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FCC May Push Bells to Unbundle DSL
Carl Bialik writes "The FCC is nearing approval of two big phone deals -- Verizon-MCI and SBC-AT&T -- according to people familiar with the situation cited by the Wall Street Journal. But regulators are considering requiring asset sales and other moves, including the offering of unbundled DSL, 'without requiring consumers -- mostly home users -- to subscribe to phone service. Verizon already allows some customers to do that, but SBC doesn't. ... Patrick Mahoney, an analyst at Yankee Group, said that traditional phone lines are cash cows, so allowing customers to buy Internet access without traditional phone service would be costly to telecom providers.'"
Sure you *can* get it unbundled, but you would loose out on the special $100 per month discount for having both services... and who wants $140 per month DSL just so it can be unbundled??
Only if you add a bunch of features. I have a land line for a security alarm system. Local incoming free, local outgoing $0.02/minute. No voice mail, call waiting, caller id, long distance, etc. $12/month.
Well, I know quite a few people who would get DSL without the phone service. And I'm one of them.
We all use our cell phones to make all our calls, local and long-distance. We don't need a land line anymore. Yet we're forced to pay for one because of our DSL. Sure, there's cable, but I (we) don't want to pay $40+ a month for cable internet when we can get SBC DSL for $15 a month.
http://www.speakeasy.com/ already offers a "naked DSL" option, but they do charge a premium for it over standard DSL-- and they're not even a phone company.
Ideally with companies being required to separate the two there will be companies like Speakeasy that are now able to offer unbundled connectivity without charging extra for it.
We can but hope, anyway...
try this one, instead: Speakeasy.NET -- NOT computational econometric software... but, as you say, naked dsl.
Anyway isn't this another one of those Rhythms/Covad/Northpoint etc. companies. They collocate in the Central Offices and rely on the Bells if some particular piece of fit hits the shan. I NEVER understood how that model could work; dsl service is basically a commodity meaning: no room for a middleman reseller.
For all I know SpeakEasy has its own copper wire loops and central offices, though...
I'm not entirely clear how dsl/cable access is achieved for customers in the u.s.... up here in canada it's sort of a monopoly for cable access, depending on which region you're in. For DSL, I believe many companies offer service in the same localities.. service is good, I get mine through cogeco cable, downtime in the last two or three years i could count with one hand (in hours.) The speed is decent as well, I regularly get 500KiloBytes/sec download from torrent sites and my upload speed maxes out at 85 KiloBytes/sec (very easy to keep my ratios at 1.5:1 or better.)
Many of my friends have experienced the same with DSL, although it doesnt seem as robust as cable when I'm using it... maybe responsive is a better adjective to use.. Even people out in the small towns from the cities, 40-100 miles still have decent broadband service.
Since a land-line here doesn't save you from per-minute charges, half of them don't even bother and just use the mobiles for everything.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Some good news coming from the FCC for a change. As an independant ISP using SBC transport it's been a huge pet peeve that they subsidize their DSL costs with their phone service(s). Until this new jerk got into the FCC it was actually illegal subsidization that was putting an unfair advantage in the hands of the telcos.
Of course the fact that DSL is provided over a phone network that was built with tax dollars then handed over to the telcos to be maintained doesn't mean anything anymore...so why shouldn't they have a government sponsored monopoly.
Of course this is flame bait for people who don't understand the way the economy works and how people like myself are important for getting services into remote areas that neither cable or the telcos actually care about until people like myself start complaining that we have large amounts of customers that went it in that area.
The short answer is yes, pricing is arbitrary.
The Bells own the copper so they can basically charge as much as they please. Granted, they shove two services over the same pair of wires so one could argue that the only overhead for the telco would be the bandwidth but you also have to add in the switching equipment, wages for technicians, support costs and maintenance. On the flip side, the Bells are using infrastructure that was bought and paid for decades ago and they're basically squeezing every possible revenue stream out of their equipment so their costs aren't really any higher (other than bandwidth) to deliver DSL to a customer.
The Bell's argument for not allowing unbundled pairs (dsl only) has to do with the regulatory requirements placed on DSL service. Now that DSL is classified as an unregulated information service that argument loses merit. Also keep in mind that VoIP is also unregulated for the most part. Add to this the fact that the Bells are beginning to convert portions of their networks to VoIP while building new, high performance ATM networks optimized to carry VoIP traffic. My guess is that the Bells will begin to offer unbundled DSL loops and shortly after this becomes available they will roll out VoIP services. This would allow the Bells to deliver high-speed Internet and dial tone over unregulated mediums essentially bypassing the bulk of the regulations and taxes placed upon telecommunications saving them a heap of money.
I may be way out in left field on this but after having a few discussions with my account managers as well as technicians working for one of the Bells I think this is where they are heading. Bells are HUGE profit driven corporations so they are always looking for new ways to generate revenue, usually at the expense of competition.
This is somewhat of a long-winded reply that has strayed off course a bit but hopefully I've made my point. I'm not going to pretend that I am some sort of authority on how the Bells operate. I am basing my reply on observations I have made and personal experience. I'm just throwing my two cents into the pot.
So...."allowing customers to buy Internet access without traditional phone service would be costly to telecom providers."
Wrong. They are not entitled to profits. McDonalds doesn't lose money if you don't buy a hamburger. A business doesn't lose money if you buy the competition's product.
On the other hand, we all get screwed when businesses look at consumers as owing them profitablility. These Telecom's are the same folks trying to prevent cities from providing public internet access. As Joe Consumer, what costs them neccessarily pleases me.
Not when Time Warner won't sell me the cable connection without taking up cable service!
At least my phone bill hasn't gone up 40% in the past two years. I'm not making the typical antiCable complaint here, I'm just saying that for the record my phone bill hasn't gone up since 2000. They've added features and even thrown in free long distance (30 minutes per month) but they haven't raised the price.
Vonage isn't even old enough to tell what they will do. Besides, we get a lot of bad storms here - I'd like to talk on the phone when the power goes out without using a UPS or gas generator.
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