🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7827r4$i0h6_004@tri.sbc.com>,
	fgoodwin@eden.com (Fred Goodwin, CMA) writes:
   In article <MPG.110e391f28217fd69897a3@ispnews.walltech.com>, 
	For_Email@ddress.see.below_plea.se (Philip J. Koenig) wrote:
   >I have heard the CLEC's (competitive telephone carriers) have to
   >pay in some cases more each month just to lease the wire from
   >companies like SBC than SBC is charging end-users for the entire
   >retail DSL product *including ISP services*.  What's wrong with
   >this picture?

   Not pretty -- yet AT&T / TCI are under *no* obligation at all to
   allow other cable cos. access to their coax, nor are they under
   *any* obligation to allow other ISPs to be the user's primary
   service provider (as the telcos are required to do).

   What's wrong with *that* picture?  My point is, if it's OK for AT&T
   / TCI to refuse to resell its coax to other cable cos., and even to
   refuse to allow its customers to choose their own ISP, why can't
   the telcos do the same?

History.  The reason the federal government feels it must regulate
telcos today is because it granted Ma Bell a monopoly in the past.
Intentionally.  The nominal goal of much of today's telco regulation
is to promote competition, with the end result being to replicate how
the competitive landscape would have looked had the federal government
never gotten involved in the first place.  And it will probably only
take twice as long as if the market had done it!

Of course, this isn't how it _really_ works.  There are more lobbiests
involved than you can shake a stick at.  The federal government
created a monster, and now they're trying to slay the monster using
the tools they created it with,
--
scott hess <scott@doubleu.com> (408) 739-8858 http://www.doubleu.com/
<Favorite unused computer book title: The Compleat Demystified Idiots
  Guide to the Zen of Dummies in a Nutshell in Seven Days, Unleashed>