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Telcos Want Big Subsidies, Not Line-Sharing
It seems that a recent survey of global broadband practices by Harvard's Berkman Center at the behest of the FCC has stirred the telecommunications hornet's nest. Both AT&T and Verizon are up in arms about some of the conclusions (except the ones that suggest offering large direct public subsidies). "Harvard's Berkman Center study of global broadband practices, produced at the FCC's request, is an 'embarrassingly slanted econometric analysis that violates professional statistical standards and is insufficiently reliable to provide meaningful guidance,' declares AT&T. The study does nothing but promote the lead author's 'own extreme views,' warns a response from Verizon Wireless. Most importantly, it 'should not be relied upon by the FCC in formulating a National Broadband Plan,' concludes the United States Telecom Association. Reviewing the slew of criticisms, Berkman's blog wryly notes that the report seems to have been 'a mini stimulus act for telecommunications lawyers and consultants.'"
Free money, no mandates. This sounds like the initial Bush stimulus package, so it's entirely without precedent.
If their development is going to be subsidized with federal funds, they damn well better open those lines. And they should be required to meet coverage quotas if they want any of those rural development funds.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
There are, however, several things to consider especially when it's about telco's.
Lets say you've ordered a pizza delivery guy to bring you a big fat pizza with some coca cola, because frankly you've a little bit hungry. But what will the pizza delivery guy do if you're mean to him? That's correct, he will not give you the pizza. You might try calling a different pizza place, but you're out of luck if your area doesn't have one or they're already closed after 9pm.
It's basically the same thing with telco's. Only way to change that is to get government to do something about it.
Better hurry,
Sarah will give them the network as a present.
If they own the pipes, they will take much better care of them and have much more incentiv to invest in upgrades!1!1
Verizon notes, open access and unbundling would be a bad policy for the United States, largely because of the rural nature of much of the country. "The problem in these rural and low-density areas is that they have been unable to attract even a single entrant," the telco argues. "Imposing unbundling will not only fail to solve this problem, but will only make things worse: if the economics do not currently support a single provider, they are even less likely to support multiple(and potentially an unlimited number of) providers."
I'm not sure that you can have worse service than no service. There are many areas that only allow one (or a few) providers. If that one provider chooses not to give service to a part of it's service area, those people are screwed. Maximum innovation will come from maximum competition. It's called capitalism, but it always seemed to me that capitalists usually want the least amount of competition possible.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
If we've always been a fascist nation, and we're the sole remaining superpower, the whole welfare-welfare state thing has a pretty good track record, huh?
The only quibble I have is that corporate welfare really only came into vogue with Reagan after our ideological rival, the soviet union's fate was pretty much sealed. We should probably try to figure out if corporate pandering is good for an economy, like social safety nets are. Personally, I'm putting my money on bad - and think we should return to a single welfare state.
By this measure, aren't all governments, throughout time, fascist?
Describing fascism as a government with business interests makes the definition far too broad to be useful, the only possible reason to do so is to invoke an emotional response at the very word fascist.
I read the internet for the articles.
By law, nobody employed by the federal government is allowed to pull in a higher salary than the President (currentky 400K/yr). This includes bonuses. I see no reason why corporations accepting bailout money should be treated differently.
Verizon is one to talk. When I live they don't even have the infastructure to support broad band. They have said in prepared statements for the last 10 years they were going to expand broadband in my area. Instead I have Comcast as that is the only player I have. All the lines in my area are copper based and they have no desire to change that. They are waiting for the government to pay for it a second time. Don't get me started with their wireless company. Their billing is a joke. You don't max your minutes or use any features not in the plan yet each month the price is different. No explanation from them when pressed either. I will never go back even if they were the only wireless carrier in town.
War and weapons define the American economy. Boeing and Raytheon and Xi could be considered the ultimate achievement of which a fascist society is capable.
When I was a child, President Eisenhower warned of the "Military Industrial Complex". Apparently we didn't heed his warning.
We should abandon this socialism
Corporatism is NOT socialism. Socialism is the polar opposite; socialism tries to make a better society (usually failing, however). It is facism, though. What kind of people rail against giving welfare to the poor but have no problem giving it to the rich?
Free Martian Whores!
Here is an IDEA
The Govt should come in an break up any telco who has a single point of entry into your house.
1) The telephone company
2) The cable company
They would create 2 divisions, physical plant division who would be run as a non-profit type co-op and a Media div who would have to buy their service from whomever they want.
The rates for delivery of content over the different wires would be set on actaul operation costs averaged out over the whole plant. Ie if it cost $1 per line to maintain the plant then access would be billed at $1 per line.
The govt then could allow these physical plant co-ops to merge so you could purchase coper rights on coax, pairs, fiber whatever is currently run to the house.
All the billing to the users would have a plant upgrade fee which would go into a fund to pay for plant upgrades, ie replacement of the copper with fiber.
This would level the field as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, XYZ Telephone would all pay the same to access a house. The only diff in their costs would be content and back haul charges which there is already competition for these.
Then why is ovrer 2/3rds of the American economy based on CONSUMER spending[1] instead of WAR or WEAPONS? And of that, most of it is spent by women.[2] (See the numerous articles on ecomomics and how they are all worrying about women not spending more but vowing to spend the same and live more frugal lives for the evidence.)
Not to mention that the USA spends only about 4% GDP on Defense[3] at the national level last I was aware.
Hmm...not much of a leg to stand on for your claims, now is there?
[1]2009-10-11 USA Today Article
[2]dated article on consumer spending (2003), but matches what I've recently read in the last month per the point and a more recent article on women being frugal. and yet another article on frugal consumerism in the USA
[3]Wikipedia USA Military budget - with reference links
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
We tried that already in 1996 in some parts of the country. I don't think it ever made it everywhere. The problem was, the State came in and said to the incumbant telco that they would permit other companies to use their lines for some payment (say $1 per line) ignoring what their own information and that of the telco said it cost to maintain the line. Say the real cost was $5 per line.
The result was a bonanza - lots of start-up companies formed to take advantage of this huge disparity in costs. They got plenty of investors because just dealing with the arbitrage between the $1 fee and $5 real cost could result in $4 getting passed around. Just collecting the interest on this money was worthwhile if there was enough of it.
Well, obviously nobody spends $5 on something and sells it for $1, at least not very long. Nearly all of the DSL start-ups failed when the real terms of the deal becaome known to everyone. We still have some folks trying to play at this game of paying less than what the service they are getting costs. Vonage is there because of this play and the bones of the whole Sprint ION fiasco. End result is that there is a real cost and if you separate by force the profit from the cost the cost has to be paid somehow.
Nobody wants that. We have been hiding the cost of physical line maintenance for a long time, probably since around 1960 or so. And the structure of the incumbant phone companies allowed these costs to be very effectively buried. So effectively that today nobody knows where the real cost-sinks are.
The end result of this is likely another stab at state-mandated fees for line use. And whatever the fee is, it will be too low for reality. My guess is this time around they will really break the system and the lines will simply not be maintained for years.