At 7:49 PM +0100 on 12/26/99, M. Uli Kusterer wrote:
>>>What benefit has any "ordinary" individual seen from deregulation of the
>>>telephone monopoly? My telephone bills haven't decreased; but the amount
>>>of time I spend responding to unsolicited requests to change long distance
>>>carriers seems to grow every year.
>>
>>Long distance rates have gone far down -- just consider all those
>>x�-a-minute deals. Local hasn't really been effected, as there is still no
>>competition. no doubt in part due to the FCC -- remember, the local BOC's
>>are still trying to keep AT&T out, for example.
>
>Folks,
>
> although I think this is rather off-topic (is the philosophy list still
>available?),
Yes.
>let me add a few thoughts:
>
>- local calls haven't gone down because it's much more cost-effective to
>install a couple of big lines that connect two cities and are used by
>thousands of people than to connect one house to the telephone net, which
>will (at best) be used by around 50 people.
But it's no where near justifying $400/mo for an ISDN. Or $50/mo for an
ADSL line. And remeber, when you make a long-distance call, you still have
to use to local wires.
It does not cost Bell much anything to complete local calls. We have
flat-rate phone bills around here. And I bet the second AT&T, MCI WorldCom,
or Sprint gets to compete with the local BOC, it'll suddenly get a lot
cheaper. That is, assuming the #$@!@!*(^#@ in Washington don't decide that
the poor must be baught Internet access at my expense. And with their
moronicy, the @##^&! in Washington will probably decide the poor need T1's,
or, for the ones who want to start 'Net businesses, T3's and nice Sun
servers.
>- I'm lucky unsolicited phone calls of this sort are illegal in Germany.
Hah. I didn't know Germany had more than one phone company.
