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."

Comments

Re:Government

[johnny0101]

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.

Two commissioners think this is illegal....

[linuxtelephony]

I think the most telling bit from the article is this:

"Somebody has to question how do you defend an order when the commissioners are writing appellate briefs for the other side," Brecher said. "They?ve got a problem. You?ve got two commissioners who believe what they have done is illegal and don?t have a problem articulating it. There is still a lot of uncertainty here."

followed by this:

Indeed, Commissioner Michael Copps was particularly harsh in his comments accompany the order's release. ?The bad news is that this decision plays fast and loose with the country?s broadband future.? Copps said. ?Make no mistake about it, today?s decision chokes off competition in broadband. Consumers, innovation, entrepreneurs and the Internet itself are going to suffer.

?Instead of preserving, protecting and defending competition, the Commission has torn away access to the network architectures that undergird broadband competition. As a result, consumers, including our nation?s small businesses-the engines of so much entrepreneurial activity and economic growth-may well be stuck without competitive choices and prices when it comes to critical broadband services. This is not a brave new world of broadband, but simply the old system of local monopoly dressed up in a digital cloak."

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.

WRONG! This is a good thing for broadband

[poptones]

Because with the inevitable rate hikes around the corner wireless startups become even more viable. It's an incredibly stupid idea thinking we can foster competition using decades old, obsolete infrastructure already owned by some of the most powerful lobbying orgs on the hill. The more attractive wireless becomes the sooner we can begin breaking free from that monster and the more innovations we will enjoy.

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.