On 12/19/10 6:12 PM, JC Dill wrote: > On 19/12/10 5:48 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote: >> On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 08:20:49PM -0500, Bryan Fields wrote: >>> The government granting a monopoly is the problem, and more lame >>> government regulation is not the solution. Let everyone compete on a >>> level playing field, not by allowing one company to buy a monopoly >>> enforced by men with guns. >> Running a wire to everyone's house is a natural monopoly. It just >> doesn't make sense, financially or technically, to try and manage 50 >> different companies all trying to install 50 different wires into every >> house just to have competition at the IP layer. It also wouldn't make >> sense to have 5 different competing water companies trying to service >> your house, etc. > > This is the argument the government uses to keep first class mail > service as an exclusive monopoly service for the USPS, claiming you > wouldn't want 50 different mail carriers marching up and down your walk > every day. Yet we aren't seeing a big problem with package delivery. > Currently you have 3 choices, USPS, UPS, and FedEx. The market can't > support more than 3 or 4 package delivery services (e.g. we had 4 with > DHL, which didn't survive the financial melt down). Why not open up the > market for telco wiring and just see what happens? There might be 5 or > perhaps even 10 players who try to enter the market, but there won't be > 50 - it simply won't make financial sense for additional players to try > to enter the market after a certain number of players are already in. > And there certainly won't be 50 all trying to service the same > neighborhood. > > And if a competing water service thought they could do better than the > incumbent, why not let them put in a competing water project? If they > think they can make money after the cost of the infrastructure, then > they may be onto something. We don't have to worry that too many would > join in, the laws of diminishing returns would make it unprofitable for > the nth company to build out the infrastructure to enter the market. >
Contrary to popular belief the average person tend to severely dislike all forms of road construction or having their yard repeatedly torn up. I know it's all happy fun times to say "let's have 10 water/electrical providers and you can select which molecules/electrons you want!", but there's a practical limit as to how much stuff one can pack under a street's limited right of way. If you look at what's under there right now it's actually quite crowded. We just don't see it because it's buried. ~Seth
