Slashdot Mirror
Regional Bells Blocking Broadband Competition
Tim Doran writes "USA Today has a story today describing regulatory moves by the regional Bell companies meant to stifle competition in broadband. Of course, nobody plays the regulators like the ILECs, and they're using their massive fiber builds as leverage against the regulators. They're even running interference on municipalities who are trying to build their own fiber networks!"
An ILEC is a telephone company that was providing local service when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted.
wdd
We have this problem in my hometown ( or something similiar ). 2 different companies wanted to come in and stick a big antenna on top of our water tower and provide wireless broadband connections to everyone within reach. Only problem is that they had to get their high speed connection through the local phone company (TDS) and it turned out that the company had plans to bring DSL into the area in a year or so, so they drug their feet and eventually it never materialized... twice! two different companies denied. Now we get their high priced slow ass DSL and all towns around our area with different phone providers have the wireless available. Its completely retarded.
Just a year, but it was enough. Money, unions, political kickbacks, etc;
ALL employees were required to go to bi-annual meetings where they were "asked" to join the lobbying group to call the government and relay the phone company's agenda. You had to either sign-up or sign a waiver.
How's THAT for political pressure?
And illicit drugs -- now there's a market where bold entrepreneurs (read: scumbags) can chisel easy money out of people who have few or no alternatives.
Not true. I have way more choices when it comes to drug dealers than I do phone companies. Its a LOT easier to buy pot than it is to buy beer a lot of the time from the government controlled monopoly here.
My (favorite) ISP, Sonic.net, on December 20th, filed comments at the FCC in response to BellSouth's request to exclude independent ISPs from access to DSL. The concern is that if BellSouth gets it's way, SBC may do the same. This would leave all California with just two choices for DSL: SBC or Comcast. Sonic.net is well worth the extra money I pay each month. I don't want to lose that choice.
Here's the PDF of their comments.
To a politician, one email equals one voter.
For 10 years, I worked as a SONET/DWDM engineer, designing and implementing fiber installations for one of these ILECs.
I read the article. The ILEC is standing in the way of progress? Give me a break. Sure, in this instance, they're complaining.... but local and state governments stand in the way all the time, yet that never makes the newspapers. I've seen cities grant access to install fiber, and then decide they're going to jack up the right-of-way costs to the ILEC, and then give away access to the competition for pennies per mile. Fair? Or unfair?
Often, local governments will take bids for right-of-way to install fiber. That doesn't promote competition. It tells me that the local government is greedy, and they want money to spend. They aren't interested in competition until years later when the citizens are angry with the single provider that won the bid.
During the dotcom boom, many cities took bids for fiber-based infrastructure builds. And often times, it was some poorly-planned flash-in-the-pan company that spent their entire wad winning the bid for a single city, and had very little money for equipment, labor, or anything else. Does anyone know if Sacramento got their city-wide fiber-to-the-home project completed? The last I heard, the company had gone bankrupt during installation, and had been bought by someone else. I hadn't heard whether installation was completed in any neighborhood. Anyone? Is that what you want coming to your house?
I've also seen local governments place a 10 year moratorium on new construction because people don't like their streets dug up. Frankly, that stifles competition too.
Laying fiber is very expensive. It's not like DSL, where you're re-using the copper loop, or cable modem, where the cable companies laid fiber to the neighborhood, and re-used the coax to the home. Fiber-to-the neighborhood is cheaper by far than fiber to the curb. Fiber is a huge pain to lay to the home.
Surveying, digging, laying conduit with thoughts to bend radius, redundancy, sewer, water, power, and future repair access for accidental cuts? Hope that the contractor has their best person running the backhoe so you don't have to worry about severed gas, electrical, or water lines. Then blow fiber down the conduit, terminate it, light it, test it, educate the end-users (the 50% that initially express an interest), all the while working with city planners, utility companies, city water/sewer departments, and keep the subcontractors in line? Then, after years of work, put active services on it, give away service for the first few months, and then hope to turn a profit at what the government says you can charge for services. And listen to people complain about the high cost? And then hope to be LUCKY to get 20% (I'm optimistic) of the installed homes as paying subscribers?
It's no wonder that the ILECs are concerned. It takes a long time to build, and it's very expensive. And the stockholders and Wall Street are mad if the payoff is anything over 5 years.
What would you think if you just spend $50 million laying fiber rings (not fiber to the home, but the precursor... fiber to the neighborhood), and then the local government decided to subsidize a "public" network, undercutting your entire investment?
And then consider this:
Installation into a neighborhood of 400 homes, you need 400 timeslots on the SONET ring, or 400 wavelengths on a DWDM system. And then expect that 20% will subscribe, but they'll move every other year or so?
Much of the fiber that was blown into the conduits during the dotcom boom is already out-of-date when even last years' best DWDM equipment is considered. The older fiber has problems handling 40, 60, or 80 wavelengths. So you might need to spend millions on extra DWDM chassis to cover a neighborhood. Sure, you could use a DWDM to cover a neighborhood, and then use SONET to hit every house, but who wants a DS3 or less to their home?
Personally, I'd rather have a wave on the
-- No sig for you!
The electricity meters never materialized (the vendor went bankrupt before delivery) but they have gigabit internet to everyone who wants it, for about $50 a month. The endeavor, rather than costing money in a public boondoggle (as a previous poster suggested) has turned a good profit, and avoided the horrid cost of a failed public project (the non-extant power meters).
Because they had it in before the recent rulings on this subject, the people in the tiny farming town of Ephrata get far more bandwidth than us here in town, for far less.
There's a similar story in Tacoma, WA, where if you live inside the city limits you can get cable and 10Mbps internet from the municipal power company for a fraction of what I pay just for cable. Just over the city line (and served by the same power company)? Can't help ya.
I like my Comcast cable Internet. It only goes down for a few minutes at a time a few times a month. It's got 3Mbps down and 768K up. I couldn't go back to DSL. The price is steep though, and they won't ever have any competition to speak of to drive their prices down. I sure do envy those folks whose government was looking out for them. But not enough to move to Ephrata (the sticks) or Tacoma (uptown).
We are all just a WAP wizard away from ubiquitous WiFi. Be the wizard!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Fire companies were originally private enterprises... and for many of them, they'd only fight fires at insured homes. Private companies do contract to municipalities. More often than just fire services though, are private ambulance services. These can be found virtually anywhere. American Medical Response is HUGE, and they answer 911 calls.
SIG: HUP