🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <slrn7aeqk1.d2v.ese002@spica.exile.org>, ese002@news9.exile.org 
(Eric Edwards) wrote:

>On Thu, 21 Jan 1999 16:52:42 GMT, Fred Goodwin, CMA <fgoodwin@eden.com> wrote:

>>Wireless is as much an alternative to wireline phone service as DSS is to 
>>traditional cable service.  I don't know the relative market shares, but my 
>>guess is that wireless has as much or more market share in telephony as DSS 
>>does in cable.  Why is one a legitimate competitive alternative in one 
>>market but the other isn't in its market?
>>
>>Once Iridium is fully operational, wireless will be available everywhere.
>
>Available, yes.  Competetive, no.  At $1/minute, I don't think anybody
>is going to be replaceing their wired phone with Iridium soon.

Point taken.  But many wireless services can be had for much less than that.  
And DBS rates also vary.  

It doesn't change my point that, just as there are alternatives to coaxial 
cable service which make for a competitive market, so there are alternatives 
to ILEC phone service that make it a competitive (or at a minimum, 
contestable) market.

It's interesting to note that the CLEC's own trade association (Association 
for Local Telecommunications Services) announced that at the end of '98, CLECs 
had only 3% of the local market measured by % of access lines, but 5.4% of the 
market measured by revenues.  Clearly the CLECs are going after high-margin 
business customers.

The ILECs cannot *force* them to go after residential customers, so the 
absence of residential competition for phone service should not be taken as a 
sign that the market is not competitive.  It most assuredly is.