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.'"
Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
The government has say in certain things like trash collection for efficiency. Internet access has become such a commodity in the modern world that allowing competition can only broaden our capabilities. Oh, and knock some off my bill every month!
One question: who do the new warrants go to for interceptions? The provider or the infrastructure provider?
Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is safe to say that if the US implements it you will see lots of competition and halving of prices if this is implemented in the US. The idea that all countries don't do this is ridiculous. And the only people it hurts are entrenched corrupt monopolists.
Which is why it probably won't happen.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
"Balkanization"? B.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember when you could get DSL from various competitive providers over the same bare copper wires, which the Bells were required to share access to. ("Remembering" this isn't hard, since it only requires going back to 2000 or so, before the Bush administration gutted the rules and gave Verizon its monopoly back.) It wasn't exactly "balkanization," nor is that an honest description of the situation in many other countries where line-sharing rules exist.
Frankly, that sounds like telco FUD. There's no advantage, to the customer, of having only one choice of ISP per wire coming into their house. The only one who benefits from this are the cable and telcos, because it effectively means that in order to compete with them, you need to independently solve the last-mile problem. It makes the startup costs of being an ISP immense, thus eliminating competition.
Back when the line-sharing rules were abolished, the telco apologists said that ending line-sharing would result in more physical last-mile options. Instead of just cable coax and Bell copper, we'd have IP over water mains, gas lines, sewer pipes, wireless mesh networks, etc. Of course, it's now 2009, we've had no mandatory line-sharing for the better part of 10 years, and none of those alternatives have materialized. Because, as it turns out, running the last mile is really, really hard. And we can look at other countries, ones who didn't happily take the collective dick of the phone companies in their mouth, and see that shared infrastructure seems to work better, on the whole.
It's not a choice between monopoly and balkanization, it's a choice between having four or five companies try -- and most of them fail -- to provide paltry broadband service to your house, duplicating effort with each other all the way, versus having one or two good, high-speed links to your house and then having those same four or five companies compete to provide transit over that shared infrastructure.
I wonder if it'll work as well as before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny story. When I first got DSL, back in 1999 or 2000, I (a) really wanted to stick with my cool existing dialup ISP, and (b) really wanted a static IP. My landline provider, Verizon, was happy to sell me DSL for $49/mo, but with dynamic IP and none of the awesomeness my current ISP provided (static IP, shell access to the email/Web host, etc, etc). Fortunately, thanks to the laws then in place, my ISP was able to offer DSL access over my Verizon line -- still giving me static IP, and letting me keep my existing accounts, all at the same $49/mo.
UNfortunately, Verizon back-charged my ISP something like $32.50/mo. for DSL access, so my ISP was suddenly getting $17.50/mo from me for an always-on DSL line's worth of traffic, where before they'd been getting $25/mo for a most-of-the-time-on dial-up connection's worth of traffic. They got to keep a faithful customer, so yay, but they lost revenue and increased expenses. I'm not sure how many others followed in my footsteps, or how much of a difference it made to the company, but they finally folded up and stole away in the wake of an ice-storm in 2002.
So, open access sounds like a great thing for consumers -- assuming the entrenched monopolists/duopolists can't find a way to make it economically untenable, while still complying with the letter of the law. Of course, the only way that could happen is if the telcos and cablecos could somehow exert influence over the content of said law. Good thing that never happens.
Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
sigh...
Re:Not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you sure they are upgrading bandwidth now, for _our_ best interests?
At least if there is competition the old monopoly will have to come up with some reason to choose them over the next guy.
Re:Not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of having a different company run the physical layer is that anyone can build a new line, and rent it out to any ISP at a fair rate. As it is, we have mutually exclusive lines, owned by only one or two companies in most towns. So they're happy to add more bandwidth, but they don't have to because you don't have the option of using someone else's cable. The value behind this is that it doesn't matter who runs the physical layer, anyone can build new lines and sell them to multiple providers. As it is, if you build a new line, you can only sell to the company that runs the physical layer (which is also the company that runs the upper layer.)
Re:Not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm also not sure a return to the time when the company that runs the physical layer has no reason to upgrade to allow more bandwidth is in our best interest.
'return to'? As far as I can tell, in most places the company running the physical layer already has no incentive to upgrade since he faces no competition. Generally speaking I'm all for a free market, but in cases where the entry costs are so high as to make new entry impractical free market capitalism breaks down, and the government needs to intervene. About the least intrusive way the government can intervene here is to make sure the entry costs to competitors are low, and it seems to be working pretty well everywhere they've tried it.
Competition? Come On (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, who are you going to believe: Harvard, Adam Smith, and a bunch of empirical evidence, or the oligopolists who have monopoly rents to defend? Competition never did anything good for anyone who was in charge of an existing monopoly. Competition may be one of the fundamental tenets of free market capitalism, and may be a principle requirement for maximization of both GDP and a society's ability to satisfy wants, but it simply does not guarantee those who have attained wealth and power that they will be able to continue their acquisition of it without trying very hard.
Ask yourself what is really important here: The principles of economics which are supposed to be the bedrock of our superpower status, or the rights of a few CEOs to do a poor job and charge whatever they want?
A return to the way things were (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me remind everyone of how things were back in the golden age of the internet.
You had dozens of ISPs to choose from. In a major city, perhaps hundreds. You could instruct your computer to connect to any one of those ISPs, regardless of who was your local telephone company. If you didn't like your ISP, then you could switch to another one that same day. No installers, no custom modems rented from the phone company or ISP. Just a standard device.
Back then, we never worried about network neutrality, or traffic filtering, or censorship. There were no sites like ESPN that could only be accessed by certain ISPs. Internet was really really really cheap ($9.99) and "unlimited" really was unlimited.
The reason things changed is because when we used dial-up over telephones, phone companies were legally required to be neutral carriers. When we switched to broadband that was no longer the case. Basically, the phone companies found a legal loophole that killed competition. It has taken congress and the FCC 10 years to understand this. Hopefully they won't get lobbied by the new oligarchy and kill this proposal to fix things.
Re:"Balkanization"? B.S. (Score:4, Insightful)
'Many cases?' All Cases. In the form of right-of-way access and eminent domain rights.
Most have also taken money, and limited-area monopoly rights, saying they would upgrade and develop their lines in return. (Most have failed to do so, to any significant degree.) But all have had government assistance, just to exist.
Re:"Balkanization"? B.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
Billions in upgrades??? Wow, I want to live where you live!.. I can't even get DSL, and I live 3 miles outside of a town. the phone company somehow managed to stretch 40,000 feet of copper between my house and their CO. And even though I live in a neighborhood of a hundred homes or so, they don't want to setup a "CO-Extender" box for our neighborhood, so we could have internet.
Did I mention that there is no cable either? (it comes within a half mile or so...) but nobody at the cable company will even return our calls. (Of course, charter is in bankruptcy).
So my choice for internet is Satellite, which several people have, but is expensive and slow, 3G cards from the cell phone companies, however, none of them provide more than about 128k\s where we live, since its low signal strength, and they have usage caps. Kind of frustrating when there is literally terrabits/s of data flowing over the fibers that run along the interstate, a mile from my house.. grrrr.. Now, if other companies were able to use that infrastructure, maybe thew would put in a small DSLAM to serve my neighborhood, or extend Charters fiber connection that last half mile to my neighborhood, or hell, at least use it as an endpoint, and put up Wi-Max.
MIND BLOW! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is gonna blow my mind to chunks to the milky way.
What we (the people) should do is tell comcast and ted turner to go suck a fat one, take back the lines that we paid for, and turn them over to co-ops who actually want to give us better service at a lower price.
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
humm i live in the city in fact its the states capital - and in fact its one of 3 cities that are known for R&D - and around here for net service for a Synchronous connection - all said and done is ~ 75$ per month per Mbit..
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
mod +1 insightful and correct: infrastructure is defined as the basis for an economy and society. It is not in public interest to run more than one gas line, water supply line, or sewer line. It is impossible to run separate highways -- and outsourcing mgmt of same is proving as ridiculous as govt mgmt -- so why then do we allow the pretense of the last mile?
The problem is a historical outsourcing of this infrastructure component to a regulated monopoly (AT&T). NYC circa 1911 had hundreds of indie wires connecting buildings; granting a monopoly to AT&T with open-access covenants solved this and cleaned up the problem. Today, the problem is largely solved but the divorce of managing the infrastructure versus providing services on it did not take place. In other words, break up Verizon and SBC and every other last-mile provider, separating the physical transport from the value-added services.
Just think of it this way: Verizon or some other company contracts with a muni or county to provide last-mile service. Taxes pay for the connectivity, the wires, the fiber, what have you. Verizon provides -- and only provides -- a central office space with connections to the local infrastructure. Your services are provided by people leasing space in the CO and interconnecting. Last mile is provided by your town or county. Services are provided by whoever can lease a spot on the floor and cover operating costs.
I mean, we don't run Main Street any differently, do we?
-BA
Re:Not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A return to the way things were (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps. Although many consider the golden age to be prior to the eternal september [wikipedia.org] :-)
Re:Not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Government intervention CAN be A reason free market capitalism SOMETIMES broken down. Ever tried to compete against Microsoft in the free market? Yep, that knife in your back hurts, doesn't it. Government regulation is what helps keeps bad pharmaceuticals off the "free market". Now, we could let the market decide, after awhile...when enough people have died...the company pushing the bad drugs gets no customers. This is a case of the free market not putting a value on human life that most of us, at those of us who aren't free market nutjobs, would like it to. There are many other examples.
The "free" in free market refers to freedom of entry and exit, it doesn't necessarily refer to freedom from government regulation. Government regulation is necessary because of monopolies although lately it seems to have fallen off the job. The reason the economy went over the cliff wasn't because of regulation, it was pure capitalistic greed. More regulation is necessary or else we wind up again in the situation where companies are too big to be allowed to fail. Here again, the free market is not valuing competition the way we need it to.
Re:Not sure (Score:3, Insightful)
The infrastructure really is a natural monopoly and the "choice" of ISP running on top of the infrastructure is just a thin veneer of competition.
I partly wish that the government would just take over the infrastructure and eliminate the suggestion that there is competition in the sector.
Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine a law stating that every grocery store must allow other grocery stores to have stalls within their own store. That would present a bizarre conflict of interest because they must help their competitors... and on their own property.
This is what the current "open access" laws do. A telco who owns wires must allow another telco, who has no wires, to provide a competing service over their own wires. That's just plain silly. We need to go the next step, and establish telephone/ISP service providers, and providers of wires. The provider of wires cannot provide service. And a provider of service cannot provide wires. Conflict vanishes.
I haven't read the PDF, but I think that is what it is talking about. It fixes the reason why "open access" doesn't work.
Re:Absolutely (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect with competition the price will be about the same, but the bandwidth you get for that price will go up. In fact, I would wager that 50 Mbps would start to be come common for 20 bucks a month pretty.
You do realize that the providers already there will charge the new companies to use their pipes, right? Best case scenario is you get the same bandwidth for maybe a couple bucks less a month.
No, I think you're missing the point here. A couple of bucks less a month, maybe. But add to that an end to unscrupulous behavior that bad actors like Comcast and Time Warner have demonstrated repeatedly.
Lower cost. Better service. Potential for innovative competition. Yeah, I'd call that a good description of "best case scenario" in anyone's book. What is your objection?
This would be wonderful... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure how it is for the rest of you, but 15 years ago I had about 3 companies (Covad, Birch, AT&T, etc) that I could choose from to get a 1.5M SDSL line for roughly $60/month. Fast forward to today and I have a 768K for $60. Upgrade options? Sure I got em, I can get a 1M ADSL for $79 or a 1.5M fiber line with forced TV and Phone for over a $100. It's pathetic that over a 15 year period, not only do I lose speed, but I also have to pay more for essentially the same service. I hear about FiOS, but it's not offered where I'm at. I have one option and that's AT&T.
I remember when the government removed the requirement that the telco's offer market rates to competitors and immediately I knew that this was a bad thing. I'm sure that the telco's cried about increased bandwidth, greases the right pockets, etc. But what it really boils down to is greed. So over a 15 year period, they CHOOSE not to upgrade the backbone, but instead they choose to put more restrictions on the customers.
I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. I hope the government bitch slaps them for what they have done. I keep hearing that the telco's received around $300 Billion to improve the system, but I don't see it. Where did that money go? How come this question isn't being persued. If AT&T, Verizon or whoever, starts bitching about being forced to offer this, then I hope the FCC opens up a probe into where this money went and start demanding that they pay it back.
Re:"Balkanization"? B.S. (Agreed, except ...) (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember all too well the days of multiple DSL providers sharing Bell's copper wiring.... You had to deal with retaliation by Bell workers who didn't like the other providers encroaching on what they saw as "their territory". Your DSL order via Covad or Nothpoint, for example, would often have big delays before installation was complete, compared to the same type of order direct from your local Bell company. Issues with errors on the circuit were rampant, too - especially when a Bell worker would do things like stealing the "tested good" copper pairs in a box for Bell service, leaving the "questionable" ones for the people ordering the 3rd. party DSL services.
Even when things proceeded normally with a new installation, there was always the extra hassle of knowing your ISP was just a "middle man" in the equation. Every time you reported an outage or issue to them, they'd have to turn around and open a trouble ticket with Bell, and work things through with them before reporting any progress back to you.
I'm not saying opening up the lines to competition is a bad thing ... but there are problems inherent with doing so, when the party owning the physical connections doesn't get as much financial incentive to maintain the circuits when a 3rd. party is running THEIR data over them.
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
In a low density area, there isn't much demand, therefore there won't be much money to be made. As such, those who do choose to provide their service (internet, gas, groceries, etc) charge more than usual to make up for the lower number of units being sold.
In extremely dense areas it's easy to provide service, but due to the high value of land (read up on urban economics if you have questions as to why land would cost more), people are paid much more than usual to make up for the high cost of land / housing - ss a result of a higher COL, companies will charge more to compensate (because it costs more for their businesses / their employees to live in the area). It doesn't matter how much competition you have in the case of high density cities (like NY or LA), the prices will still be higher than in a much less dense city due to the higher cost of land / higher salaries required by employees.
Re:See Brand X, 545 U.S. 967. (Score:2, Insightful)
Bullshit. I wasn't talking about the Brand X case, where the FCC held the position that cable ISP's were not telecommunications providers. In fact, the Brand X case only arose BECAUSE the 96 law was so effed up.
The point of the 95 act was to get ILECs (the Baby Bells) to open up their lines on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory" basis. But they let the ILECs decide what that meant. So, Verizon could price access so that competitors were at a disadvantage. The FCC tried to challenge that and lost in court. But, to make matters worse, the ILEC's engaged in all sorts of skullduggery to kill off the companies that WERE managing to compete, and the FCC did jack shit to stop them. Clinton's FCC, btw.
So, the cable companies stepped into competitive vacuum that the FCC's neglect had created. The case you cite was a suit by Brand X to treat the cable lines in the same manner as phone lines. Do I agree with the position the FCC took on it? Not really, but it was consistent with that of the previous administration's. And the case was 6-3 - hardly a squeeker. I read the opinions, and the concurrences, and the majority opinion is tortured precisely BECAUSE the underlying law wasn't clear enough. And it's not like Bush's FCC was any great friend to the cable companies in general, but how reasonable is it to force the cable companies to open up their lines when the telcos got a free ride?
Clinton's administration did a LOT of damage to the telecommunications system in the US that we are still dealing with.
Re:Not sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh for fuck's sake. Stop, please stop. Really. You're failing Econ 101 and business development.
There are such things as natural monopolies. Specifically, natural monopolies occur in markets where there is a very high barrier to entry with an existing player. One example would be any market requiring massive infrastructure investments up front... like, I don't know, the telecom market. Wiring something like the US with high-speed cabling - or heck, California for that matter- requires several billion dollars in up front investment, before any revenue can be generated. The initial years have to be spent recouping that investment.
Here's how things pan out:
1) New player lays cable, to the tune of several billion dollars.
2) New player signs up new customers. Price is Operating Costs + Amortization of investments + profit margin.
3) Existing player sees customer base being eaten by new player. Existing player decides to play hardball and lower prices.
3a) New prices from existing player are based on Operating Costs + profit margin and a smaller chunk of investment amortization than the new player.
4) New player tries to compete on lower prices.
End result is that unless the incumbent is so inefficient and has so few cash reserves that it cannot be cheaper than the new player with its billions in fresh investments, the new player will have to exit the market, or gets bought out at a bargain.
The end result is that the first one to market has a significant competitive advantage - so significant, in fact, that it is entirely possible to create monopolies without much backroom effort.
Note how nowhere was it necessary for a government to create a monopoly? Yes, some markets get skewed even further by stupid local governments. I have them right where I live. But to argue that it would all be flowers and peaches if the government would just butt out is naive to the point of fantasy.
I can't stand idealistic tree-huggers who think that if everyone could just get along, the world would be a better place. But even more so I hate idealistic conservatives who think if we'd just get rid of all rules, the world would be a better place.
Re:Not sure (Score:3, Insightful)
The cities could get revenue through rent, Consumers would get choice of providers, providers could enter markets that are currently barred to them, citizens wouldn't have to have deal with an pay for their streets to be dug up any time someone wants to increase bandwidth, business could get honest to goodness dedicated lines between separate buildings within a city, and cities would be able to stick with providing a low tech solution that they are highly experienced in."
There is one trouble with the govt. owning and renting out the communications lines over your examples of utilities. The communications/information aspect.
I'd dare say the govt. would never find a good reason to cut off water or gas (especially in winter) to the public, but, they MIGHT be tempted to cut information channels off. Wasn't there recently a post on /. relating to the Obama administration wanting to get some kind of authority to take over or shut down computer/internet systems in times of a national emergency that was vaguely defined at best?
Well, if the govt owns/runs the information pipes, they can much more easily turn them off, and/or censor what goes through them.
Other than this fear, I kinda like the idea of local govt. putting in the infrastructure, and turning it over to private companies to run...but, this aspect of them having lingering control of information channels bothers me.
Re:Not sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, if it wasn't for Government we might have drugs on the marketplace that caused heart attacks [wikipedia.org] or something.
I never said the government was perfect. However, if you wish to see what it would be like without government regulation, take the bad drugs that manage to slip by and multiply that by the number of nice upstanding organizations pushing those remedies on the infomercials. I like the ones with the LEDs for curing muscle pain the best.
I don't think you read what I wrote. I was complaining about monopolies that are issued and backed up by the Government, i.e: cable & telephone franchise agreements. I was not complaining about regulation. That's a separate issue. If you hate monopolies so much then why aren't you down at your local city hall demanding that they end the practice of granting them?
I'm against monopolies too regardless of how they got created. I only said "Government intervention CAN be A reason free market capitalism SOMETIMES broken (ack: breaks) down". I didn't deny it can cause problems, just that not all government regulation causes problems or that all the free market problems are caused by regulation. And how do you know I'm not down at my local city hall demanding they end the practice of granting them?
Interestingly enough the companies that got "too big to fail" are in some of the most regulated (insurance, banking) industries that are out there.
I never said the regulation was adequate, in fact I hinted that in several instances it wasn't. And in these particular instances, I do feel that government regulators have fallen down on the job by allowing mergers which have decreased competition.
I'm sorry that you are so confused that you actually believe we have a free market for telecommunications services in this country.
I never implied that we had a free market for telecom in this country. Did you even read what wrote or merely respond because someone disagreed with you?
Re:Not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Again, the word "PIPE" is being used literally as a in the same kind of pipe that the city runs water and sewer through. "PIPE" in this context is NOT a euphemism for a data cable.
Re:Personal satisfaction vs. anxiety (Score:4, Insightful)
It's actually very easy to convey the idea you are trying to convey, if your name happens to be Mark Twain. You forgot an important caveat in your philosophy, People only do what brings them satisfaction in the moment. They may hate themselves later. They may, in that moment, decide never to do it again. But the person we will be even a minute in the future is not this person right now, present-self can't really speak for that person in the future. Future-self may have reasons for wanting to do what present-self said he will, but they are his reasons. Twain's What is Man? [about.com] explains this all in about 20 pages.