. The only stupid thing would be to accept this and play dead.
The net result of all this is that many people don't have access to any kind of broadband and those that do are being forced into DHCP and other stupid crap that emulates the dial up modem world. You can't and will not be able to serve with your own equipment and the internet will be made to look like your local cable TV if things keep going this way. The same government that has given us five protected music publishers, three or four protected TV broadcasters and one or two large news service might like small numbers of publishers that can be controled. Such artificial restrictions are a direct contradiction of the first amendment and everything this country stands for.
The more attractive wireless becomes the sooner we can begin breaking free from that monster and the more innovations we will enjoy.
What makes yo think the moster won't be able to use their network to blow your wireless competitors out of the water? They could put up DSL "hot spots" free to their own DSL subsribers and charge everyone else or use any of a hundred different scams like that. That way they can keep your service poor and ... UNABLE TO COMPETE WITH THEIR CHARGE PER MINUTE LONG DISTANCE SERVICE RAPE. Their motives are so transparent.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
On the FCC's broadband portion of the order, Quinn said the document "was far less bold."
Good God, regulation so bad it can make ATT blush? This really is horrible.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I use packet 8 for my VoiP & PSTN telephone calls (all telephone use). IT's $19.95/month, no contract, and unlimited long distance to US/Canada/Alaska/Hawaii. And International rates are about 50% of the cheapest competitors.
There are issues with VoiP, it's not a 100% system, but neither was our local phone, and for a savings for me of about $60/month I'll take it.
gtg, phone's ringing
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD