Brian Capouch wrote: > Stephen Bosch wrote: > >> PSTN service still sets the standard. >> > > With infrastructure paid for under a gracious guaranteed-profit monopoly > by ratepayers,
In a regulated marketplace with legislated minimum service levels. In Canada, most of the phone systems were government-owned. It was a good system, at least from the point of view of reliability. I don't miss the surly (and often slow) service, but it's arguable whether today's service -- in which everyone smiles nice and *pretends* to serve you while ignoring you completely -- is any better. At least the bloody stuff worked. Communications infrastructure is a strategic, national asset, and only really useful if it goes everywhere, even to the unprofitable pockets like Podunk Corners, North Dakota. People forget this. In a totally free marketplace, Podunk Corners waits years for service and gets tin cans and string when it finally arrives. > now being used as a weapon to stifle competition from > VoIP, cable, and other emerging technologies. Is it? Maybe -- in some circumstances. The history of this makes for some pretty distorted economics, if you ask me. If you want an example of what happens when you don't have regulation to build infrastructure, look at Africa. All wireless, all horribly oversubscribed, and correspondingly unreliable. That's how you pay for expensive equipment in a "free market". -Stephen- _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
