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FCC Reclassifies DSL, Drops Common Carrier Rules
Neil Wehneman writes "Via Media Law Prof Blog, it is reported that the FCC has reclassified broadband service as an "information service" instead of "telecommunications". This, among other things, gives the Baby Bells the same gift the cable companies got with Brand X : the right to stop opening their lines to competitors."
As broadband is becoming more widely available it is becoming easier to switch providers, as well.
It won't be so easy if all that's left is the local monoploy cable company and the local monopoly phone company.
It's about time they did this, goverment interference in the economy will, in the long run, screw people over. As broadband is becoming more widely available it is becoming easier to switch providers, as well.
It's been my experience that corporations are far more likely to screw people over than governments. Libertarian capitalism, like communism, looks good on paper but fails utterly in reality.
I have DSL through a smaller carrier (TDS Metrocom, lines owned by SBC, I believe). Sounds like my service is in jeopardy. But won't this kill phone service, too? I mean, if DSL rides on your voice line, and SBC can tell TDS they can't sell me DSL, I'll have to drop TDS entirely to keep DSL. Or switch to cable for Internet access and pay another 900# gorilla. Sigh.
Yes, its mostly modern fiber and VOIP internally, but there's copper to every house, and poles, and those discrete switching stations in the bushes. Who paid for all that? Since we (the US Taxpayers) did (whether its good or bad is irrelevant to this discussion), it should be open to all.
Those who live by the government teat (Telcos) should have to die by it, too.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I don't understand.
Surely this means that the local "Baby Bell" will be able to prevent other companies from using the infrastructure, either directly or by pricing them out of the market?
If so ... how does this help the consumer? Who lobbied for this? And why was it done? TFA has little detail and the FCC press release seems to be more self-servient than anything else.
Now ... if the price they sell broadband at is $29.95/month, but they will only sell line access to the competing ISP at $39.95/month, the ISP cannot compete.
In Australia Tel$tra did just this (briefly) and got a slap on the wrist from our consumer agency, the ACCC. Is there a similar organisation in the US? Is that what the FCC press release is commenting on in the 2nd last para:
As it might be clear to the average US citizen by now, is that monopolies are detested by the US goverment. They do everything in their power to break foreign monopolies to give US companies a fair chance in the big bad foreign world.
What is also clear by now is that for inside the US there are different rules. Good luck! I live in a foreign country and the weirdest things happen under the name of free market (like jeopardizing the electricity network), but everything gets more expensive because of this. You (US citizen) however are in the lucky situation that things happen in reverse, and everything will get more expensive.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
So much for market forces, eh?
Adam Smith considered 'the free market' to be a good number of small merchants. Big business produces the same sorts of centralized stupidity as big government -- especially when it has a (pseudo) monopoly.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
IS not to protect consumers.
The dropping of common carrier status also removes any protection of content. Now the ISP will be liable for content that passes over their lines.
The 'consumer' no longer will have a right to privacy, since its no longer considered 'telecommunications', which was protected.
So its not about protecting us, its about controlling and monitoring us. Oh, and if it happens to make the big campaign contributors a few bucks along the way, all the better.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No, the republican party stands for the republican party, that's all. Professional politicians are the last people you should turn to to run a country.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
There's a lot of moaning and doom and gloom in this thread, but I think most people have overlooked the one problem with the business of DSL resellers:
They're selling something they don't own.
Think about it, what do local DSL providers actually provide? They provide a link between your computer and some internet backbone. And how is this link made? By going over "the last mile" of copper, which is owned by the phone company. How does it make any sense for someone to sell service on a wire they don't own? That's like having the Canadian government collect tolls in one set of booths on I-95: it might add "competition" in the sense that now there's more than one group competing to be your toll booth, but it doesn't change the physical facts of the highway. Traffic is going to be just as bad, pot holes aren't going to go away, and if anything the situation will be made worse, since the transit company in charge of the actual highway isn't going to see as much profit for the changes it makes.
So basically, we as consumers are essentially screwed, because it's only natural that whoever controls the last mile exerts a natural monopoly over internet service, right? Well no, not exactly.
How the consumer can escape being screwed is, while competition over the same set of lines is basically impossible, there are multiple sets of "last miles" coming into our houses already today. To point out the obvious: cable. Now, in a lot of areas, cable service is shitty, but that's only because cable has little competition for TV service, outside of satellite, and little competition for broadband service, outside of DSL. And the DSL service is always weak, because it hasn't been in the interests of the phone companies to make DSL service better.
But, all of this can change, because of A) new pressures from wireless internet services and B) this new ruling which lets the people who own the last mile of DSL finally act like they own the last mile of DSL.
So essentially, we are going to have to give up fake competition within the realm of DSL in order to achieve real competition between DSL and cable. And that's not a bad tradeoff, in my book.
Yeah, they spent $millions or $billions, sure. Over 100 years. And most of those $millions or $billions were MATCHED with taxpayer dollars - incentives, free gifts of right-of-way, etc. The telephone network was built with the help of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars, over DECADES. It could not be "rebuilt" by any competitor, no matter how well financed, in anything less than another few decades - and even then, they most likely would not be able to legally acquire the same rights-of-way that were given to the telco when it was a monopoly.
You want to be a free-market capitalist? Fine, so do I. In a free market, you have to pay for value received. The telcos want a monopoly over their partially-taxpayer funded network? No problem. Let's calculate how much taxpayer support they've received over the past 100 years, bill them, with interest, and then they can be allowed to have exclusive control over their lines.
THAT'S free market. What the FCC has just done is corporate welfare - big companies sucking off of the public tit and pushing the smaller puppies away.