‘You’re a tool of monopoly’
p2pnet.net News View:- George Orwell’s 1984 is alive in part, at least, in the US where, “Americans pay more for less broadband service than citizens of any other industrial country, and our take-up rate for fast Internet service is approaching Third World levels,” writes Dana Blankenhorn on Corante.
There, "phone and cable networks, created under government control, have been made the private monopolies of corporate interests whose lobbyists dominate all capitals against the public interest.”
The Supreme Court has affirmed the FCC’s decision not to regulate cable companies’ provision of broadband services, he says, going on:
“This was an important victory for broadband providers and consumers. Cable companies will continue to have incentives to invest in broadband networks without fear of having to provide their rivals access at unfair discounts. The decision also paves the way for the FCC to place telephone companies on equal footing with cable providers. We can now move forward and remove the legacy regulation that reduces telephone companies’ incentives to provide broadband.”
And this, says Blankenhorn, is Orwell’s FCC where “Monopoly is called competition”.
New FCC chairman Kevin Martin claims intense competition from Wireless ISPs and satellite providers, “when in fact those companies are being driven out of the market,” says the Corante post, pointing out that most consumers and businesses can choose between their local phone monopoly and local cable monopoly, "who together enjoy a duopoly and monopoly profits that lets them write-down their 30-year property in a world best served by three-year write-offs".”
Although billions of dollars of new investment have gone into broadband networks, the government needs to do much more to, "spur broadband deployment, including placing broadband providers on equal footing so that they can fairly compete in the marketplace".
And this, in turn, means freeing providers from, "undue regulation that can stifle infrastructure investment,” Blankenhorn says, adding, “the FCC will move to force struggling wireless providers to raise subsidies to the Bells for ‘universal service’ only the Bells are allowed to provide.
“The fact, Mr. Martin, is that I am paying $110/month for 1.5 Mbps downloads – that’s $50 for DSL and $60 for the phone line. The alternative from cable is equally pricey – $70/month for the cable and $40/month for the cable modem service.
“Rhetoric isn’t fact, sir. You’re nothing but a tool of monopoly and the author of America’s technology crash. You claim to be for ‘free enterprise,’ yet you’ve done everything you can on your watch to reduce competition and enable monopoly profits for incumbent providers.
“The incumbents will make their obedient servant a rich man one day, I guarantee.”
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See:-
Corante – Orwell’s FCC ChairEmail This Entry, July 8, 2005
July 8th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
Boy, talk about spin… Here are some facts. The Cable and Telcos spent billions in placing the infrastructure into the ground for internet, VoIP, and IPTV services. So why should they be forced to resell their service at below cost? Remember the UNE-P requirement for telcos? In California, SBC Communications was forced to sell dialtone lines for 50% below cost. So, for every dollar that was invested in the network, you only get 50 cents back. Not very fair, is it.
Personally, I’m for competition, but if Earthlink wants to provide broadband internet service, then they need to build their own network into people’s houses instead of ripping off the telcos through government mandated regulation, which in my opinion is legalized theft.
Furthmore, the person who said that she spends $110/month for 1.5 Mbps downloads is a bunch of crap. Where do you pay $60 for a basic phone line? A basic line in California costs $20/month. Now, if you add features like call waiting, call forwarding, and caller ID, that adds up. But, you are not required to have those features for a line. Many people have phone lines with no features what so ever. Features are not a requirement for dialtone. If she is burning up $40/month is usage, then she needs to put the phone down once in a while or get on a calling plan.
July 8th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
Well said. There is no reason why ISPs that spend billions building networks should be forced to share them with others. If you want to provide service, build your own lines, dammit.
July 8th, 2005 at 7:06 pm
I know you are… but what am I?
July 8th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
…was forced to sell dialtone lines for 50% below cost. So, for every dollar that was invested in the network, you only get 50 cents back…
First off, that math is just wrong. Even if the 50% number had any basis in reality SBC would still had to have been selling 100% of it’s available dial tone service to competitors to make your “investment” calculations wash.
I’m not saying your post is all wrong. It seems to me you disagree with the story so you present the version you find more palatable as “facts” when it’s just another spin.
One other observation,
“government mandated regulation…is legalized theft.”
That may be true in some cases, but IMHO when monopolys are involved it is too easy and tempting for them to abuse their “no competitors” situation when unregulated. Look at Enron.
July 8th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
the facts may be skewed. I certinly haven’t heard of broadband costing so much (except for business accounts) or phone service. However they are monopolies and she’s right about the FCC being a tool of them. for example I I owned a comany that wanted to expand into broadband and was willing to lay the system to do I’d have to get permission from county, city, state and federal deparments depending on whose land I’m going to cross. Now do you honestly think these entrenched monopolies will sit by and allow that to happen? I’m willing to bet I wouldn’t be able to get one licensee from any government agency to lay my own system. the only other alternitive is to have the current system go public, have the companies who invested in them get reimbursed to allow other companies to use it. OR we can just stay with the monopolies.
Rick
July 8th, 2005 at 9:45 pm
Ok, lets not get all wrapped up in the dollar amounts or what not. Here’s the way I see it. Choice is good, getting Locked-In is bad. I live in the crappy part of a suburb near chicago. Everyone in the nicer parts of town has access to either SBC Yahoo DSL or Comcast. Thats great. In my part of town, they aren’t even considering offering DSL, so its comcast or dialup. How fair is that? Another point to make, is what point is there to have 6 different sets of lines, all providing the same service, all going to the same place? its an enormous waste of cost. What should happen, is that the lines should be purchased by the government, or at least, the initial investment cost should be payed off, and then all the companies should share them. This isn’t the cell phone business where you erect a tower, call it day. You have to dig and install all of these lines. I for one and not about seeing construction crews all the time because another company wants in the game. It’s retarded. Share the damn lines! and then when the time comes to upgrade them, have all companies that use them, pay % of the upgrade, based on use. problem solved.
July 9th, 2005 at 1:41 am
“Yours is the telco version of spin…”
uh, whatever THAT means…
hello anonymous coward RIAA/MPAA tool. yes, tool!
July 10th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
That sounds like an good idea. But here are problems with allowing that to happen.
1) Your side walk would have to rise so all cables from all providers can go in there.
2) Each week the side walk would be digged up due to 1 provider having a problem. It would take weeks to fix as they will have find there cables under there due fact every business have there own cable network there.
That would be just dumb.
What needed to happen is this.
1) The street cabling from exchange to home is provided by cabling business lets say Cable Buniess Inc.
2) a) ATT pays Cable Buisness $1 month to use it.
b) Smith Internet pays Cable Business $1 month to use it.
c) etc
3) Cable Buisness Inc can not do buiness to end user directley, they only do business with Providers like ATT, Smith Internet, etc.
It would never happen. Well it has in UK, with Gas. Once upon a time British Gas owned all the pipes and they where who you payed your bills to. But UK goverment wanted to stop this monopoly so anyone could be provider of your bill. The UK govermonet forced British Gas to release all there pipes to business call Trasco. Trasco isn’t in the bills business they are pipes and suppley business the end user has nothing to do with them unless they smell gas and Trasco comes out and fix it.
July 11th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
“First off, that math is just wrong. Even if the 50% number had any basis in reality SBC would still had to have been selling 100% of it’s available dial tone service to competitors to make your “investment” calculations wash.”
Really? Maybe you should take a look here: http://www.x-changemag.com/hotnews/33h14165438.html
Besides, SBC has bills to pay too. Electric bills for the switching and transport equipment, fuel bills for the generators when the power goes out, parts for equipment that breaks, the payroll for an army of techs to maintain the network, do I need to continue? A %50 percent government forced discount to their competitors is hurting their business. Those are facts.
“One other observation,
“government mandated regulation…is legalized theft.”
That may be true in some cases, but IMHO when monopolys are involved it is too easy and tempting for them to abuse their “no competitors” situation when unregulated. Look at Enron.”
That’s why the telephone industry has been regulated for years and years before competition. It’s one thing to lease a line and wire it to your own equipment at a fair cost, it is quite another to resell SBC dialtone and force SBC to subsidize their competitors when they own “the last mile”.
July 12th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
Mouth breathers… Perhaps you better make that long overdue trip to the clue store.
July 12th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
Not that it matters, but I did look at the link, and your creative math is STILL WRONG. Do you own a bunch of SBC stock or something?