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The Courts Government News Your Rights Online

Courts Overturn FCC - Return of the Monopoly? 218

Posted by simoniker from the do-not-pass-go dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The DC Circuit Court of Appeals today threw out FCC restrictions which previously forced large regional phone companies to allow companies such as AT&T and MCI the ability to offer local phone service. The court also upheld FCC rules that no longer require large phone companies to share their advanced broadband networks of the future with competitors. The USTA response: 'This is a decisive victory for consumers, for innovation and for free markets.' The AT&T response: 'At a time when consumers and small business owners are just beginning to realize the benefits of competition, the D.C. Circuit today held up a stop sign and halted eight years of progress.' Enough about the Baby Bells already -- how is this going to effect my VoIP phone from VoicePulse (similar to Vonage)? Did I switch to VoIP so I can pay $15/month for my phone bill, but will have to pay $80/month for FTTH or some other form of broadband?"
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Courts Overturn FCC - Return of the Monopoly? More

Courts Overturn FCC - Return of the Monopoly?

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  • Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gkuz ( 706134 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:27PM (#8458391)
    forced large phone companies to allow companies such as AT&T and MCI

    Am I the only one here old enough to remember when AT&T was a "large phone company"?

    • Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ray Radlein ( 711289 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:34PM (#8458453) Homepage
      What on earth does AT&T do these days, anyway? They've sold off their cable business, they've sold off their cell phone business, they don't do much local phone service (possibly even less, after this ruling)... and isn't their ISP service just a rebranding of someone else's? Aside from long distance phone service, what do they do?

      • Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)

        by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:41PM (#8458521) Homepage Journal
        ATM / Frame Relay Bandwidth.

        We've looked at quotes from AT&T on DS-1 and DS-3 types of bandwidth. They own their own nationwide backbone, and are a tier one provider.

        Not to mention their long distance service, and many many payphones which now cost $0.50/call.

        ~Will
        • Payphone calls for $0.50/call? Local?

          That's freakin' nuts.

          Here in Canada, (in Ontario.. Bell Canada is the major telco here) payphone calls are CDN$0.25/call. Very cheap. There's no difference in cell phone penetration either, by the way -- it's much the same as in the States.

        • Parallels with the TCA act of 1996? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Dukeofshadows ( 607689 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @09:12PM (#8458785) Journal
          When they mandated competition for local phone service via the TCA act of 1996 they put loopholes in the laws that allow some shady people to get into the phone business. It was legal for a while (and might still be) to form a small phone company, lease out the equipment and lines from the large local Bell for way below cost, charge 20% less than what it would cost the Bell company to run the thing, and make lots of profit. Not all of these little competitors do this, in fact there are lots of legitimate companies who work to provide the customer with awesome service and who provide much of their own equipment. However, the drag put on the Bell companies is rapidly causing many ofthem to hit financial trouble and cuold eventually force some of them to reorganize or try to get out of land-based phone service entirely. It should be noted that if the Bell companies falter while the shady companies are still attached to them, both the customers of shady companies and Bell customers would be at a loss.

          The law also implemented a double standard: national companies like AT&T and MCI were able to get into the local phone business while regional Bell companies could not enter the long-distance business without going through a rigorous set of checks and requirements that take years to meet (I think BellSouth is only now getting into that market 8 years later...). Overall if AT&T and MCI have had to face even an inkling of the problems over broadband that the Bell telephone companies have had to over telephones, then the law ought well to get thrown out and rewritten, IMHO.
          • In the telco business fixed costs are a disproportionate part of the total costs, making economies of scale king, so the best way to cut costs is by having one single provider with 100% of the market (remember the costs of a national cell phone company with 1/3 of the market arn't significantly lower than a national cell phone company with 100% of the market, well relativelly speaking anyway)

            Now no one wants a private monopoly that free to charge what they want, so the go is a govt telco monopoly - meaning
        • Cool factoid ....

          They actually own a couple of Class "A" Internet networks
      • What on earth does AT&T do these days, anyway? ... they don't do much local phone service

        AT&T hasn't done much local phone service since the courts split them up.

        AT&T was the part that got the nationwide long-distance network (along with the other miscelaneous stuff, like UNIX), going head-to-head with the upstarts like MCI and sprint. The part that did the local service was spun off as a double-handfull of regional "Baby Bell" local telephone companies.

        It's only lately that AT&T has be
      • What on earth does AT&T do these days, anyway?
        They probably live off their immense patent portfolio. :)

  • Badly Worded (Score:3, Informative)

    by El Pollo Loco ( 562236 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:27PM (#8458394)
    " forced large phone companies to allow companies such as AT&T and MCI the ability to offer local phone service."

    I think they mean that large companies like AT&T and MCI were required to allow OTHER companies to offer local phone service.

    • Correctly Worded (Score:5, Informative)

      by Yobgod Ababua ( 68687 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:31PM (#8458423)
      AT&T and MCI (and Sprint) are long distance companies.

      Unless the local Bell-equivalents share their last-mile wiring with them, they cannot offer local phone service, because they have no physical connection to the customer.
      • Acutally we're both right. It is badly worded, as I think what the writeer tried to say is that the rule is intended for local companies to have access to the POTS network at government mandated rates. But in this case, the "local" companies are AT&T, and whoever doesn't own that last mile, as you said.

    • Re:Badly Worded (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Razor Blades are Not ( 636247 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:31PM (#8458428)
      Actually, no.
      AT&T and MCI are national companies. The large companies are large local (ie state-wide) companies which were forced by the federal government to allow other companies to use their lines to "enhance" competition. The other companies which were allowed in had very little presence in the local market (hence were "small" companies), even while they were giants in the national long distance markets.

      • Re:Badly Worded (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zerocool^ ( 112121 )
        I was also under the impression that the whole "share the last mile" thing wasn't working anyway. My friend who works at a computer repair shop -slash- budding DSL provider said that they were taking a loss on the DSL stuff at first because they were having to deal with verizon for access to last mile cable. Verizon sells DSL service for ~$35/month, and they wanted ~$32/month from the company my friend works for just to use the last mile (this was just for the wire to the customer's house, not transit, te

        • Verizon sells DSL service for ~$35/month, and they wanted ~$32/month from the company my friend works for

          Classic.

          There is so much haggling between monopolies and their corresponding regulatory commissions (staffed by appointees from politicians taking donations from aforementioned monopolies) about what the right price is for competitors to be allowed access to the equipment in the central office. Sounds like the local carrier was more influential than your friends DSL startup company. Imagine that. Mon

    • umm, no, ATT and MCI did not have local service before this.

      the big problem is that the local phone companies had to give the competition leases on the lines that could not even pay for the mantinence of the lines. what sucks is that I am on Talk America, so if this holds, I might lose my service and get stuck with SBC.,....on the upside, this ruling will give the baby bells incentive to start expanding their DSL networks again.

    • Correctly worded (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pla ( 258480 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:35PM (#8458464) Journal
      I think they mean that large companies like AT&T and MCI were required to allow OTHER companies to offer local phone service.

      Nope, they got it right...

      For example, look into MCI's "Neighborhood Complete" package, which I currently use. Rather than having Verizon for my local service and MCI for my LD carrier, this rule allowed me to use MCI as my local carrier as well - Meaning that I pay only one phone bill per month, for $15 more than I paid to just Verizon each month, and I get unlimited free LD as a bonus (along with voicemail, CID, CW, 3-way, and I think a few others).

      I for one will feel VERY pissed off if I get a call in the next few days from Verizon, telling me that if I don't sign back on with them I will have no phone service. But that seems like precisely the implication of this ruling.


      Whaddya know, for once I find myself on the same side of an issue as the FCC. Ah well, I suppose this will finally give me the incentive to switch to 100% cellular.
      • I for one will feel VERY pissed off if I get a call in the next few days from Verizon, telling me that if I don't sign back on with them I will have no phone service. But that seems like precisely the implication of this ruling.

        If Verizon is stupid enough to do this, it could very well be the death knell for POTS. Such a large regression in customer choice might be enough to push many people to going exclusively wireless for phone service (maybe broadband as well).

  • The telcos will adapt (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SYFer ( 617415 ) * <syfer@[ ]er.net ['syf' in gap]> on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:28PM (#8458400) Homepage
    Did I switch to VoIP so I can pay $15/month for my phone bill, but will have to pay $80/month for FTTH or some other form of broadband?"

    Yes.

    If anyone thinks for a minute that the telco behemoth will lie down and let the "free" internet eat its lunch, you are mistaken.

  • Great (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HappyCitizen ( 742844 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:29PM (#8458408) Homepage Journal
    I think it would be better the way it used to be for the consumer. I mean really, now that all the competition is gone, prices will probably skyrocket. Of course, maybe not because the companies no longer have to loose money to competition (if the competition isn't doing so great). Why did they do this? It just makes me wonder..

    • Re:Great (Score:4, Interesting)

      by E-Rock ( 84950 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:40PM (#8458518) Homepage
      Most (all?) local phone service has its rates capped by the Public Utilities Commission (or whatever it's called in your state). Now, the prices will almost surely creap back to whatever the cap is, but they can't shoot thru the roof.
      • around here, the PUC is in SBC's pocket....

        the PUC has set a minimum price anyone can charge for DSL. it's quite annoying!

  • Tell me what to think.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by jfroot ( 455025 ) <darmok@tanagra.ca> on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:31PM (#8458431) Homepage
    The headline wasn't clear on what position I am supposed to be taking on this. Will somebody please let me know so I can rant about it. Thank you.

  • 80 for fiber? sign me up (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:32PM (#8458438)
    i'm moving off campus, and i'd be happy to pay speakeasy's 100/month for 3M/756kbps dsl. complaining about 80 bucks for fiber is like complaining about premium gas(93+) at a buck fifty.

  • Do it for the children (of the phone company) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:33PM (#8458441)
    "'This is a decisive victory for consumers, for innovation and for free markets.' "

    How? How? Damn it. How?

    Anyone want to take a shot at it, because I don't see it?

    • Re:Do it for the children (of the phone company) (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:38PM (#8458500)
      It could force some innovation in VoIP. I personnally know of one telco VoIP project that was cancelled because their lawyers decided that if they went aheadm all their competitors would have access to the same features they were going to offer. Since they would be paying multi-millions of dollars for the equipment and would be forced to let their competitors have access for a low fixed rate, they decided it wasn't worth the investment.
      • The problem, I think, is that they didn't think up where the line of demarcation is supposed to be and this was all written before high speed Internet access was a popular product.

        I've been a champion of the idea (not mine, but I forget where I read it) of seperating the part of the system that goes between the house and the central office. Which removes alot of the stupidity and weird legal areas from the equation. The CLEC and ILECs will then lease space in the CO and pay some amount of money per pair.
    • By allowing the industry to move ahead instead of waiting around while the FCC repeatedly tweaks it rules. From a WSJ editorial:

      This time around the judges' frustration at being ignored was palpable. Instead of remanding the issue back for yet another turn on the FCC's merry-go-round, the court vacated the rules after 60 days pending motions to reconsider. "This deadline is appropriate," said the court, "in light of the Commission's failure, after eight years, to develop lawful unbundling rules, and its

  • Of course (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not only will the removal of competition drive prices up, there will be nothing left but mediocre at best ILEC service with no incentive to improve it.
    • If the ILECS want to hold on to their monopoly on POTS phones, they'll just monopolize themselves into irrelevance. A POTS phone is useful, but it's not the necessity it used to be. Wireless phone plans are cheap enough to use as an only phone. For broadband, cable is the only viable alternative for most people, but there'll be more on the way. Qwest is unbundling DSL [slashdot.org] from phone service. FTTH, powerline [slashdot.org], and community wireless [newsforge.com] are all possibilities.

  • The thing that gets to me.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:35PM (#8458467) Homepage
    The thing that gets to me is that the RBOCs agreed to open up their networks to local competition and, in return, would be able to go into the long distance business.

    Now that this comprimise has been made, they want to not be required to open up their networks. But do they have to get out of the long distance business? Of course not.

    Cake and eat it, anyone?

    The real solution would be to have the phone companies divest the part of them that manages the wiring between your house and the CO.

  • This might be a good thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pavera ( 320634 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:35PM (#8458469) Homepage Journal
    With all the municipalities building their own fiber network and alot of master planned communities doing the same, (I work for a company that builds fiber networks for master planned communities) believe me, getting qwest off our backs has been a pain, they demand that we give them access to our network even though we own it, we've had to spend more than 500,000 in attorney's fees just to keep them at bay, with this ruling maybe that issue will go away, municipalities and other private companies can build their networks and we don't have to worry about qwest/sbc et al demanding that we let them have access to our networks.

    • You own WHAT? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phr2 ( 545169 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:58PM (#8458692)
      getting qwest off our backs has been a pain, they demand that we give them access to our network even though we own it

      What precisely is it that you think you own? The wire you put under the street between CO's and people's houses? OK, maybe you own that. What about the street itself, and the tunnels under them? I don't know about the case where you're a municipality, but you certainly don't own the street if you're a regional phone company. And yet, you've been given some kind of monopoly access to under-street cable tunnels and for that matter, residential termination points. If you claim I'm wrong about that, well, say I run an ISP with a downtown office--I'd like to run my own fiber through your city's streets and then up your city's utility poles just like the phone companies do, so I can drop Ethernet cable to the homes of my subscribers, and give them moby bandwidth without having to pay an RBOC to transport data for me. Where do I sign up to do that? I can't? Didn't think so--there's a monopoly like I said.

      Given that the RBOC's are getting exclusive access to a public resource, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't have to share that access for the public's benefit. If they want to own their own network, let them build their own streets to run the cables under. If they want exclusive rights to put cabling under public streets, they better be willing to give the public access to the bandwidth.

      Maybe there's some part of this that I'm missing, since I generally assume that anything Michael Powell's FCC does is bad, and when the courts smack the FCC it's a good thing. But this seems to me like a case where if the FCC has mandated more access to last-mile wiring, it's done the right thing.

  • Enough about the Baby Bells already (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sarastro_us ( 745933 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:37PM (#8458484)
    Are there even any Baby Bells left? Last time I checked there were something like four big companies controlling telecommunitations nationwide. So much for the regional bells...

  • Alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)

    by noelo ( 661375 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:38PM (#8458497)
    At the end of the artical it implies the it will be many years befor ehte appeals avenue is exhausted. But at that stage will anybody care. Broadband will more likely be wireless based and most people will probably have mobile phones.
    • Broadband will more likely be wireless based and most people will probably have mobile phones.
      How do you get 1.5Mbps wireless to every house? Over-the-air capacity is fine for voice, especially since they charge by time -- there's a strong incentive to keep calls short, and the bandwidth required is not huge.

  • Anti-Trust or special FCC powers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Saltation ( 756369 ) <[saltation_signu ... [nospammail.net]> on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:48PM (#8458589) Homepage
    The linked articles aren't clear. Does anyone know if this case dealt purely with special FCC powers, or was it decided on Sherman anti-trust grounds?

    If it was on Sherman anti-trust grounds, I can see why it went this way. The courts are very reluctant to apply such a devastating remedy, and tend to read down any application.

    Interestingly/counter-intuitively, American regulators have effectively NO useful anti-monopoly or anti-abuse-of-market-position powers. Sherman Act gives only the financial equivalent of the nuclear bomb. Below that, there's essentially nothing: no system of graded fines or automatic restraint/requirement orders, no ability to remove company officers or investigate pricing, nothing.
    The courts and regulators could do with a few more blackjacks, shillelaghs, and baseball bats, with some pointed sticks thrown in for more serious cases.

    Then you'd be less likely to see such extremes of legal position. The regulators/courts could adopt middle grounds more reasonable to all parties.

    --
    Sal

    Writings: saltation.blogspot.com [blogspot.com]
    Wravings: go-blog-go.blogspot.com [blogspot.com]
    • Here's how it went down. Congress back in 1996 told the FCC to get competition working in the phone business. So they made some new rules, which were struck by the Supreme Court a few years later. Incidentally the bubble was mostly caused by the 96 telecom act, rather than the internet. The interent was rolling along nicely prior to 96, but all of the sudden from 96 to 2000 there were a bunch of startups who wanted to eat AT&T's lunch. They all went after the same market flooded it and killed the i
    • The court ruled on the issue of "whether the FCC had the authority to allow states to decide when the Baby Bells must allow competitors access to their voice switching networks". The court decided the FCC did not, and thus "it gave the FCC 60 days to come up with its own rules for each individual market throughout the United States."

      CNET News.com has good coverage [com.com] on the ruling. So far the feedback on the decision is that it is so unfounded and ridiculous, that it is almost certain to be overturned by th

  • No competition? Wrong. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mstorer3772 ( 526790 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:52PM (#8458643) Homepage
    A: This will damage competition.

    B: This will NOT destroy it.

    You've got a number of local phone options:

    1) your local provider

    2) Cell phones.

    3) Your cable company (though I could be wrong here, it's entirely possible that digital cable/phone will be torpedoed by this. Does anyone know?)

    So that's at least two, possibly three seperate groups vying to give you local service.

    I'm sure the cost will go up, and features may be cut. But I don't think this is some telco apocalypse.
  • that forced the bells to share, allow them to be Long Distance carriers-- and if that law has been repealed, doesn't that mean they can no longer be long distance carriers? as in- no more verizon long distance?

    • Re:didn't this same ruling (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @09:15PM (#8458813) Journal
      kidn't this same ruling that forced the bells to share, allow them to be Long Distance carriers

      I believe so.

      and if that law has been repealed, doesn't that mean they can no longer be long distance carriers? as in- no more verizon long distance?

      Nope.

      1) It wasn't a "law". It was a regulation.
      2) It wasn't "repealed". A part of it was "struck down" by the courts.
      3) Only the part that required the baby bells to open their local lines at regulated cost was struck. The rest of the reg - letting them go into the long distance market - is still there.

      It's a "victory for competition" only in the sense that it deregulates more of the market. Net result (if this holds) is that everybody is playing equally in the future.

      Which means that the people with government-subsidized copper already in the ground and the people who have to bury new stuff and wire a city are "on an equal footing".

      I guess some are more equal than others. B-(

      Fortunately, if you have to dig up the streets to wire a town in order to reach your customers, you might as well wire it with glass fiber. B-)

  • Worried about DSL? (Score:4, Informative)

    by pagansage ( 142636 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:55PM (#8458669)
    I'm sure a lot of people are worried about the DSL situation with respect to the smaller companies (i.e. speakeasy). I didn't find any mention of this in the links above but a nytimes article [nytimes.com] had this at the end:


    The court upheld other rules requiring the former Bell companies to allow providers of high-speed DSL Internet service to use their copper wires, but not upgraded fiber optic or fiber-copper lines. The FCC said requiring the companies to provide access to the upgraded lines would deter the former Bells from making better systems.


    At least for now...

    • Which means that the indy DSL providers (do we still call them CLECs?) have hit a "copper ceiling", stuck using pairs of old copper wire while the Bells get exclusive use of whatever new stuff (e.g. fiber) they pull through those municipally-granted rights of way.

  • Just wrong. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by juuri ( 7678 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:55PM (#8458671) Homepage
    While I don't discount the numerous advancements and network builds out the former baby bells have done they seem to be forgetting they wouldn't even exist as separate entities if we (through government subsidizing) hadn't built out their networks in the first place.

    Someone in the FCC needs to sit down and figure out just how much we doled out to each company for their buildouts and then either offer the company ways to pay us back or force them to offer discounts to other people who wish to use their network until the discounted amount matches what we gave them (adjusted for inflation of course).

  • Why is it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ect5150 ( 700619 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:56PM (#8458676) Journal
    Why is it when I hear 'This is a decisive victory for consumers, for innovation and for free markets.' come out of the mouths of large firms like AT&T, I begin to cringe?

    • Re:Why is it... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You should be happy then...you don't even need to RTFA, but if you had read the article *description* you'd know that AT&T *dislikes* the ruling. The USTA is the one responsible for your quote. Frankly, I think AT&T is in the right with this one...

  • Confused... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MrWhitefolkz ( 751859 )
    I admit I haven't paid to much attention to this issue. But why should owners of a network be required to open it up to someone else? If I build a network for a location, I don't want to let others onto it unless it makes me extra money and doesn't hurt my income. Shouldn't the free market and not the government dictate something like this?
    The only argument I can think of against this is because of a monopoly. However, I don't see (in my limited view of the world) that there is a monopoly preventing people

    • Re:Confused... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kcurtis ( 311610 )
      For one thing, the local wires were run to my house back in the late 19th century (yes, 19th) at a subsidized cost - subsidized by taxpayers. (I know the dating because the Verizon tech told me what a pain it is to wire my house to the 1890-s era copper)

      Why should an infrastructure built by an illegal (well, eventually ruled illegal) monopoly be left completely in control of, in my case, Verizon?

      Why shouldn't I be allowed to ask MCI to provide me service over 100-year-old copper?

      Should MCI or AT&T ha
    • Well, first, in this case the network is run on public property (you know under the street and on the pole) so it's not completely a private network. The government has the right to say, hey, we let you run all these ugly wires everywhere, you have to share access to them.

      Second, you can charge for others to access the network so your investment in the infrastructure should bring returns regardless of who provides phone service.

    • Re:Confused... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Todd Knarr ( 15451 )

      Because in many cases the local telco has a legal monopoly on those lines, granted as part of their agreement with the city/county/state. Anyone else could build lines, technically, but they may not run them on or through city property. It's considered unfair competition for them to be able to deny competitors access to their network when their network is the only way those competitors can legally reach customers. Even when that's not the case, the local telco was subsidized in building their network and ha

    • Re:Confused... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @09:27PM (#8458926) Journal
      ... why should owners of a network be required to open it up to someone else? If I build a network for a location, I don't want to let others onto it unless it makes me extra money and doesn't hurt my income. Shouldn't the free market and not the government dictate something like this?

      The issue is that the "Incumbent carriers" already have billions of bucks worth of copper wire (and miscelaneous other stuff) in the ground and strung on poles. That was all subsidized by government-enforced monopoly prices over decades. A new competitor would have to dig up cities (more expensive now than it was back then) and bury his own wires - then try to compete with somebody who already HAS the wires, pretty much already paid off by money extorted from customers while the government enforced the monopoly.

      EVENTUALLY they'll have to go to an open market. Like when the already-buried wire is running out and new stuff will have to be installed no matter who is providing the service. (Even then an established company will be ahead, only having to do incremental upgrades.) But right now the incumbent players have a major edge - thanks to past government favors at the consumer's expense. The FCC is trying to level that playing field.

      And the court is trying to keep the FCC within the law as written.

      Fortunately, the FCC seems to be honestly working for the consumer's interest (as they perceive it) this time, rather than rubber-stamping the industry players' recommendations. And the court also seems to be trying to do that as well (as part of its job of interpreting the law). They just have this little difference of opinion about whether one of the regulations is legit.
  • Yep. They're gonna go up. Sometimes fair trade isn't fair to everyone.

  • interesting quote (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Polo ( 30659 ) * on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @09:05PM (#8458744) Homepage
    • "
    • Smith of SBC said that even without regulation, the regional companies will continue to give competitors access to their networks -- but at rates set by the market, not by the government."


    I wonder what "rates set by the market" means when you own the market?

  • More sides to this story... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ninejaguar ( 517729 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @09:06PM (#8458747)
    This isn't as simple a case as at first glance. What the courts are doing is telling the FCC that they're attempts are too weak, and must come up with something better than simply letting states decide how to handle the problem. The courts in this case are on the consumer's side. It's only by accident that Powell's son is also on the court's side as the FCC's rulings, as weak as they were, was far more restrictive than his monopolistic tastes could handle. Powell's son is not a good guy. He is anti-consumer. It just happens that the court would prefer a much more decisive FCC ruling and that the FCC must contend with the problem itself and not pawn in it off to the states. This is why the court chastised the FCC. The article is full of noise by other companies claiming that this was an approval of their business practice. That is incorrect, and simply posturing. The FCC will have to come up with a consumer friendly ruling, or face more rejections from the court. If they don't, this will be decided in the Supreme Court as other litigations are winding their way up. Then you're really gonna start hearing some noise from the companies. However, by then, Powell's son will have been given the boot. Talk about nepotism. I can't believe that loser actually got such a visible post.

    = 9J =

    • What the courts are doing is telling the FCC that they're attempts are too weak, and must come up with something better than simply letting states decide how to handle the problem. The courts in this case are on the consumer's side.

      No, I do not see how the FCC letting the individual states regulate this is anti-consumer. Each state is going to have a much better understanding of its own local market, than the FCC would of that same market. But the court has ruled that the FCC now has to come up with its
  • We live in a wireless world. Future wireless standards will soon have the bandwidth of a cable modem anyway. This ruling will just making those technologies role out cheaper and faster (since that's now where the future money is). SBC is already getting into satellite networks. [bizjournals.com] Mmmm. Good two way satellite.

    Plus, if fiber isn't shared, then more will have to be put down (more for everyone). The largest problem I foresee is if is if the applies to power lines as well (which would kill many beneficial deregu

  • At SBC (Score:5, Interesting)

    by z4ce ( 67861 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @09:31PM (#8458972)
    I knew some people not far below the CTO level at SBC. These regulations basically made it impossible for them to roll out new services. If they would add new lines, they would have to pay to roll out the lines then have to sell them to competitors at a loss.

    These regulations really were slowing the spread of broadband technologies. Of course, the question comes so how should it be priced? The government set prices will always be wrong. Making it either unprofitable for the regional telco or the CELC.

    If the regional telco gets to set the prices, it will of course be way too high.

    The only logical thing I can think of is to do exactly what the court did, throw out the regulations.

    Luckily a host of new technologies should force the telcos to be competitive in the "Communications" space. We have two-way satellite, cell phone-based internet access, wi-fi internet access, broadband over power, and currently most importantly cable modems. In Chicago, my dad actually had a cable modem/VoIP thing sitting outside his house with a little UPS. He had no idea it wasn't using traditional phones lines. He just knew he only had one bill, from the cable company.

    This kind of situation should bring about very low prices without the regulation side effects. Considering how easy it is to switch with number portability and all it should bring about some beautiful Bertend, Duopoly competition.

  • ILECs will still be required to provide loops (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    People seem to be misreading the ruling. There are two issues involved:

    1) The Telcom act requires the ILECs (incumbent carriers) to offer Unbundled Network Elements (UNEs) as part of the "deal" for being allowed back into long distance.

    2) The FCC and State commissions set the rates for the UNEs. In most cases, this results in the CLECs getting UNEs for a price that is lower than it costs the ILEC to provice the service. This has the effect of effectively "charging" ILEC phone customers extra in order to
  • I think there is a difference between these two words. Correct me if I'm wrong.

  • F the FCC (Score:3, Funny)

    by stull13 ( 693912 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @09:52PM (#8459153)

    As unpopular an opinion as this may be, I am happy any time the authority of the FCC is challenged in any way.

    The FCC is an unelected arm of the government that already has far too much control. We may applaud their efforts to limit the power of corporations, but how do we feel when they limit what we are allowed to see/hear/think? We can't have it both ways.

    The next time you think it is a good idea to grant any power to the FCC at all, ask yourself how you would feel if you didn't have Howard Stern during your morning commute.

    • Yeah sorry, I'm going to take the bait and disagree with you on that. The telecoms (wireline) bureau of the FCC is actually pretty good; having made reasonably sensible policy over time that has generally been in the consumers interest. These guys are pure economists that don't seem to get as much pressure to make political positions. This probably owes partly to the fact that phones aren't as public (if I swear or expose my breast over the phone, only the person on the other end--probably my mother--suf

    • #1) Morning commutes are herd mentality, I have a job where I commute when the freeways are clear thanks.

      #2) Howard stern is an asshat, and not terribly entertaining. If I'm going to listen to people talk, I'd prefer to listen to something with intellegence, and perhaps wit; or maybe I'd just like to listen to music.

      #3) Yes, the FCC has too much power, however it is nice that nearly everything I own is required to deal with interference.

  • corporate tri-uph (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @10:10PM (#8459305) Homepage Journal
    " In a 3-0 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges wrote that the FCC [...]lacks the authority to delegate responsibility for setting those rates to the states. The court also ruled the FCC had failed to prove that competitors in the local phone market are 'impaired' without government-regulated access to critical parts of the phone network controlled by the regional giants."

    Sounds like Verizon is paying off more than just Supremes Scalia and Rhenquist. What could possibly convince them that telcos charging markups and delays to carried competitors isn't a decisive advantage? And since the FCC delegated its tariffs to the states, wouldn't a more appropriate remedy be to force the FCC to merely use the state tariffs as the (determinant) basis for a federal tariff structure, tailored for different conditions regionally, rather than throw out any tariff or authority at all? This is a corporate coup that kills everyone but incumbent carriers and paid-off judges.
  • It doesn't matter whether or not the govt. makes local phone carriers share their networks. VoIP is the future anyway, and their is competition since this can be done over cable, wireless, or twisted pair. Making local carriers share their networks isn't real competition anyway. It's just another form of regualtion where the phone company is forced to give competitors bandwidth at a regulated rate, which doesn't change things much from forcing the phone company to give you service at a regulated rate.

  • The Golden Rule (Score:2, Insightful)

    by deck ( 201035 )

    The USA applies the golden rule: He who has the gold rules.,/p>

    Did you think I was going to say something about do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This country is headed to the corporatist state (and the ruling party doesn't matter -- they both give in to BIG business). This is just another step down that path.

  • I protest this article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by claytongulick ( 725397 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @11:32PM (#8459833) Homepage
    Does anyone realize that in order to "allow" competition this forces Verizon to sub-lease out their phone lines at BELOW cost?

    This is a return to Monopoly? Ridiculous. Verizon was being forced by the FCC to basically hand out cash to any telecom company that wanted it. This has obvious results, Verizon won't invest in those lines, since it is LOSING MONEY.

    The only realm left to Verizon (other than wireless) is the broadband market. Verizon has invested billions of dollars in DSL and in fiber to expand the reach of broadband to 80% of the homes in the US. Now they are deploying FTTP which will give us data rates in the 100s of megabits.

    So there are two options, either regulate them into non-existance and force them to sell bandwidth to competitors who have invested NOTHING, or to let them reap the rewards of the capital they have invested and to keep the muddling hands of the government out of broadband regulation.
    • Does anyone realize that in order to "allow" competition this forces Verizon to sub-lease out their phone lines at BELOW cost?

      This assumes the local telco's claim as to cost is honest. A long and very checkered history suggests otherwise

      This is a return to Monopoly? Ridiculous.

      It is probably a return to local telco monopoly, and is a disservice to anyone who has ever been afflicted with the need to deal with the local Baby Bells. For the end user/customer, this is a very bad development at best. Som

  • Existing Agreements? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lizardbox ( 597963 ) <oabhari@yahoo.com> on Thursday March 04, 2004 @12:16AM (#8460088)
    I would like to know if anyone has any insight on what will happen to exising agreements that current CLEC's have with the RBOC's.

    Also, I wanted to through my cents in. I don't know if anyone noticed, but this is not going to make much difference (if you look into my future glass ball). In a year or so, SBC or Bell South will buy MCI (after they come out of bankruptcy). AT&T will also be bought. There will be more steps taken towards the consolidation of the telecom industry. We will once again be back with 1 or 2 huge phone companies (providing both local and long distance services). They can bundle in dsl, they can add voip services, and might as well buy the local cable company or even better yet, merge with a national cable company. (Or a parternship ala time warner + MCI style). Whether the TCOM ACT of 1996 remains in effect or not, the telco's will once again be too huge for the little guy to survive.

    Do not worry though, the telecom act of 2016 will break said companies back up again! (in the return of Judge Greene!)

  • Greatnews! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04, 2004 @12:43AM (#8460231)
    Too late for Lucent, these discounts made it impossible for RBOCs to invest in new technology as they had to resell at a loss and Lucent died with no product orders. Now with the opportunity to make a profit they can put some great technology in place! Once the court order has settled down we should see some real growth in the technology sector!

  • Bad electronics? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Annirak ( 181684 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @02:13AM (#8460632)
    The DC Circuit Court of Appeals
    And here I thought most telecom was AC coupled. I guess that's the problem right there! They used the wrong court. Take this to the AC Circuit Court of appeals and see how the decision goes.
  • When comcast took over the local cable company, it ran my cable ISP out of business. Luckily because of the phone regulations, they were able to survive as a DSL provider. Now that seems like it will go away, so we will have to rely on one of the local monopolies for Internet access. That likely means no more providing web/mail services for small groups like my cycling team.

    This type of stuff really annoys me.

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