Slashdot Mirror
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."
You should be receiving your subpoena for my lawsuit demanding equal access to first posts in 5 to 7 business days.
DSL is theft anyway. I don't know what insane trickery is involved in allowing voice AND data go over the same medium, but I don't like it. It smacks of devil-worship.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
If cable companies paid to put in their infrastructure, why should they be required to share it? Or, worded differently, did the govt. help pay to put in their system?
Could someone please explain this "regulations" thing to non-americans?
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
is the FCC. They started this new philosophy of "let's deregulate, and all our problems will go away," and look what happened. The media sources are consolidating, and the telcos are consolidating. Did the FCC WANT this to happen? Sometimes I think so, since it seems so damn obvious that it would. Why would you EVER want to monopolise the cable and telephone lines? How is DSL NOT an information service? The FCC has to recognise that whether it's IP over coax or fibre or phone line or WHATEVER, it's still internet service. They've just really turned the wrong way in the last few years, and it's hurting us all.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
If the cable companies are forced to open their networks, it would hopefully allow one to eventually obtain "naked cable." I'd like cable internet access, but the price for non-subscribers is $20 over their already inflated price.
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
I hope it happens. It'd be nice to finally be able to get better than 2mbit down and 256kbit up.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
One possible bad outcome from this is that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate any of it. ... and the Phone company ( was one big one, then baby bells and now ...) and the cable companies and do what ever they want .....the courts are going more and more big bisness..
The Technology exists for the Telco's to improve DSL, such as ADSL2 and ADSL2+... not to mention Reach Extended ADSL.... The big problem is the Telco's have been slow to upgrade or really take full advantage of the available technology. They have repeatedly gone to the FCC crying that Cable doesn't need to share their lines, and that being forced to abide by the Equal Access rules it is holding them back. As a result, there have been many cases (such as the recent Anti-muni FCC ruling, or even Bellsouth's recent "Naked DSL" victory) in which a Bell has used the fact that Cable doesn't have to share in order to have a ruling in their favor, allowing them more in the way of monopoly control over DSL technology.
"High-speed Internet connections are not telephones," HA!
While this could be a good thing for customers there are several technical considerations to look at. 1. There is not enough upstream bandwidth in a typical cable plant for several providers to provide their own service over a seperate cmts. 2. If multiple service providers try to offer their brand of "service" over the same cmts there wouldn't be a difference in service from what there is today (Except content) If one provider tried to sell a higher bandwidth package it would affect customers from all different providers on the same cmts. 3. Who pay's to maintain, power, and house the cmts ? The way that dsl ir provided (Each ISP installing their own DSLAM) works great because there is a seperation of where the last mile to the customer terminates - The only leased telco facilty is the copper from the service address to the CO. If service providers had to share the same DSLAM and had a limit of bandwidth that could be provided dsl would be a huge disaster.
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.
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.
Here, let me download you a copy.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I'm going to break up your argument into two issues. That of sharing the lines and that of having two different companies playing under different rules.
Sharing the lines is something most are in favor of but I am not going to get into that.
Right now Telecos are forced by regulation to share their lines that they laid down and maintain for a fee that is around cost. That gives no one a reason to upgrade the networks. And BTW they are working to upgrading to fibre not measley ADSL2+. Having full control of their own lines meand that they can make a profit sooner and have more incentive to do so. They need to compete with cable, afterall.
Cable, on the other hand, supplies internet as well and is under no compulsion to share in either the internet of TV market. This gives them great reason to expand as they have a captive market on their lines and with a few small upgrades can drive the phone companies out of the business.
Cable offers TV and internet and is looking at doing phone. Telcos do phone and internet and are looking at doing TV. Why should one be forced to open up their lines and not the other for the same service? As for competition, they are already competing with each other (or the Telcos are trying but the forced line issue is incentive to not try) so why not have a level playing field to expand the competition?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I always hate how aprtment complexs always try to tell people that only one type of broadband service is available in their buildings. Liek where I live now, they told me I would have to go through Qwest. Meaning I would have to have Qwest phone service plus shitty Qwest DSL. Instead I called Speakeasy, had Covad come out and install some sort of bypass so I dont' need a phone line, and now i have 6mbit down 768 up with tons of extras for $100 a month, and I can resell the bandwidth on a wireless access point. Screw telcos.
The deal with a common carrier is that a common carrier has to accept anyone's traffic. ie. If the railroad ships wheat for company X then they can not refuse to ship wheat for company Y.
Cable did not start as a common carrier. It started with small providers grabbing signals off the air and stuffing them into the cable to sell to their subscribers. Since they weren't charging the TV stations to get their signals to the subscribers, they weren't acting as common carriers. They weren't charging people to get their signals somewhere.
Telegraph started out as common carrier in that if they sent messages for company X, they had to send messages for company Y.
Telephone is a common carrier because they were forced to be one. I think that will happen to the cable companies too. The minute they started dabbling in internet services and telephone, they opened the gate and they won't be able to shut it.
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."
Or, it could allow the Court to redress what it may see as a fact no longer in existence. They could decide that equal access is unenforceable regardless, in which case the telcos would be allow to prevent competitors from using their equipment.
You can never tell in these cases because the SC can be thinking anything. But I do agree, it will have an impact.
The FCC is supposedly there to help the public out by regulating phones, internet, RF, etc ... Why would they appeal this sort of thing? It should be blatently obvious to anyone that opening up cable lines to outside companies is in the public interest (even if the cable companies gripe and do a half-ass job at it). I mean, sure, they can defend themselves in the first suit just to defend themselves. But why appeal it? This is ridiculous. The operation of the cable companies as monopolies is obvious ... with their erroneous fees here and there, their slow service, the whole "wait 60 days until you get service again", bundling services so you can't get internet unless you have cable, etc, etc. None of this stuff would be as bad as it currently is if there was true competition, because they would be out of business at the drop of a hat! I think the FCC positions need to be elected or something, so at least there is SOME pressure to serve the public interest.
Having both, I can say that they both have their advantages.
DSL - static IP address, more upstream bandwidth, liberal use policy
Cable modem - more downstream bandwidth, and in a few cases about 2 hops closer to key backbones
Would I give up either? Not unless I can no longer afford to. They're both down up to 3 days a month, and thankfully those 3 days haven't overlapped yet. Plus, since I use a real linux router, and not some lameass linksys piece of shit, I can make use of both simultaneously. Not just failover, mind you, but round-robin connection marking through both. Can I download a single large file, making use of both? Not yet...
But supposing I scrape together enough talent to patch wget, I might be able to download a piece of the file over each, simultaneously.
So, let's just stop with the cable vs. dsl bullshit already, folks. Whichever you can get, or if both, whichever suits you, is best. It wasn't so long ago that we were all struggling along on 28.8k modems anyway.
This is silly.. if you don't like the cable company, work to change it.
EVERY cable company must have a contract with the local city/town to operate.
I worked at a public access TV station in a small town during this. They are usually 3-7 year contracts, the cable comittee is usually made up of people from the town/city.
Our managed to get MediaOne (at the time) to give free cable modems to all the schools, as well as free cable service, on top of what they were required to give the public access TV station. They also had to agree to offer high speed access across the entire town in 2 years or less.
It came VERY close to dumping them and going with Adelphia.. if that happened then everybody in the the town would switch to Adelphia and MediaOne (now Comcast) would have been OUT.
Also, you can get Earthlink service over cable via Comcast..
Free Mac Mini
To me, an information service sends data one way, from provider to consumer. A telecommunications service allows two-way communication.
The Internet's most popular service is e-mail.
What if the Postal Service was (privatized and) declared an information service? Would I no longer be able to send letters to some addresses because they belong to a different carrier service? Would I have to pay extra postage for cross-carrier service?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
ILECs complain that they can't make any money. They all want in the long distance and wireless business, not the margin challenged local business and whine about how legislation prevents that and they do their best to use passive aggressive behaviour like dragging their feet on third party DSL installations.
Unlike the post office, telcos don't have to provide service to remote locations, so they don't. Residents of remote areas usually set up co-ops to run their local phone service. The strange thing is that they typically have much better service because of it even though their physical costs are higher.
Putting these two observations together, here's what I propose:
Force all ILECs to sell their local exchanges to the residents of that exchange who run them as co-ops. Allow the ILECs to change their business model to compete with long distance providers. Allow individual residents to choose from any long distance provider who's willing to hook up to their local exchange.
Do the same thing with cable providers. The local cable 'exchange' runs cables to the neighbourhood, and individual users get to choose, which cable content providers they get hooked up to with video, radio and ISP service being independently selectable.
This system allows for competition on content and services, while putting the part of the system that needs to be a monopoly in the hands of the people who are most interested in and affected by the actions of the monopoly.
There are lots of details left out here, but this should get the germ of the idea across.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
The problem is that the Telco's originally promised Fiber several years ago, and they keep going to the FCC trying to change their plans...using the Cable situation as their reasons. For instance, many Telcos originally said they would do fiber to the house... then they said to the curb.... and now I think Verizon has said they will only run Fiber to the remote terminal. If nothing more, this will remove the Telco's ability to blame things on the cable company's ability to play by different rules. And it will prevent a Duo-opoly between the telco and the cable company.
I thought cable was already opened for broadband competition. Here in Central Florida, there is only one cable provider in most areas (Bright House Netorks, with a bit of overbuild with Adelphia and or Cox in some areas), but where broadband ISPs are concerned, everywhere that Bright House Networks offers service, you have the choice of any of 4 ISPs.
Bright House themselves doesn't have a 'house brand' (Road Runner is considered by some to be the house brand, but Bright House owns no stake in Road Runner as far as I know), but I thought this was exactly the thing that caused them to add other providers 2-3 years ago.
What did I miss? Is it the case with Bright Hosue that they didn't necessarily have to allow competition but decided to anyway?
Long signatures suck.
Huh? Cable systems don't either, neither do landline phones.. They're in charge of communications, not just broadcasting.
As for limiting access.. is a double edged sword. If anyone can run a server and any computer zombie can do whatever it wants upstream it could drive the effective bandwidth way down for other users. OTOH, I agree that if you're paying for Internet you should get Internet, not some subset of the Internet that Comcast feels you're entitled to.
Actually the DSL vs Cable speed and price, which is a function of "competition" is only part of what the case is about. More important is the fact that as an information service Cable is able to refuse to carry certain CONTENT. This allows discrimination in terms of what you, as a user, can offer yourself, hence the restrictive terms about running your own server, etc. Setting up Server farms and creating on-line movie rental stores is impossible - the cable company has locked you out. There are other ramifications - the thing is, when you eliminate open and equal access you can never really say what would have evolved. The internet only evolved because the telcos were not ALLOWED to say what the content of the traffic was.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
I'd really appreciate more competition for Cable internet. I'm too far for any DSL options, and i've gotten really annoyed with the cable connection from Charter. When I forst got the service, I was really happy with it. 1.5mbps down and 768kbps up. You'd like to think that years after the original service prices would decrease, and faster bandwidth options would open up. Instead the reverse has happened. Prices gradually went up, and bandwidth varied. For a while I was getting 2mbps down and 128kbps up. The increase in down bandwidth I didn't really care about, but cutting upload bandwidth to 1/6th, that was horrid! They finally relented and changed it to 3mbps down and 256kbps up. The change in download bandwidth hasn't really mattered to me, and the upload bandwidth is still 1/3rd the original rate.
I assume this likely occured because in the first few years, they didn't have too many customers and had plenty of room on the infrastructure, but now that its getting more crowded. I'd hope competition would hopefully encourage spending effort on increasing bandwidth options, even if that requires laying down more lines.
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.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)