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FCC Considers Opening Up US Broadband Access
An anonymous reader writes On October 14, the FCC issued a call for public comments on a study (PDF) done by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society about whether the US should require the telephone and cable companies to open their networks to competitors so that independent ISPs could begin offering broadband, much in the way it was done back in the days of dialup access. The study found that open-access in virtually every other country 'is playing a central role in current planning exercises throughout the highest performing countries,' noting: 'While Congress adopted various open access provisions in the almost unanimously-approved Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC decided to abandon this mode of regulation for broadband in a series of decisions in 2001 and 2002. Open access has been largely treated as a closed issue in US policy debates ever since. We find that in countries where an engaged regulator enforced open access obligations, competitors that entered using these open access facilities provided an important catalyst for the development of robust competition which, in most cases, contributed to strong broadband performance across a range of metrics.'"
It is bad enough that we pay astronomical amounts just for internet access.
$20-$25 a month is "astronomical"? Even at minimum wage, that's not even half a days pay. If you consider that to be so horrible, I can only assume that you don't have a cell phone, cable, purchase dvd's / cd's, go to the movies, etc. Entry level broadband (like 80-90 KB/s downloads) costs less than a tank of gas and about as much as the typical dvd. Hell, if you go out to eat for lunch each day during a 5 day work week, you probably spend more money than you would for internet.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I'm all for openness and competition, but allow me to play the devil's advocate here.
Suppose that some guy says that he'll pay you decent money if you install a huge slip 'n' slide over to his place. So, you pay $15,000 for a 2 mile slip 'n' slide, another $100,000 to get the dang thing buried, and finally $25,000 greasing the political wheels. Now, $140,000 later, the government steps in and says that anybody can use your slip 'n' slide as long as they pay you a fee. You are vaguely upset about this, but you're still making money from the infrastructure, so it's OK. However, the government then tells you that you can only charge $5 a month for the use of your infrastructure. Suddenly, your infrastructure costs cannot be reasonably recovered. The end result: you're pissed, broke, and not very likely to spend money upgrading your infrastructure ever again.
The point is that when the government exercises its power in this manner, this kind of crap happens all the time. Generally we don't feel bad about it because the companies who own the infrastructure tend to themselves be assholes. Also, we tend not to feel bad because some of these companies have themselves squandered government money. However, that doesn't make it right.
The real question is whether we need to enforce competition this way. Right now, there is already competition in some areas among several infrastructure owners (cable, fiber, telephone line, cellular towers, perhaps even power line). Add to this the emergence of wide area wireless infrastructure (non-cellular), and there might soon be a large plurality of broadband providers with their own infrastructure competing for your business. So, why mandate the sharing of infrastructure when there's already enough infrastructure to go around?
State-funding was used for the lines.
Certainly, for some lines, some state money was used. I said as much in my response.
However, is this the case for all infrastructure? For instance, how about AT&T U-verse - did they accept state funding, and if so, how much of their costs was subsidized? Can you provide evidence for you claim?