🚀 go-pugleaf

"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> writes:

> "Bill Z." <nobody@nospam.pacbell.net> wrote in message
> news:878wix6vad.fsf@nospam.pacbell.net...
>>> And new bidding rules ostensibly to block abuse.  (Whether they were
>>> effective or not, I couldn't tell you.)
>>
>> Whether effective or not is of course critical.
>
> True.  I personally have no first hand knowledge if they were
> successful or not, so I'm not going to pretend to know.  All I know is
> that all bidding was blind, so no one knew who they were bidding
> against.
>
> Verizon and AT&T bought most of the spectrum offered, so I'm sure
> you'll interpret that as them having an unfair advantage. 

Not necessarily.  What I was clearly objecting to was industry-wide
unfair pricing.

>>>>> So, you're saying a study, comissioned by M2Z, a company run by a
>>>>> former
>>>>> FCC wireless bureau chief that wants to be awarded spectrum for free
>>>>> rather than buy it at auction, is anti-auction?  Imagine that!
>>>>
>>>> Ad hominem argument.
>>>
>>> Fair enough.  I tend to view most studies commissioned by someone with
>>> a vested interest on its outcome with skepticism, though, even when it
>>> supports my side of an argument.
>>
>> THe article I quoted said the study was *requested* by M2Z, not that it
>> was *commissioned* by M2Z.
>
> Is there really much of a difference?  Do research groups create many
> studies pro bono?

Yes, there is a difference. M2Z may have made the request to the FCC,
which could have then had a research group perform it.
>
>>> They never applied to bid in the auction.  AFAIK, they have no real
>>> money. They seem vehemently opposed to buying spectrum.  They've
>>> proposed a "royalty" instead- paying the government 5% of all
>>> subscription revenue in return for use of the spectrum.
>>
>> Sounds like the sort of thing many startups would propose.  Most are
>> cash limited.
>
> True.  However, business and government do not often work
> Wimpy-style. ("I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for 200MHz of spectrum
> today...")

>
>
>>>> Err, overcharging for texting is the issue.
>>>
>>> Ok, so fix it for us!   Let's pretend you're the CEO of a cellular
>>> company. Let's assume that all costs to the company related to texting
>>> are $0.005/each- a half a penny, fair enough?  You're the CEO,
>>> beholden to the stockholders- set the price- what's it going to be?  A
>>> la carte, and bundles.
>>
>> What the CEO would be expected to do is to undercut the competition and
>> then drop the price as the competition drops its price.  For some reason
>> nobody is doing that. Hence the suspicions of price fixing.
>
> Businesses are not altruistic.  Undercutting the competiton is a
> strategy with a specific purpose- to increase revenue and/or market
> share.  

Since "Businesses are not altruistic", that is a good reason to
regulate them when a handful control a market.

>> Of course the big guys can tell a small cellular company that they
>> will want 10 cents per message (maybe more) that the small company
>> delivers to one of the large company's subscribers as a way of keeping
>> the price up.  Assuming equal flow in both directions, it would balance
>> out, but any statistical fluctuations would be far more noticeable to
>> the small company, so the effect is to create a barrier to entry.
>
> MVNOs don't provide their own messaging infrastructure, but purchase
> texting wholesale from their infrastructure-carrier.  My PagePlus
> prepaid phone, for example, has a Verizon address for email-to-SMS
> delivery, not a "PagePlus" address.

Again you are trying a non sequitur.

-- 
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB