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Verizon-Pushed WiFi Bill Becomes Law in PA
Cryofan writes "A Wall Street Journal article (via freepress) tells the sad tale of how legislation barring PA municipalities from offering paid telecom services was signed into law. 'Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell said late Tuesday night that he had signed into law a large telecommunications bill placing severe restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer telecommunications services, an item that was heavily lobbied by Verizon Communications Inc. and other big telephone companies in similar legislation across the country.'" (Also mentioned last week.)
Yes,
Well, before wireless, it was wired. In 1995, the State of Texas passed a bill that prevented the City of Austin from string fiber optic between its high-schools, libraries, fire stations, police stations, and power substations.
Seems that Southwestern Bell though it mighty uncompetitive of the City of Austin to replace old crappy 9600 baud modems with something that would be faster *and* cheaper! Of course, the Texas Leg voted was anti-people back then too.
Unless you live in a major metro area, the chances of you having wired phone access would be even lower than your chances of cell access if it hadn't been for the government putting down the cash to install a phone network.
I don't mind the private sector but i do think that broadband providers should have to do an all or nothing approach. Making sure that all their customers have DSL availability.
You sure are naive about telecom. The tariff lets all the "competitors" avoid competing on new features, by specifying all the features and their prices. It also prices starting new telcos in the $BILLIONS, keeping out any new competition. When something new comes along, like DSL, they tweak the tariff to kill new competitors, like they did with DSL. The only orgs foolhardy enough to start competing with telcos on something disruptive like WiFi are local governments, and now they're slapped down (at least in Pennsylvania). Even though the limited bandwidth of WiFi in a given area makes it most effective for municipal communications, like emergency services, sanitation and other state communications. If Verizon were able to compete, it would let towns and cities educate the market with WiFi, while rolling out WiMax or even (gasp) 3G, or maybe even finishing the phased-array tech that effectively unlimits bandwidth spectrum constraints (never). A competitive telco would actually see the lengths to which cities and towns are going to get wireless coverage, and *sell it to them*. Instead, they've just outlawed any possible competitive motivation to deliver this hotly desired service to their market. So no one gets it. And they've got legions of people hooting about "the market" when no such dynamic exists in this industry. I'm glad you're satisfied with your wired status quo.
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make install -not war
As a resident of the Commonwealth, I once again take my shoes off to our elected officials willingness to tax us directly and indirectly to subsidize Verizon. Remeber the sweetheart, multi-billion dolar tax breaks they got to roll out high-speed (10's og Mbit/s) broadband, then stuck us with DSL?
http://www.newnetworks.com/Libertybellstolen.htm
Sheesh! Pennsylvania (aka Pennsyltucky) is Philly and Pittsburg with Alabama in between. If you've ever seen our legislature in session, the bib overalls might clue you in as to how technically savvy those guys are.
Even my own rep. LOVES Verizon. I attended a breakfast Q&A he held, and asked about the Broadband deal and why the legislature amended the requirements for Verizon at MY expense. He got pissed and started bitching to the masses about how he gets all sorts of mail critical of Verizon, but he thinks they are just great. He also "explained" that it would have cost Verizon huge amounts of money to roll out fiber to rural and mountainous areas that don't need it.
So, I asked what the taxpayers got for all that money because Verizon just provided DSL over existing copper. Next question, please!
As a service becomes fundamentally essential to the equality of the people, it must either become so inexpensive that it is affordable by all (e.g. the commoditization of the industry through a huge number of players) or it must become socialized. If one of these two things doesn't happen, it will, over time, result in the gap between the haves and the have-nots becoming progressively larger and the gradual erosion of the middle class.
While "equality at all costs" is not a virtue, equality in at least the basic requirements to function in a modern society is a necessity.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yes, well ... on the other hand you have to consider the source. Verizon isn't exactly a shining example of enlightened capitalism in action, you know.
... the phones worked. America had one of the most reliable telephone systems on the planet. Then, "in the interests of the consumer" that government-granted monopoly was suddenly deemed "bad", and was broken up into the parent AT&T and the various RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies) and largely deregulated. Granted, Ma Bell had maintained iron control of the whole network (that was the law), but they could have been required to relax some of that control (for example, allowing third-party terminal equipment) rather than a break up of the company. It's not as if AT&T was an illegal monopoly, like oh, I don't know, Microsoft ... the Feds PUT them there in the first place!
The irony in all of this is that for nearly a century the phone company was a legal monopoly established and regulated by the Federal Government. Congress was correct in their initial assumptions that a. the private sector was better suited to the task from an efficiency perspective and b. the established provider would need careful regulation and monitoring, with appropriate quality-of-service standards. Whatever else you want to say about the old Ma Bell
Be that as it many, we now have a private telecom provider, Verizon, coming back and convincing the government (albeit a state one, but the precedent has been set) that said government has no interest in providing a modern telecommunications service. It was the government that originally made phone service available to all, and required that it be priced at a level that wouldn't leave anyone out in the cold.
What's worse, given the way the RBOCs have been consolidating lately, it looks like we're heading back to the days of a monopolized telephone system, but without the kind of oversight that such a system really needs. The idea of tax dollars being used to support something as critical to our lives and economy as telecommunications isn't really problematic: all governments spend our money on far less useful things every day. If Verizon can't take the competition they should just find some other industry to monopolize, rather than getting laws custom-written to eliminate that competition. They've taken a page out of the MPAA's book it seems, and frankly I'm sick of that kind of behavior.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I guess they kinda have a point.
Bullshit. Coca-Cola could make the same argument about the government interfering with their ability to make a profit of Disanti water because, shucks, the public water utilities are hurting their ability to compete.
Communications, in this day and age, are as vital a resource as water and transportation. Leaving it in the hands of a few private organizations to implement when and where they see fit (e.g., when and where they can make a profit) is, to put it blundly, bullshit.