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Courts Overturn FCC - Return of the Monopoly?
An anonymous reader writes "The DC Circuit Court of Appeals today threw out FCC restrictions which previously forced large regional phone companies to allow companies such as AT&T and MCI the ability to offer local phone service. The court also upheld FCC rules that no longer require large phone companies to share their advanced broadband networks of the future with competitors. The USTA response:
'This is a decisive victory for consumers, for innovation and for free markets.' The AT&T response: 'At a time when consumers and small business owners are just beginning to realize the benefits of competition, the D.C. Circuit today held up a stop sign and halted eight years of progress.' Enough about the Baby Bells already -- how is this going to effect my VoIP phone from VoicePulse (similar to Vonage)? Did I switch to VoIP so I can pay $15/month for my phone bill, but will have to pay $80/month for FTTH or some other form of broadband?"
Am I the only one here old enough to remember when AT&T was a "large phone company"?
" forced large phone companies to allow companies such as AT&T and MCI the ability to offer local phone service."
I think they mean that large companies like AT&T and MCI were required to allow OTHER companies to offer local phone service.
Did I switch to VoIP so I can pay $15/month for my phone bill, but will have to pay $80/month for FTTH or some other form of broadband?"
Yes.
If anyone thinks for a minute that the telco behemoth will lie down and let the "free" internet eat its lunch, you are mistaken.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
I think it would be better the way it used to be for the consumer. I mean really, now that all the competition is gone, prices will probably skyrocket. Of course, maybe not because the companies no longer have to loose money to competition (if the competition isn't doing so great). Why did they do this? It just makes me wonder..
http://www.beyourowneviloverlord.tk
http://www.frozenchickenthrowing.tk
http://www.killercamel.tk
AT&T and MCI (and Sprint) are long distance companies.
Unless the local Bell-equivalents share their last-mile wiring with them, they cannot offer local phone service, because they have no physical connection to the customer.
The headline wasn't clear on what position I am supposed to be taking on this. Will somebody please let me know so I can rant about it. Thank you.
i'm moving off campus, and i'd be happy to pay speakeasy's 100/month for 3M/756kbps dsl. complaining about 80 bucks for fiber is like complaining about premium gas(93+) at a buck fifty.
"'This is a decisive victory for consumers, for innovation and for free markets.' "
How? How? Damn it. How?
Anyone want to take a shot at it, because I don't see it?
Not only will the removal of competition drive prices up, there will be nothing left but mediocre at best ILEC service with no incentive to improve it.
I think they mean that large companies like AT&T and MCI were required to allow OTHER companies to offer local phone service.
Nope, they got it right...
For example, look into MCI's "Neighborhood Complete" package, which I currently use. Rather than having Verizon for my local service and MCI for my LD carrier, this rule allowed me to use MCI as my local carrier as well - Meaning that I pay only one phone bill per month, for $15 more than I paid to just Verizon each month, and I get unlimited free LD as a bonus (along with voicemail, CID, CW, 3-way, and I think a few others).
I for one will feel VERY pissed off if I get a call in the next few days from Verizon, telling me that if I don't sign back on with them I will have no phone service. But that seems like precisely the implication of this ruling.
Whaddya know, for once I find myself on the same side of an issue as the FCC. Ah well, I suppose this will finally give me the incentive to switch to 100% cellular.
The thing that gets to me is that the RBOCs agreed to open up their networks to local competition and, in return, would be able to go into the long distance business.
Now that this comprimise has been made, they want to not be required to open up their networks. But do they have to get out of the long distance business? Of course not.
Cake and eat it, anyone?
The real solution would be to have the phone companies divest the part of them that manages the wiring between your house and the CO.
Gentoo Sucks
With all the municipalities building their own fiber network and alot of master planned communities doing the same, (I work for a company that builds fiber networks for master planned communities) believe me, getting qwest off our backs has been a pain, they demand that we give them access to our network even though we own it, we've had to spend more than 500,000 in attorney's fees just to keep them at bay, with this ruling maybe that issue will go away, municipalities and other private companies can build their networks and we don't have to worry about qwest/sbc et al demanding that we let them have access to our networks.
Are there even any Baby Bells left? Last time I checked there were something like four big companies controlling telecommunitations nationwide. So much for the regional bells...
At the end of the artical it implies the it will be many years befor ehte appeals avenue is exhausted. But at that stage will anybody care. Broadband will more likely be wireless based and most people will probably have mobile phones.
How can a monopoly grow since, by definition, it is the only game in town?
"Am I the only one here old enough to remember when AT&T was a "large phone company"?"
I'm old enough to remember when smoke signals outside my teepee was good enough.
The linked articles aren't clear. Does anyone know if this case dealt purely with special FCC powers, or was it decided on Sherman anti-trust grounds?
If it was on Sherman anti-trust grounds, I can see why it went this way. The courts are very reluctant to apply such a devastating remedy, and tend to read down any application.
Interestingly/counter-intuitively, American regulators have effectively NO useful anti-monopoly or anti-abuse-of-market-position powers. Sherman Act gives only the financial equivalent of the nuclear bomb. Below that, there's essentially nothing: no system of graded fines or automatic restraint/requirement orders, no ability to remove company officers or investigate pricing, nothing.
The courts and regulators could do with a few more blackjacks, shillelaghs, and baseball bats, with some pointed sticks thrown in for more serious cases.
Then you'd be less likely to see such extremes of legal position. The regulators/courts could adopt middle grounds more reasonable to all parties.
--
Sal
Writings: saltation.blogspot.com
Wravings: go-blog-go.blogspot.com
A: This will damage competition.
B: This will NOT destroy it.
You've got a number of local phone options:
1) your local provider
2) Cell phones.
3) Your cable company (though I could be wrong here, it's entirely possible that digital cable/phone will be torpedoed by this. Does anyone know?)
So that's at least two, possibly three seperate groups vying to give you local service.
I'm sure the cost will go up, and features may be cut. But I don't think this is some telco apocalypse.
Fooz Meister
that forced the bells to share, allow them to be Long Distance carriers-- and if that law has been repealed, doesn't that mean they can no longer be long distance carriers? as in- no more verizon long distance?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I used to work in the Minneapolis conference center; they now have a large biz conf thang that hosts huge teleconferences of 5000 participants. And the stuff listed above, of course. They other thing they do is whine about the old days and their shrinking market share while still blowing thousands of dollars a day on executive compensation (like the CEO they hired before Mike Armstong and then decided he wasn't good enough and sent home with a 25 million dollar severance).
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
in some markets
http://consumer.mci.com/res_hispeed.jsp
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The court upheld other rules requiring the former Bell companies to allow providers of high-speed DSL Internet service to use their copper wires, but not upgraded fiber optic or fiber-copper lines. The FCC said requiring the companies to provide access to the upgraded lines would deter the former Bells from making better systems.
At least for now...
While I don't discount the numerous advancements and network builds out the former baby bells have done they seem to be forgetting they wouldn't even exist as separate entities if we (through government subsidizing) hadn't built out their networks in the first place.
Someone in the FCC needs to sit down and figure out just how much we doled out to each company for their buildouts and then either offer the company ways to pay us back or force them to offer discounts to other people who wish to use their network until the discounted amount matches what we gave them (adjusted for inflation of course).
--- I do not moderate.
Why is it when I hear 'This is a decisive victory for consumers, for innovation and for free markets.' come out of the mouths of large firms like AT&T, I begin to cringe?
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
I admit I haven't paid to much attention to this issue. But why should owners of a network be required to open it up to someone else? If I build a network for a location, I don't want to let others onto it unless it makes me extra money and doesn't hurt my income. Shouldn't the free market and not the government dictate something like this?
The only argument I can think of against this is because of a monopoly. However, I don't see (in my limited view of the world) that there is a monopoly preventing people from competing.
What precisely is it that you think you own? The wire you put under the street between CO's and people's houses? OK, maybe you own that. What about the street itself, and the tunnels under them? I don't know about the case where you're a municipality, but you certainly don't own the street if you're a regional phone company. And yet, you've been given some kind of monopoly access to under-street cable tunnels and for that matter, residential termination points. If you claim I'm wrong about that, well, say I run an ISP with a downtown office--I'd like to run my own fiber through your city's streets and then up your city's utility poles just like the phone companies do, so I can drop Ethernet cable to the homes of my subscribers, and give them moby bandwidth without having to pay an RBOC to transport data for me. Where do I sign up to do that? I can't? Didn't think so--there's a monopoly like I said.
Given that the RBOC's are getting exclusive access to a public resource, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't have to share that access for the public's benefit. If they want to own their own network, let them build their own streets to run the cables under. If they want exclusive rights to put cabling under public streets, they better be willing to give the public access to the bandwidth.
Maybe there's some part of this that I'm missing, since I generally assume that anything Michael Powell's FCC does is bad, and when the courts smack the FCC it's a good thing. But this seems to me like a case where if the FCC has mandated more access to last-mile wiring, it's done the right thing.
I choose the clec all the time. Verizon always tries to get into the way but they were bounded by law to allow the small guys to use there copper. Now will they all just go away? Man that is going to suck! I hate verizon.
Yep. They're gonna go up. Sometimes fair trade isn't fair to everyone.
What on earth does AT&T do these days, anyway? ... they don't do much local phone service
AT&T hasn't done much local phone service since the courts split them up.
AT&T was the part that got the nationwide long-distance network (along with the other miscelaneous stuff, like UNIX), going head-to-head with the upstarts like MCI and sprint. The part that did the local service was spun off as a double-handfull of regional "Baby Bell" local telephone companies.
It's only lately that AT&T has been allowed to even THINK about playing in the local service area.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I wonder what "rates set by the market" means when you own the market?
= 9J =
When they mandated competition for local phone service via the TCA act of 1996 they put loopholes in the laws that allow some shady people to get into the phone business. It was legal for a while (and might still be) to form a small phone company, lease out the equipment and lines from the large local Bell for way below cost, charge 20% less than what it would cost the Bell company to run the thing, and make lots of profit. Not all of these little competitors do this, in fact there are lots of legitimate companies who work to provide the customer with awesome service and who provide much of their own equipment. However, the drag put on the Bell companies is rapidly causing many ofthem to hit financial trouble and cuold eventually force some of them to reorganize or try to get out of land-based phone service entirely. It should be noted that if the Bell companies falter while the shady companies are still attached to them, both the customers of shady companies and Bell customers would be at a loss.
The law also implemented a double standard: national companies like AT&T and MCI were able to get into the local phone business while regional Bell companies could not enter the long-distance business without going through a rigorous set of checks and requirements that take years to meet (I think BellSouth is only now getting into that market 8 years later...). Overall if AT&T and MCI have had to face even an inkling of the problems over broadband that the Bell telephone companies have had to over telephones, then the law ought well to get thrown out and rewritten, IMHO.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
If anything this should speed the roll out of cable telephony since the competitors prices just increaed.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Cell phones work fine for voice, but they don't work for dialup Internet (well they do, but it's slow and expensive). As long as you have some option for Internet access, the cell phone is a much better deal than a landline.
"Have you considered Service X? They have this Y plan for only $Z a month. Its saving me money."
This is very irritating. Have other people encountered this regularly too? MCI seems to be the worst lot, with their $50 plan. Apparently they want people to be in their 'neighborhood' or something. Sure, mod me offtopic, but the parent post does this too, mentioning his specific Voip service. A lot of other previous posts have done this too. Is this some sort of social phenomenon where phone companies have actually convinced their customers to advertize for them?
I've tried to avoid mentioning my specific service provider, as its the subject of this post.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Please don't tell me you think there is any real competition in the US cell phone market.
Each company needs to construct its own towers nation wide. This cost allow effectively keeps out competition. In other countries such as Hong Kong were the cell phone service providers rent tower time, service is a lot cheaper. And you will not believe it, customer service does not suck like it does in the US. Until the US market is broken into tower providers and cell phone service providers there will be no effective competition.
Isn't that why internet is reasonally priced in the US. The phone companies are required to lease access to the local teleco switch office. "Creating competition". I guess competition is NOT good for business.
Someone please explain how this decision is good for me as a consumer.
...when there was just AT&T. No telemarketing, no John Stamose 10-10-987, no hassle, no worries.
Not every court decision is the end of the line and many are just passing the buck back to the parties involved to make clearer their ideas instead of leaving the issues vague out of laziness or lack of desire to offend.
Plus, if fiber isn't shared, then more will have to be put down (more for everyone). The largest problem I foresee is if is if the applies to power lines as well (which would kill many beneficial deregulation efforts all over the country).
Open Source Sushi
You can get fiber you your home for $80 a month?? Where do I sign up?!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I knew some people not far below the CTO level at SBC. These regulations basically made it impossible for them to roll out new services. If they would add new lines, they would have to pay to roll out the lines then have to sell them to competitors at a loss.
These regulations really were slowing the spread of broadband technologies. Of course, the question comes so how should it be priced? The government set prices will always be wrong. Making it either unprofitable for the regional telco or the CELC.
If the regional telco gets to set the prices, it will of course be way too high.
The only logical thing I can think of is to do exactly what the court did, throw out the regulations.
Luckily a host of new technologies should force the telcos to be competitive in the "Communications" space. We have two-way satellite, cell phone-based internet access, wi-fi internet access, broadband over power, and currently most importantly cable modems. In Chicago, my dad actually had a cable modem/VoIP thing sitting outside his house with a little UPS. He had no idea it wasn't using traditional phones lines. He just knew he only had one bill, from the cable company.
This kind of situation should bring about very low prices without the regulation side effects. Considering how easy it is to switch with number portability and all it should bring about some beautiful Bertend, Duopoly competition.
the 1996 law gave companies like at&t and mci the right to get into phone service,while restricting the baby bells right to get into long distance. the long distance companies have been in local service, but they only target dense business districts with higher profit margins than residential markets. baby bells are required to serve everyone,regardless of profitability(sometimes spending thousands of dollars to serve 1 customer). all while having to jump through hoops to try to get into long distance and being heavily regulated. all the while the cable tv gestapo serves who they want,when they want and can jack up your freaking bill ten bucks a month without a damn warning....they're all bastards that are watching me through the powerlines anyway....i know they do....
Right after I saw this post, an AT&T telemarketer called, asking me to switch to their "new local service" in my area. I guess her timing couldn't have been worse.
Mods, how is asking a question "insightful?" The answer might be insightful, but asking a question usually allows someone to gain insight.
this does not hurt real competition...it hurts shady-fly-by-night-pawnshop-make-a-buck-by-exploit ing-the-system-con-artists fake competition...
People seem to be misreading the ruling. There are two issues involved:
1) The Telcom act requires the ILECs (incumbent carriers) to offer Unbundled Network Elements (UNEs) as part of the "deal" for being allowed back into long distance.
2) The FCC and State commissions set the rates for the UNEs. In most cases, this results in the CLECs getting UNEs for a price that is lower than it costs the ILEC to provice the service. This has the effect of effectively "charging" ILEC phone customers extra in order to subsidise their own competitors.
As the ruling was explained to us (I work in the wholesale IT department of one of the ILECs), it only affects the pricing (item 2), NOT the UNE rules. ILECs will still be required to provide UNEs, but at the same price as they charge to the retail department of the ILEC. (The retail part of the ILEC does the marketing to individual customers, and provides the value add services like voice messaging.)
It also looke like this is going to be appealed to the Supreme Court, so the immediate effect is zero.
I think there is a difference between these two words. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
As unpopular an opinion as this may be, I am happy any time the authority of the FCC is challenged in any way.
The FCC is an unelected arm of the government that already has far too much control. We may applaud their efforts to limit the power of corporations, but how do we feel when they limit what we are allowed to see/hear/think? We can't have it both ways.
The next time you think it is a good idea to grant any power to the FCC at all, ask yourself how you would feel if you didn't have Howard Stern during your morning commute.
The "rigorous checks" the Bell companies had to meet was basically whether or not they were allowing anyone else into the local phone business. So...in reality AT&T, MCI, etc. were not able to get into the local phone business anywhere the Bell companies could not (very shortly thereafter) get into the long distance business.
" In a 3-0 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges wrote that the FCC [...]lacks the authority to delegate responsibility for setting those rates to the states. The court also ruled the FCC had failed to prove that competitors in the local phone market are 'impaired' without government-regulated access to critical parts of the phone network controlled by the regional giants."
Sounds like Verizon is paying off more than just Supremes Scalia and Rhenquist. What could possibly convince them that telcos charging markups and delays to carried competitors isn't a decisive advantage? And since the FCC delegated its tariffs to the states, wouldn't a more appropriate remedy be to force the FCC to merely use the state tariffs as the (determinant) basis for a federal tariff structure, tailored for different conditions regionally, rather than throw out any tariff or authority at all? This is a corporate coup that kills everyone but incumbent carriers and paid-off judges.
--
make install -not war
It doesn't matter whether or not the govt. makes local phone carriers share their networks. VoIP is the future anyway, and their is competition since this can be done over cable, wireless, or twisted pair. Making local carriers share their networks isn't real competition anyway. It's just another form of regualtion where the phone company is forced to give competitors bandwidth at a regulated rate, which doesn't change things much from forcing the phone company to give you service at a regulated rate.
Vote for Pedro
Hey, give it a few years and maybe all the baby bells will merge back into Ma Bell, and all of the old school phreakers will once again be presented with a standardized interface to reverse engineer. >;-}
Maybe they will even absorb AOL/Time/Warner...
Hmmm. So Bell will own the wiring, but they can't (God, I hope not!) own the air! Wireless will be the last-mile technology of the future anyway after the real engineers make it [more] secure and usable instead of simple being the novelty item it is today. (ok, I admit, I run an open network with one computer where I could more easily have used a CAT5 cable, but it is cool to play with and it works well when freinds visit. I watch the network carefully anyway for excessive leeching... I don't mind if people borrow a little bandwidth, as long as it doesn't get in my way.)
The USA applies the golden rule: He who has the gold rules.,/p>
Did you think I was going to say something about do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This country is headed to the corporatist state (and the ruling party doesn't matter -- they both give in to BIG business). This is just another step down that path.
Does anyone realize that in order to "allow" competition this forces Verizon to sub-lease out their phone lines at BELOW cost?
This is a return to Monopoly? Ridiculous. Verizon was being forced by the FCC to basically hand out cash to any telecom company that wanted it. This has obvious results, Verizon won't invest in those lines, since it is LOSING MONEY.
The only realm left to Verizon (other than wireless) is the broadband market. Verizon has invested billions of dollars in DSL and in fiber to expand the reach of broadband to 80% of the homes in the US. Now they are deploying FTTP which will give us data rates in the 100s of megabits.
So there are two options, either regulate them into non-existance and force them to sell bandwidth to competitors who have invested NOTHING, or to let them reap the rewards of the capital they have invested and to keep the muddling hands of the government out of broadband regulation.
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
I would like to know if anyone has any insight on what will happen to exising agreements that current CLEC's have with the RBOC's.
Also, I wanted to through my cents in. I don't know if anyone noticed, but this is not going to make much difference (if you look into my future glass ball). In a year or so, SBC or Bell South will buy MCI (after they come out of bankruptcy). AT&T will also be bought. There will be more steps taken towards the consolidation of the telecom industry. We will once again be back with 1 or 2 huge phone companies (providing both local and long distance services). They can bundle in dsl, they can add voip services, and might as well buy the local cable company or even better yet, merge with a national cable company. (Or a parternship ala time warner + MCI style). Whether the TCOM ACT of 1996 remains in effect or not, the telco's will once again be too huge for the little guy to survive.
Do not worry though, the telecom act of 2016 will break said companies back up again! (in the return of Judge Greene!)
-Carpe Diem (lizardbox)
Too late for Lucent, these discounts made it impossible for RBOCs to invest in new technology as they had to resell at a loss and Lucent died with no product orders. Now with the opportunity to make a profit they can put some great technology in place! Once the court order has settled down we should see some real growth in the technology sector!
AT&T is currently the largest competitor in the local bell monopoly system.
My mom used to have their digital phone line, and when they sold their cable division to Comcast they called her about a month later telling her they would appreciate her business. She asked them if the aprreciated it so much, then why did they sell it to another company
More correctly, they merged. Verizon comprises the former Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, and GTE companies.
Just ask George Carlin:
The FCC, the Federal Communications Commision, decided all by itself that radio and television were the only to parts of american life not protected by the free speech provision of the first amendment to the constitution.
I'd like to repeat that, because it sounds vaguegly important.
The FCC, an appointed body - not elected, answerable only to the president decided on its own, that radio and television were the only two parts of american life not protected by the first amendment to the constitiution, and why did they decide that? Because they got a letter from a minister in Missisippi!
A reverend Donald Wildmon in Missisippi heard something on the radio that he didn't like! Well reverend - did anyone ever tell you there are two knobs on the radio? Two knobs on the radio!
Of course I'm sure the reverend isn't that comfortable with anything that has two knobs on it. But hey reverend, there are two knobs on the radio; one of them turns the radio off, and the other one - changes the station! Imagine that reverend, you can actually change the station! It's called freedom of choice and it's one of the principles this country was founded upon. Look it up in the library, reverend, if you have any of them left when you're finished burning all the books!
What do you disagree with?
Do you disagree that there is more competition in the Hong Kong cellular market? And by the way there is laws against fly by night operations. Fraud is a very major offence in Hong Kong.
Or perhaps you feel that the US internat market is currently full of fly by night operators, because it has competition.
Unless you have kids. My son decided to start talking on the phone more and watching minutes got old real fast.
The court ruled on the issue of "whether the FCC had the authority to allow states to decide when the Baby Bells must allow competitors access to their voice switching networks". The court decided the FCC did not, and thus "it gave the FCC 60 days to come up with its own rules for each individual market throughout the United States."
CNET News.com has good coverage on the ruling. So far the feedback on the decision is that it is so unfounded and ridiculous, that it is almost certain to be overturned by the Supreme Court (they are appealing after all!).
In the telco business fixed costs are a disproportionate part of the total costs, making economies of scale king, so the best way to cut costs is by having one single provider with 100% of the market (remember the costs of a national cell phone company with 1/3 of the market arn't significantly lower than a national cell phone company with 100% of the market, well relativelly speaking anyway)
Now no one wants a private monopoly that free to charge what they want, so the go is a govt telco monopoly - meaning polies have to worry about voter reaction if they charge too much.
So the best way to resolve this is for govts to charge enormous fees for cables running in public air-space & ground space, then buy out the 1st big telco when it's shares drop enough. Then the govt can charge nominal public air/ground-space rents to itself, making all the other telcos uncompetitive.
Of course countries that still have govt telcos are way ahead - look at Singapore
This type of stuff really annoys me.
(assuming that they even cover this) and they'll let you know how you feel about it.
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Does anyone realize that in order to "allow" competition this forces Verizon to sub-lease out their phone lines at BELOW cost?
This assumes the local telco's claim as to cost is honest. A long and very checkered history suggests otherwise
This is a return to Monopoly? Ridiculous.
It is probably a return to local telco monopoly, and is a disservice to anyone who has ever been afflicted with the need to deal with the local Baby Bells. For the end user/customer, this is a very bad development at best. Some things cable and cell phones can't replace (some in-house front-door intercoms won't work with a cell for example, forcing one to have a land line. Thanks to this ruling, this will mean being forced to do business with the likes of Ameritech or Verizon, regardless of how appalling the companies behave).
Verizon was being forced by the FCC to basically hand out cash to any telecom company that wanted it. This has obvious results, Verizon won't invest in those lines, since it is LOSING MONEY.
How exactly does Verizon define (read: inflate) cost I wonder. There are abuses on all sides, including a long history of people like Ameritech (our local Verizon equivelent) artificially inflating "costs" in order to gouge the competition and effectively keep them out of markets. Thus, the FCC had to define what the costs were. I am skeptical as to whether or not they really are "below actual costs" or not.
There is only one way to clear this up. Nationalize the copper infrastructure, support it as a public works project in a manner similiar to the highway system, and let all telcos offer services on top of the wire under terms of equal access. Some things government is better at than private industry: maintaining natural monopolies in a fair and reasonable manner (water services, sewage, and roads are existing examples: communication and power lines are an obvious and IMHO acutely needed addition).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Actually, is this really true? I mean, perhaps at one time it was - but I was googling the other day and looked up "tower colocation" - apparently, in some manner, it is possible to colo on a tower, renting "space" on the tower (I was looking to see if this was possible in the instance of WiFi mesh networks). This seems to be something real...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I work for MCI and so I have alot of insight into this particular situation. The incumbent companies are making TONS OF MONEY. On top of the price that MCI pays to lease each line (Not provide service, either real or customer service) they also get the 6.50$ Federal Subscriber Line Charge that every phone line in America has on it. (7.00$ for the second line) This payment goes directly to the ILEC to support and maintain thier networks. So even if you have MCI or AT&T you still pay to keep your copper running, AND you pay for your CLEC to lease the line. These companies are bloated and inefficient. They want to blame thier problems on competition. Its not the competition, its thier gross inefficiency. They cant make enough money to keep their network running without millions and millions of customers. MCI can do exactly what SBC does for 50c on the dollar, and its making them lose customers. Rather than adapt and become better at business and service (Which you dont have to do under a government enforced monopoly) they prefer to lobby so that they can go back to being lazy and non-innovative. Competition lowers prices. Competition lowers And NO, Life was not better when AT&T owned it all. It was 35c a min, at night, on Sunday.
I refuse to get service from them now, as I have Vonage (vonage.com) and cable broadband. I pay less for both Comcast broadband and Vonage to have everything I had with BellSouth and more. Wanna make a difference? Go to Vonage or another similar service and switch your ISP to any non-phoneline dependent service. I guarantee that in a year or two, the competition will be allowed to return.
It will not hurt cable companies one bit... on the contrary, if the bell companies increase their prices for DSL/Phone Service, the cable companies will be able to do the same. Since the cable companies own their lines and are the direct connection to the customer, they can be directly compared to the bell companies. This would relate the same as if Comcast was forced by the FCC to allow Charter (or any other cable tv provider) to use their networks. But fortunately for the cable companies, it is far more difficult to share their network than it is for the bell companies. Cable is not run over fiber, it is all coaxial. For them to share their network they would have to do massive upgrades to their systems and wiring, because if not, the overbearing traffic would seriously degrade the performance so bad that they would probably start losing customers to the bell companies. The reason cable did not take off so quickly in the beginning was because people were worried that the more customers were using cable, the worse performance would be.
Not only do they have their cake (landlines laid that they "own" paid for mostly by the federal government ie. your tax dollars) but they get to eat it too (full controlled monopoly which was origionally granted and regulated by the federal government specifically because of this universal service fund tax payment).
Way to go and fuck you SBC.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.