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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?"
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
Actually, no.
AT&T and MCI are national companies. The large companies are large local (ie state-wide) companies which were forced by the federal government to allow other companies to use their lines to "enhance" competition. The other companies which were allowed in had very little presence in the local market (hence were "small" companies), even while they were giants in the national long distance markets.
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?
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
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...
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.
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 wonder what "rates set by the market" means when you own the market?
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.