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FCC Considers Deregulation of DSL
Phlatline_ATL writes "In an article on ArsTechnica, they explore the FCC's current consideration to reclassify DSL as an information service and as such would no longer require the telcos to lease out their lines. This seems like it would effectively make the telcos the exclusive DSL broadband providers." From the article: " So after six months to a year it would be goodbye Earthlink and Speakeasy, hello SBC DSL monopoly (in the case of Chicago, where I live). So the telcos would get what they want, which is no competition while the consumers get screwed. But it's perfectly logical under the FCC's definition of broadband competition, where they want cable to compete with DSL--and hopefully IP over power lines and WiMax down the road."
"If only we were allowed to keep their lines all to ourselves," they say, "we would hurry to get fiber laid to every house in the land and offer faster and wider range of services."
It's not exactly as if DSL has been a "competitor" by any means in any area I have lived in. Its distance requirements, slow speeds, and typical poor telco customer service has always lagged behind services offered by Cable. This is speaking only from my limited experience with four different DSL providers and two cable providers so obviously YMMV.
When I first got DSL in the summer of 1998 from Epix/Commonwealth in PA it was 640/160 and remained that until 2003 (IIRC, I wasn't living at home anymore) at which time they bumped the service to 1.5/384 to "compete" with Adelphia cable. Five years stuck at half the speeds? Problem was that there was NO competition because Adelphia was only broadband downstream and analog upstream in many areas for quite some time.
Out at college we got DSL in the fall of 1999 when we moved into an apartment. Verizon offered the lines and we took up the local freenet ISP as they were cheap. They were offering 768/128 on overcooked DSLAM racks (two racks per T1 instead of one rack per T1 like it was supposed to be) and speeds were consistently in the 40kB/s range. No one would take blame and would always finger point at the other guy (it's the ISP's fault, no it's Verizon's fault!)
Roadrunner came to town in the fall of 2000 and we dropped DSL quickly. While our latency in online gaming went up so did our download speeds. At first it was a bit over 1.5mbs but quickly went up to 3mbs. There was no finger pointing as RR handled both the ISP and the line. Was it good? Certainly for me it was. Faster speeds, less downtime, and no finger pointing. Comcast was smooth in MN but working for them in OH I knew that there could be serious issues (depending on your location) with speeds, intermittent bloc-sync, etc. 1.5mbs and then 3.0mbs w/o any real problems. Problem here was DSL wasn't even available and if it was, it was only 640/128 for more money...
My idea of DSL being competitive changed only slightly when I moved in August of 2004 to a house that offered Charter (no servers w/blocked ports) and DSL (Frontier and ISP choice). I went with Frontier and Visi (local kick ass ISP that allows servers). For once in my DSL using life I am happy w/the speeds (currently 3712/448) and the service. Visi handles everything for me so I just contact one point. I would be *extremely* upset if I had to go back to Frontier as they don't allow online bill pay, aren't very nice on customer support, and are likely not as knowledgeable as Visi's guys. Charter, charging $39.99/mo for the Internet (I think it was only $11 for CATV making it a total of $52) was a ton less money than Visi/Frontier at over $60 (requiring me to have a voice line and the $25/mo ISP charge). For most the price alone is a no brainer. For me, because of the server issue, the couple extra bucks is worth it.
So in all those years Cable hasn't improved all that much and neither has regulated DSL. So where's the competition driving faster speeds? How will deregulating DSL do anything?
It's sometimes better for the customer to use the same line and ISP and it's sometimes better to use the ISP different from the line, but it's *always* better to give the customer a choice.
So, the FCC is going to "do us a favor" and push for businesses to continue to fuck their customers over? Freedom to choose is always a better option to than freedom for businesses to do what they want... They have proven time and time again that they don't have competition as they already charge astronomical rates for the lines. They probably can make more money by finger pointing and less staffed CSRs for their own ISP. What incentives do they have to move to high capacity lines if the only other option is Cable? None. Especially when it's in the best interests of the Cable company to keep their available down
Okay- say what you will about deregulation, whatever. The issue to me, is that these lines are on public property, and in public airspace... Would another company be allowed to build poles and run lines right next the current lines? If not, it seems that the phone companies should have to share/lease them out at a fair price.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Would another company be allowed to build poles and run lines right next the current lines?
McLeod has Fiber running 150 feet from my house along County Rd 46. I don't have access to those lines and they are likely sharing the "public space".
So why are they being treated differently? If we are going to regulate/deregulate due to public space I want access to that Fiber.
I've been with Speakeasy for almost 5 years and would not consider another provider. When I first signed up, it was a bit rocky getting online (took about 3 months while they coordinated with the local phone company and the Covad middle layer) but since then I have moved from coast to coast a couple times and had no trouble bringing my service with me. Other than at the very beginning, I've had virtually NO downtime -- ran into a little trouble when my DSL modem started failing, but they can hardly be held responsible for that.
Furthermore, they have eminently reasonable policies. You are allowed to use your DSL connection as a full and proper connection to the internet -- they have no arbitrary restrictions on services you can run. It's not a download-only pipe like the Telco and cable companies want to sell you. They do their best to support you running any OS you want and the techs I've spoken with are actually sharp enough to help you outside of a script. Not only that, but they have some authority to do what it takes to get the job done. All the while, you have access to the communications logs between the Speakeasy techs and the local telco and other parties involved in providing the line.
The existence of a company like this, IMO, indicates that there is demand for services the telcos are unwilling or unable to provide. They footed part of the bill to run the wires to your house, so they should get some return. That's why Speakeasy *rents* the line from them and adds their markup on top. There's no reason that the telco needs to bundle ISP services with the telco line. If I think the telco has a good pipe but offers crappy ISP service, it makes sense that I can opt out of their ISP offerings. The architecture is already in place to let me do this.
Furthermore, the telcos did not foot the entire bill for running the wires. Government assistance and tax dollars helped set up the network. They're part of the public infrastructure and they knew that when they got in the business. They therefore have responsibilities not only to their shareholders, but to the society that they bargained with to get their business in the firstplace.
What is wrong is that the ILEC's (SBC, Verizon, etc) have had 100+ years as a protected monopoly to build their networks on the backs of their captive customer base.
CLEC's and other DSL providers have had since the 1996 Telecom Act to try to build a business in the face of the 800 lb gorilla.
It is silly to act like the ILEC's have been successful by building a business just like anyone else does. They haven't. They had the enormous advantage of being the only game in town for a long, long time.
What we need is structural separation.
Break each Babay Bell into two units.
One being a regulated company that owns the outside plant. It would be required to sell access to everyone equally at requlated, cost-based rates.
Take the switching and retail side of the company and put it into another, un-regulated unit. This company would buy loops from the regulated company just like every other CLEC does.
Of course this is pie in the sky.
The Baby Bell's have far too much lobbying power for this to ever happen.
As a Speakeasy customer who relies on their static to get work done, I was greatly alarmed by this article on Ars when it was posted yesterday. So, I did a little digging, and found this article. From it, I learned that the FCC is now only considering dropping the requirements that carriers must resell their finished DSL services, not the actual CLECs that rent the lines and have phsyical equipment in COs such as Covad. The following quote from the article illisutrates their evolving position:
Since Speakeasy resells Covad services (or at least they do in my case), Speakeasy isn't going anywhere. Granted, no agreement has been met yet, but it appears that a block of the FCC Commissioners is looking out for us. It is a bit disturbing to FCC mucking with these rules in anyway. It is clear that they don't understand the degree of reliance folks have on these services for their livelihoods.
If the FCC is going to deregulate DSL as a info service then the phone companies should be required to offer naked DSL. Currently, BellSouth requires all DSL customers to have a full service phone line. Other bells have the naked DSL option.