FCC Weighs Net Access Charge Decision

An anonymous reader writes "The FCC is considering a request from AT&T to lift restrictions on the types of charges they can level against competitors that use their infrastructure. The organization had previously allowed that for Verizon by virtue of a deadlock, and Ma Bell now hopes to see similar treatment. 'All the requests have been strongly opposed by smaller rivals such as Sprint Nextel, Time Warner Telecommunications and XO Communications. These competitors argue that they have few alternatives to get access to the high-speed lines they need, and are being charged more and more by the dominant carriers.'"

Comments

I'd hate to see it

[techpawn]

Analysts say the five-member FCC is split over the issue between Republicans and Democrats. One of the three Republicans, Robert McDowell, holds the swing vote.

I know it's too much to ask but can this be decided on merit and not on partisanship?

Welcome to America

[hellfire]

I know it's too much to ask but can this be decided on merit and not on partisanship?

You must be new to this country...

Re:Good

[Mr. Slippery]

In essence Sprint is just a reseller of at&ts' product. Let them come out with their own product to compete.

AT&T got all kinds of subsidies and grants of right-of-way to build their infrastructure. The theory was that this was in exchange for access.

Re:Good

[bevoblake]

Unfortunately, companies need money to finance technology research. Sprint has already "bet the farm" on WiMax, which, if it doesn't work out, will put them out of business. So, they've already put their money where their mouth is to try to use technology to solve their problems and don't have any additional financing to re-create a fiber grid.

When you break it down, AT&T is suspiciously close to using monopolistic practices to defeat smaller competitors. As AT&T was once a government-created monopoly, the government should've done a better job policing their push back towards monopoly status. Unfortunately, our current administration uses a very light hand when it comes to enforcing anti-monopoly laws (I'd reference the way the Justice Dept backed off of Microsoft and the way they've let AT&T acquire everyone they want).

Monopolies almost always result in less efficiency in a market.

Of course, when I own both Park Place and Boardwalk and put up hotels, I'm not going to cut you any deals either.

You Know It

[MightyMartian]

I have every confidence that the FCC will sell out the consumer. Their sole purpose, and the sole purpose of the US government, is to keep the money rolling in for big business.

Let the FCC completely fuck over the communications industry. At some point someone will have to step in, cut AT&T into pieces again, rejig the process so that consumers aren't getting fucked due to the whores in Congress and the FCC taking it up the ass for Big Telco Inc.

Of course, that too will change as a new generation of political whores get into Congress and again sell out the only people that they should actually even consider to Big Telco Inc.

Re:Good

[Kadin2048]

You would have a point if this was an industry where the barriers to entry weren't so astronomically, prohibitively high.

Telecommunications requires so much capital investment that it tends towards a natural monopoly, at least within regions, dominated by whoever can get there first and run the wires around. Once that first person is there, much of the impetus to repeat the investment is gone.

Due more to some interesting historical/technological developments than any real forethought, some people happen to actually have two sources of telecommunications, one run by the phone company any one run by the cable TV company. This sort of parallel infrastructure buildout is unlikely to happen again; in fact I think it may actually decrease: one company or the other will decide to expend its resources in areas where the other company isn't, meaning that if you want really good, high speed service, there will be a clear choice even if you have two wires running into your house.

And really, it doesn't benefit most consumers to have two halfassed networks coming into their house. You're probably only going to be able to easily use one of them (at least one of them, per service, but those services -- TV, phone, data -- are quickly becoming one "packet data" service anyway). Two companies forced to lay parallel infrastructure are always going to have higher costs and worse service than a single company, because of the extra overhead they carry, if (and this is a non-trivial 'if', granted) the single company is forced to offer service at cost, rather than being allowed to increase it.

Even in minimalist conceptions of government (which I am generally a fan of), there is a legitimate function for the state when it comes to the regulation of natural monopolies. Although I'm not advocating for state-run telcos -- although they may look good on paper, history has shown that state-run industries generally suck terribly -- the way things worked in the U.S. from deregulation to a few years ago (thanks, George!) was that the first carrier to build-out in an area, in return for using the public rights-of-way, had to share the infrastructure with other firms basically at cost, or at low negotiated rates (e.g., "Local Loop Unbundling"). Since this system has been undercut by the telco drones at the FCC, connectivity costs have gone up far in excess of service offered, and competition has diminished.

Re:Good

[mtp85]

A satellite in geostationary orbit is far enough (35,786 km) from the surface of the Earth to introduce measurable latency, even when your signal is traveling at the speed of light. That is the GP's point.