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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."
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.