Who is to say we would be where we are today if these companies hadn't invested in their now obsolete hardware at the time??? It's easy to critisie this now, but would the internet have expanded so rapidly without their investment.
Would future network investment be made less attractive id this was the case. Apparently, "Moores Law" makes any investment depreciate so rapidly that all progress is futile.
As you mention, a good deal of the current infrastructure was laid by these companies and is currently being enjoyed by a much larger segment that had little or nothing to do with it. However, if government is going to pump money into the telcos, it should probably be with the expectation that the infrastructure will be upgraded to make it possible for the continuing deployment of broadband technologies by the companies who are actually trying to expand their offerings to consumers.
Well, yes and no... (Score:5, Insightful)
Would future network investment be made less attractive id this was the case. Apparently, "Moores Law" makes any investment depreciate so rapidly that all progress is futile.
This so obviously is not the case.
By all means, prop them up. (Score:4, Insightful)