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Cable Equal Access Case Goes to Supreme Court
DCTooTall writes "The FCC has ruled that Cable High-Speed Internet is an Information Service, and therefore not subject to the same equal access regulations that govern DSL. Brand-X Networks sued the FCC for equal access to the Cable Networks and won. The FCC appealed the decision and next Tuesday the case goes to the Supreme Court. The Telco's have repeatedly used the current FCC stance on Cable Broadband in their fight to get the same monopoly on DSL. This case has the potential to not only open the Cable networks to competition, but also prevent the Telco's from further attempts on limiting DSL options."
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As far as I can see, the issue here whether the cable network should be opened in the same was as the phone network. However, isn't it the case that the phone network is considered to be a public asset whereas the cable network is a private one? This is certainly the case in the UK where the phone network is a public network that is gradually being made open to any internet supplier. However, there's no reason that I can see that Telewest or NTL should be expected to open a network that they put there own private money into. Is this not exactly the same thing? If it is, although one might like the cable company to open it's networks, it doesn't seem to me that there is any obligation or regulation that should expect it.
Unfortunately, you're suffering from, apparently, the same lack of understanding that the FCC is.
There are two services in play, here.
The first is DSL or cable modem service, which are clearly telecommunications services. These are the actual DSL or cable modem signalling over the wire.
Then there's the Internet Access overtop of the DSL or cable modem service. This is correctly classified by the FCC as an information service. Their problem (and apparently yours as well) is that they/you don't realize that DSL and cable modem service isn't *inherently* Internet service. DSL has, quite successfully, been used for non-Internet services, and cable modems could easily be used in the same ways. The FCC's stance on DSL and cable modem service, however, has made most of these uses uneconomical. A more reasonable stance, that takes into consideration of the layered nature of networking technologies, would much more realistically align the regulatory environment with the real world...both technically, and wrt competitiveness. (Internet service is competitive, DSL transport service is notsomuch).
Jeff
The FCC is basically offering the cable companies a de facto monopoly on cable internet in order to ensure that more people can get connected and the size of the network is increased. After all, if the cable company has a monopoly, the only way it can really grow is to hook up more people.
But if, on the other hand, other companies are permitted to use the network, the cable companies may feel that expanding their network is not worth the cost, thus preventing people from ever getting high-speed internet.
Personally, I think it's a relatively hard decision to make. Allowing the monopoly screws over those people who already can get cable internet, but offers the greatest incentive to extend access to more people. Not allowing the monopoly gives cheaper prices to those with cable internet, but pretty much ensures that the networks won't get expanded, especially to more rural areas.
Perhaps a compromise of a limited-time monopoly would be best. Cable companies get a 5-year monopoly on new networks, and afterwards must open them up to competition.
but I've never gotten "information" from my cable modem provider. All they sell is a pipe and the information comes from elsewhere. It's not that much different than using the telephone, in which case the "information" comes from the people I call, not the phone company.
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Interestingly enough, the telcos getting monopoly status over their lines may lead to an increase in competition:
Telcos upgrade to fibre to the home to compete with cable (Verizon is doing this).
Cable operators drop price/increase bandwidth to compete with Telcos.
Telcos offer Video services.
Cable offers better deals to compete.
Cable offers phone service to compete with Telcos.
Telcos offer better deals to compete.
At this point in technology the two are evolving into natural competitors on multiple fronts.
If the cable corps have to open the lines, it can mean more competition on that front. Either way so long as the status quo is not maintained consumers come out ahead.
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Telco's, utilties, etc have what is called a natural monopoly. These are services with little or no differentiation(1), high barriers to entry(2), and a market winner determined solely based on number of customers (due to high fixed costs)(3). Take electric utilities as an example.
(1)Electricity is pretty much the same, there's not a way to sell Enchanced Electricity(TM).
(2)The cost of every company that wanted to provide electricity building power lines would be ridiculous, there is no way that an new comer could displace an incumbent.
(3)Due to the fixed cost nature of a network infrastructure, the guy with the most customers has the highest margins. The problem then is that even vastly inefficient incumbents will continue to be the only players in the market. Forcing companies to allow competitors to their distribution infrastructure allows competition and lower costs.
However, setting the rent the competitor pays to the distribution network's owner is hard. What is this access really worth? In most questions of price "the market" determines the price, but in this case there is no market, since your customer is your competitor and therefore you would charge prices sufficient to drive your competitor/customer out of business. Therefore gov't has to set these prices and gov't sucks at this. People in general suck at setting prices, but without "the market" its what you have to do.
Too many cooks.
I love how many people glom onto this corporate bashing stance of forcing "competition" without any idea of the technical wherewithal involved in making it happen and the degredation of service in the near, mid, and long term.
I've worked for DSL CLECs which had resellers self-branding what they sold for another partner ISP which actually supplied the IPs and had a layer two frame or atm circuit to us and we had one then onward to a partner CLEC which held the facilities where we didn't have a build and from them over ILEC copper to the customer using a customer owned CPE.
Can you say clusterf*ck? I knew you'd try.
Occam's Razor applies here.
On top of this, are we going to legally require the cable companies to give away connections for free? No? Then we can add the charge they give to the competing ISP on to whatever the other ISP charges the customer.
It gets better kids. Think about this... How big are the cable providers' fiber nets? Many of them either own a load of their own or they combine their sizeable assets with others. We're not talking a couple DS3s on a dial-up ISP here, we're talking major OC fiber lines handling hugantic ginormous (thank you Bruce Almighty) amounts of data quite well every day.
I'm supposed to want someone other than my cable company for what reason? So I can say that my last mile is cable but the undersized backhaul is on an overutilized interface on an underpowered Cisco router administered by some nineteen year old cert whore? So that I can say I'm doing business with TWO different entities instead of one? So that I can say my ISP is a mom and pop (or t-shirt wearing crew of Linux geeks) unlike those big corporate cable people (in polo shirts)?
If you want something done right, you use the right tools and methods, and you do it with intent to succeed. You don't host a mission critical commercial web server on a DSL line, you have it hosted professionally on a good pipe. You host a personal vanity server on DSL.
Similarly, my broadband is too important to sacrifice to some so-called competitor's vanity. Even today in DSL we still see ISPs taken seriously whose idea of a NOC is two teens occasionally taking time out from their endless Half-Life game to run pings in five or six windows and don't even know what Matt's Traceroute is, never mind even know how to check the atm traffic on their own router. Such have been contributory to the disasterous collapse of some CLECs. I know, I used to work with such yahoos and was there when they helped down us.
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