FCC Considers Opening Up US Broadband Access 253
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.'"
Re:"Balkanization"? B.S. (Score:3, Informative)
Look to Scandinavia: Competition is _very_ good! (Score:5, Informative)
Norway, Finland, Sweden & Denmark are all among the top nations in the world, for both cell phone & broadband coverage, and among the lowest prices in the world for cell phone use.
A key part of bringing this about here in Norway has been that the physical access layer ("last mile copper"/gsm cells) has to be available to competitors, with government-controlled rates.
I.e. when I got ADSL about 8 years ago, I got it from NextGenTel, a competitor to Telenor who owns my regular phone circuit.
On the GSM side we have two physical operators (Telenor and Netcom), both my kids get their cell phone service from one of many virtual operators (Tele2) which uses the Netcom infrastructure. Their monthly bills are usually so low that the operator will wait 3 months between each bill to reduce billing overhead. (I'm paying less than $10/month for each of them.)
Tele2 btw used to be based on the Telenor network, they got an even better deal (i.e. probably lower than government-mandated rates) from Netcom so overnight they simply moved everything across. My kids had to reset their phones to reconnect to the new set of towers, everything else just worked.
Terje
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Informative)
Often they won't sell you the best they can do. (Score:3, Informative)
I've noticed many cases where the physical line owned by the local provider is capable of MUCH MORE bandwidth than they're willing to sell. They simply refuse to sell you the faster connection.
AT&T is a good example. With ADSL2 my current pair is rated at being able to go up to nearly 20 megabits down and 2 megabits up. Yet they will only sell me 6 megabits down and HALF a megabit up.
Allowing competition in this area would rock; it wouldn't be long before another provider offers the higher speeds on AT&T's own lines, and then AT&T would have to up their own offerings as well in order to not look like fools.
So I see this as going either way. More competition is usually a good thing in the end.
Re:Not sure (Score:3, Informative)
I'm in Canada. I pay $30/mo for 3mbit/512kbit ADSL, with a 200GB cap. The cap came in really handy when one of my HDDs died, and I had to re-download a lot of steam games.
Canada has had such a law for a long time. After all - the major backbones were funded by the government, and therefore taxpayers, so why should we be locked in to monopolies? Unfortunately for us, just as the US is considering such a law, Canada is considering revoking it [consumersf...tition.com].
Sure I can get 30MB access for $65, but that's like buying a 40 seat bus to carry your family of 4. More than you need is great if you don't have to pay for the extra.
Right now you can get 3-6mbit ADSL for $30/mo without a contract. With a contract, $40/mo will give you ADSL speeds of up to 15mbit. $45-$55/mo will give you the same speed with cable.
Considering that we have less population density than the US (and therefore higher upkeep costs per subscriber), I think the law is doing its job quite effectively.
Links/proof:
http://www.teksavvy.com/en/abc_resdsl.asp?ID=2&mID=1 [teksavvy.com]
http://www.teksavvy.com/en/resdsl.asp?ID=7&mID=1 [teksavvy.com]
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/internet.portal;GEMSESSIONID=vMQVKY3XsKBv1cQyx2xmKTJn322pxDn1LNp2yfw84xGM2wpQNg2n!1182660780?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=PrsShpInt_NewAccess_internetBrowse_portlet&PrsShpInt_NewAccess_internetBrowse_portlet_actionOverride=%2Fportlets%2Fpersonal%2Finternet%2Fbrowse%2FgetDetailPage&_pageLabel=PrsShpInt_NewAccess [www.bell.ca]
http://www.telus.com/portalWeb/inlineLink/CP_SCS/General/Internet/High_Speed/General/Compare_Plans/?_region=BC [telus.com]
http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/High-Speed/ [www.shaw.ca]