Tauzin-Dingell Up for Vote Soon 346
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Just received this letter from my ISP, one of the oldest in existence. A study here lays out the basics on the bill and why it's a bad idea. The bill retracts the telecommunications act of '96 which forces the phone giants to share the nation's phone lines (which are in public trust). Looks like it's time to write those pesky congressmen again." Too late to write. Call. Tauzin-Dingell, up for vote on Wednesday, would eliminate all the requirements on the four remaining Baby Bells to play fair with competing telecom providers. "Sure Covad, you can co-locate your DSL equipment in our switching offices - our deregulated rate is only $10,000/day/piece of equipment." It's instant death for all DSL providers except Verizon, SBC, Qwest and BellSouth.
News Flash (Score:3, Insightful)
Bill
...and the problem is what exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have friends that worked for CLECs that put equipment in ILEC COs. Sure Verizon would let you in the building, but want to use the bathroom? Sorry, can't do that, you'll have to go somewhere else. Want to come back in? Sorry, security isn't here right now and we can't let you in....
Let's be serious (Score:2, Insightful)
Our government doesn't seem to give two sh*ts about monopolistic tech corporations. One word: Microsoft.
Apparently, the cool thing now is to cut taxes while spending record amounts on making our country powerful enough to take over the entire world, and possibly the whole Milky Way (just give them time).
I'm not sure how we as Americans can even sleep at night when we have someone with the sophistication of a 4th grader running our country (Duuuhhh-bya [yahoo.com]).
Unfortunately, I think it's going to be "long live Verizon et al".
foot-dragging is the real problem (Score:2, Insightful)
How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:News Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what I say? Great! That may be, and then went the industry converges on a few major DSL players, we'll know that natural oligopoly is the status quo for the DSL industry. And every time someone pulls out the antitrust argument, you can say 'we tried that'.
Or you can simply declare that competition won't work, and dictate that the network owners get to do whatever they damn please. Oh, and because they're earning super-competitive profits, they'll branch out to provide DSL to rural communities where its not profitable to do so.
Long pause. [Insert "huh?" here.] Not profitable?!? If any mechanism is going to get rural broadband off the drawing board, it will be market pressure, not a oligopoly of telecom companies earning supercompetitive profits on what amounts to a state-granted monopoly.
The economies-of-scale argument is irrelevant. Because the network already exists, the CLECs plugged into the Bell networks have already made the scale investments. It's there to be taken by anyone, given that they have open access to the essential facilities.
The real question is whether you want to allow the Bells to have to fight off competition with superior service, or whether you want to assume that competition will ultimate tank, and just do away with that whole "free market" thing. Because we all know that's a crock, right?
Indie DSL providers may all go belly up, but we owe it to ourselves to figure out whether that's going to happen. Tauzin-Dingell is corporate rent-seeking, plain and simple.
No it isnt (Score:3, Insightful)
The scale benefits of providing DSL are not that great. It is nothing like making cars, for example.
Even a small DSL provider can get the software they need to minimize administrative costs, and if bandwidth is a comodity, as it should be, that is more or less all they need.
There are some benefits of scale in the equipment but that is not a big deal.
Smaller ISPs may have benefits of finding a niche market or serving customers better.
In fact before DSL thousands of smaller providers thrived selling basic dialup, and made profit, despite AOl's economy of scale.
This is the kind of argument that is being used by corporate america to monopolize all our communication media. It was used for radio and now it is used for small ISPs.
This argument is utter bullshit.
But suppose it is true. Then why not let those DSL providers die naturaly? Why allow the telecom companies to lock them out? If someone is lobbying for a lock out that means they are affraid of the competition.
The real deal (Score:2, Insightful)
DSL providers need to buy a large amount of bandwidth (to support bursting) and oversell it to maintain a competitive edge. Since bandwidth gets cheaper as you buy more of it, many pieces of an installation (such as a DSLAM and routers) are large one-time costs that serve dozens of users, and you need a *lot* of users to be able to afford a barely minimal (T1) line, the provision of DSL service is most decidedly an economy of scale.
Other points to look at would be: tech support and billing (textbook examples of economies of scale), and geographical risk/load balancing.
-AC (for obvious reasons)
Re:What can us Canadians do about this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Fairness might not be possible (Score:4, Insightful)
What we THOUGHT was that the telecom act of 96 would level the playing field for smaller players. This hasn't happened, for reasons you see in other posts in this thread.
What we THOUGHT was that technology would rapidly get better, yielding higher bandwidth and a greater ability to get beyond the coupla-kilometers limit. There's been progress, but basically we're still stuck with the same technology as in '96 and before.
What we THOUGHT was that other players (power companies, wireless companies and funky stuff like blimps flying around over cities) would provoke telcos & cable companies to do better. But apart from satelite Internet (which is too slow for gaming and most other interactive use), there are not viable alternatives for most people.
Basically, things have moved more slowly than we, the geeks, thought they would, and the cable companies and telcos have been able to have their way: little competition, top price, and little need for good service.
There's still hope for new technologies and other developments (like municipalities' interest in WLANs) that might give hope to competition for xDSL and cable modem service for "broadband" Internet service. But it doesn't look like there's any hope that any sort of regulation will create real improvements for most users (or wannabe users) for today's "broadband" Internet services.
Re:...and the problem is what exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
When 2001 hit, we had layoffs. Now this. It's really sad and frustrating that we have to go through this kind of anxiety every year.
So yes this is a problem. It's a very big problem. Just maybe not for you.
Re:News Flash (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever passes, (Score:2, Insightful)
Use Your Words (Score:4, Insightful)
Go ahead and say it: Our government doesn't give two goddam squirty shits about anything but spreading the legs of the Lady of Justice for the highest fucking bidder.
And no, I'm not sorry for the swearing. Let's not be afraid to say what we mean. We have to quit couching our words in trivial obfuscations so we don't offend the perpetually victimized. It won't be long before the rearward penetration reaches our mouths and we are all forced to speak up. But by then it will be too late. Oh well. We're all doomed to whatever fate the AOL/TW's of the world wish for us anyway.
I was just going to moderate the parent comment up, but decided to speak my peace instead. Sometimes I hate America. Its dim-bulb of a leader doesn't help.
-B
Re:all those companies (Score:3, Insightful)
My Verizon bill just went up to $27 for local service with no long distance and no extra features. They just raised the Interstate Subscriber Line Charge from $3.50 to $5. My cellphone bill (ironically also w/ Verizon) is $40 with free long distance, voicemail, call waiting, and more night and weekend minutes than I'll ever use. If I ever stop procrastinating and get the cable modem, these guys are outta here!
Re:No, this is a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
One more breakup. (Score:3, Insightful)
Your local telco should be nothing more than a company that provisions local loops and provides colocation facilities for LEC's. Not ILEC's, not CLEC's, just LEC's. If they provide the local loop, and only the local loop, no one company has an unfair advantage.
At that point, the various LEC's could be completely deregulated. They can provide local dial tone, long distance, Internet service, digital audio/video, whatever... it doesn't matter, because nobody would have this big monster competitor that they also have to buy a piece of their service from.
If you aren't informed, don't get involved. (Score:2, Insightful)
I am seeing way too many kneejerk "Monopolies stink! More regulation!" posts on this story, and they remind me of the soccer moms who will vote for anyone who says "Think of the children!"
Please at least try to see both sides of an issue before you get involved in the political arena. All the information and opinions are online for those who want to read them.
Re:News Flash (Score:2, Insightful)
And don't forget that while the Telcom act of '96 may not have visibly decreased your phone bill, might I suggest that you may be spending more time one the phone because it's now cheaper?
Also, the Telcom Act of '96 was not primarily to lower the cost of a phone call, it was to make the PSTN infastructure accessible to competing businesses (ie. Covad, who incidently spearheaded the lobying for that bill).
Don't forget that DSL technology is a lot older than the Telcom Act of '96. The phone companies lobying against the Telcom act were claiming all along that DSL and other UNE technologies would never work, and would cause mass confusion across the network, and outages, etc. When all along they were deploting DSLAMS in their COs across the country. The phone companies are now complaining that it's THE DSL PROVIDERS fault that DSL and UNE services are a mess and that they were right all along! And to that, all I have to say is maybe if the didn't keep changing the god damned procedures all the time, we'd know how to work with them to provision it.
SARCASM -But I'm sure that everything will become nice and warm and fuzzy once the Bell's are given back their monopoly. After all, everyone knows that monopoly's foster rapid technological advances, right? It's basic Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell 101.- /SARCASM
In conclusion -- Monopoly's (like the Bell company's and Microsoft) are bad. And Competition (like competetive phone company's and Linux based company's) are good.