🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <78dpvp$1us_006@news.eden.com>, fgoodwin@eden.com writes...
> In article <MPG.1112a46d9ab83099897af@ispnews.walltech.com>, For_Email@ddress.see.below_plea.se (Philip J. Koenig) wrote:
> >In article <788knd$2os_006@news.eden.com>, fgoodwin@eden.com writes...
> 
> >> Gotta disagree with you.  In fact, you have exactly backwards.  
> >> The telcos in fact exercise *no* control over who you select as 
> >> your ISP.  AT&T / TCI will allow you *no* choice.  And this is 
> >> a "good" thing?
> >
> >The simple fact that the telcos have tremendous influence on who
> >they decide to interconnect with (and how easy they make it for 
> >them) certainly does have plenty of impact on who you get internet
> >services from.  The telcos have a history of foot-dragging and 
> >obstructionism when it comes to this sort of thing, although you
> >will of course never get them to admit it.
> 
> Like I said, the telcos exercise *no* controll over who you select 
> as your primary ISP.  Nothing you said above changes that simple fact.
> Please explain to me how telco interconnection had *any* affect on 
> your decision of a primary ISP?  You cannot, because it does not!


Let me clarify.

I'm not referring to an ISP that you connect to via an old-fashioned modem, 
which uses regular voice lines.  I'm referring to who the telco decides to
partner with for modern services like DSL (which requires the CLEC's to
lease their lines from the telco), ISDN (the Centrex version of which requires
ISPs to co-locate equipment in the telco's CO) and other technologies which
requires the *cooperation* of the telco to rollout.  Here in the SF Bay 
Area for example, the only CLEC's that provide DSL services (and lease lines
from Pacbell) do it at a much higher price that Pacbell does direct to the
consumer.  What is the likelihood that Pacbell would partner with a company
who *undercuts* their DSL pricing?  Not bloody likely.  One of the ways 
they do that is by having inflated prices for leasing the lines themselves,
and I'm sure others are more subtle and insidious.



> Since you didn't address my AT&T / TCI comment, I take it you approve 
> of their decision to disallow any choice in your primary ISP?  Is this 
> how you define competition? 


Fred, when did you stop beating your wife?

I addressed it, you apparently chose to ignore my points.


 
> >> Fine -- then the same argument could apply to cable service: let the 
> >> telcos in with no constraints but regulate the incumbent.  Fair 
> >> enough?
> >
> >No.
> >
> >For the umpteenth time: TV or internet service is not the same kind
> >of essential service as telephone service is.
> 
> A non sequitur.  I agree with you, but that's not the point.  If cable 
> service isn't "essential" then the telcos should not be burdened with 
> any regulation when they enter that market, right?


Do you just skim for soundbites so you can make phony comebacks?  I 
addressed all that, re-read what I wrote.


 
> >For the 2nd umpteenth time, the telco's are charged with providing a
> >viable alternative to the local phone market before they get the 
> >"cookie" of expanding their business into other markets.
> 
> The '96 Telecom Act makes that a requirement only for entry into LD.  
> There's no such requirement for the telcos to enter other markets.  
> The FCC hasan entirely different thicket of regulations regarding 
> telco entry into cable, completely unrelated to competition in the 
> local (or LD) market.


'tis possible, I haven't read all the regulations.  I do however think 
I have a sense of what the intent is here - ie, companies like the baby
bells (who are now re-consolidating back into the giant bells again)
have such dominant market power in their respective service areas that
it behooves the FCC etc. to limit their ability to bring these clear
competitive advantages into additional markets before they provide 
real competition within their traditional monopolies.  So far there 
is virtually no significant competition for local phone service.. it's
trickling out in dribs and drabs but it's still almost invisible in
the statistics at this point.

There is also (as I detailed at length in my last post) the issue
of control over both the delivery system and the content traveling
over it.  This weighs heavily in the decisions to allow telcos to be 
not only common carriers and (in many cases monopoly) infrastructure 
providers, but content providers as well.



> >As it is, the telco's are re-consolidating to the point where a 
> >consumer's ability to choose is going to become severely restricted
> >once again anyway.. I suppose you'll claim that's a good thing too. 
> 
> Never said that -- all I'm saying is that competitors should play by the same 
> rules.  You claim the cable cos. should not be regulated to the same extent 
> telcos are when they try to offer local phone service, as if the nascent cable 
> market could be crushed by the bad-old telcos.  Do you seriously think AT&T 
> hasn't the financial and technical wherewithal to withstand a challenge from 
> telcos who are still smaller than they are?


You don't think that the bell operating companies, who are the only 
companies that have virtually 100% wireplant coverage into every household
in America, are not a threat to the cable companies?  What have you 
been smoking?  Of course they are.. and vice versa.

On the other hand there are far more untapped markets that the telcos 
haven't yet entered (and many of them where they would gain an immediate
huge advantage) than the private cable companies. (who are, after all,
privately controlled, largely unregulated and welcome to enter any 
market they so please.. if they thought some other business were 
profitable I'm sure they'd already be in it, be it LD or whatever)



> >(on a side note, I shudder to think what the consumer environment is 
> >going to look like in 10 yrs with all these megamergers... Hughes just 
> >bought out their 2 biggest DBS satellite competitors too, for example)
> 
> So where is the hue and cry from the consumers against the AT&T / TCI merger?  
> I've yet to hear it?


Personally I'm for it, since my experiences with ATT have been far
more positive than my experiences with TCI.  I'm also heartily looking
forward to the day I can say scr*w Pacbell and get local phone service
from someone else.. I would *love* ATT to compete with the local bell
operating company who stinks, and gets worse by the month. 

There are other mergers, such as the Hughes buyout of their DSS 
competition and the baby bell mergers, that I oppose.


 
> >designed and provided for something else: talking on the phone.  OTOH 
> >Cablemodems were *designed* for internet access: apples and oranges.
> 
> I could just as well state that coax was originally "designed" to 
> deliver TV signals.  Cable modems are to coax just as analog modems are
> to copper pairs.


Read what I wrote.  Telcos *can't* dictate ISP choices for traditional
old-fashioned modem dialup accounts, since modems leverage a line which
has no special data features.  

The cable infrastructure is not by definition required to interconnect
to anything but their own customers, this is a key difference between 
telephone and cable, and why the telcos are in no position to block 
which ISP you can use for *dialup POTS lines*. (which I kind of suspect 
they'd like to do - just like the cable companies - if they could get 
away with it)

Cable infrastructure also was designed for broadcast TV signals, not
bidirectional data traffic, and in order to provide data traffic on 
the cable TV infrastructure it has to have new functionality added 
to it, as well as cable modems.  If a cable company is the only entity 
you can obtain a cablemodem from (a parallel to cellular/PCS phone 
companies who are the only source for specially-customized phones 
which only work on their service) then they have an additional way 
to control who provides and gets data service from their system.  


> >Same is true for cablemodems.  If it weren't for some unifying entity 
> >such as @home to partner with cable companies who have a patchwork of 
> >coverage around the country, the whole cable internet access thing may 
> >have ended up stillborn with dozens of disparate standards, systems 
> >that didn't interconnect, incompatible hardware, bla bla bla.  Not
> >to mention marketing costs etc.
> 
> I could agree, for the sake of argument, that cable modem cos. might 
> need some protection from the bad old telcos in order to get the 
> industry started.  But when they have a backer the size of AT&T, I find 
> it hard to shed any tears for them (to borrow your phrase).  Now that 
> AT&T is in the picture, I see no reason why the TCI merger shouldn't be
> conditioned on a requirement that thge merged company make their 
> services available for resale, or unbundle the coax so other companies 
> can provide service, or at an absolute minimum, allow the captive 
> cable customer to select his own ISP.  Why is that so much to ask?


First of all, the TCI merger hasn't even been finalized yet.  It has yet
to have any impact on the competitive landscape, so you can hardly presume
that the regulatory atmosphere isn't taking something into consideration 
which isn't even a *reality* yet.  As far as I know, regulators haven't 
signed off on that merger yet.

Secondly, ATT competes in competitive markets.  ATT is not a monopoly, the
baby bells are.  ATT does not *yet* do local phone service, however they
may now be positioned to do it with their TCI holding.. as a *competitor*
to the baby bells.

The oversight of the baby bell's entry into other markets, as I've said
a bunch of times before, is largely because they currently are local phone
service monopolies.  The intent of the regulation is to spur the migration
of the local phone service from a monopolistic one to a competitive one.
Once again: ATT doesn't figure in that whatsoever because they neither 
do local phone service nor are they a monopoly in the markets in which 
they do business.  If the TCI acquisition changes that picture then their
status should be revisited.


> >Once the cablemodem infrastructure hits critical mass, then I see it
> >as self-evident that the competition in such areas as who one's ISP 
> >can be will naturally increase.  Right now it's in its infancy and
> >the current situation isn't too terribly surprising.
> 
> And how long do we wait?  ISPs have been around for more than a decade, 
> yet they *still* claim the industry is in its infancy and thus the FCC 
> should continue its enhanced services exemption.  In truth, the industry
> wants to make that exemption permanent.  Given the tremendous customer 
> growth rates of ISPs over the last five years, again, I find it hard 
> to shed any tears for them.


Which exemption are you referring to?  The infamous "modem tax"?  If so, 
I think the customer outcry every time this comes up, about having to pay 
anything additional for their internet access must be figured into the 
picture here.

Furthermore, the telcos have used all sorts of bogus arguments about all 
the terrible things modem usage has done to their infrastructure etc.. 
much of which was debunked and thrown out in ie recent PUC rulings in 
Calif in regards to ISDN service.  It remains to be seen which one of 
these arguments have any real merit.



Phil


-- 
Philip J. Koenig         The Electric Kahuna Organization          [see below]
-----------------Computers & Communications for the New Millenium-------------
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