date:20101219

 Well, if you have followed the news, it comes down to the fact that
 some of our old friends from WSIS/WGIG/IGF+ICANN/GAC we're the
 government and we like the idea of being in charge friends are at it
 again. In one corner, Brazil, China, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia;
 in the other, US, Austria, and so on. The current state of play is
 that the folk in the first corner would like an exclusive club, and a
 combination of parties including the folks in the second corner and a
 variety of civil society, industry, ad etc parties and rocked the boat
 back in the direction of multi-stakeholder discussions.
 
 My prediction: the boat will keep rocking, and the givmint folks
 will try again. And again.

s/again/still/

randy

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Phil Bedard

The franchise fees in many markets are based on gross revenue. 5% is a
fairly standard percentage charged by municipalities to cable companies
for right of way access, etc.  Not sure if I would call this a profit
sharing plan, but it's not too much of a stretch.  Today with local
agreements somewhat going by the wayside for statewide franchising, I'm
not sure how the fees are charged.

Phil 

On 12/19/10 5:16 PM, William Allen Simpson
william.allen.simp...@gmail.com wrote:

On 12/17/10 12:08 PM, Dave Temkin wrote:
 George Bonser wrote:
 The municipality charges the cable company per HBO subscriber?


 The municipality gets a cut of that in a profit sharing agreement. The
point was, everyone gets their tax or toll along the way.

Dave, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us where you operate a
network and what municipality is able to charge the cable company
based on a profit sharing agreement.

That would be against the law in Michigan.  And I've never heard of any
cable company revealing its profits on a per municipality basis

Re: UN mulls internet regulation options

2010-12-19 Thread Eric Brunner-Williams


fred, and others with (misspent) wsis++ / ig++ travel nickles,

it would _really_ help me if you provided more context, off-line if 
necessary, as i spent the week before last more involved with the gac 
than at any prior point in my decade of icann involvement.


i don't mind the 'tude, as we all have 'tude, and it is operational 
shorthand for broad views on the contending actors and their issues.


what would help me most is names of persons and specific positions and 
any additional decoding you care to offer. i have to rely upon second 
hand, and usually wsis++ / ig++ favorably inclined second hand data, 
as my nickle hasn't covered that traveling circus.


so clue please. off-line is fine.

eric

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Leo Bicknell

In a message written on Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 05:16:27PM -0500, William Allen
Simpson wrote:
That would be against the law in Michigan. And I've never heard of any
cable company revealing its profits on a per municipality basis

Google finds some:

http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7364

The Franchise Agreement requires ATT to pay the City $0.88 per
residential subscriber per month to maintain and enhance PEG access
services provided by MPAC. ATT has chosen to pass this $0.88 fee on to
subscribers, which it is not prohibited to do under Federal law.

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgtmpl.asp?url=/content/cableoffice/june98franchise.asp#8.%20FRANCHISE%20FEE

Payment to County. Each year during the Franchise term, as
compensation for use of Public Rights-of-Way, the Franchisee shall pay
to the County, on a quarterly basis, a Franchise fee of five percent
(5%) of Gross Revenues, including any Franchise fee owed to the
Participating Municipalities.

http://www.cityofsouthfield.com/Government/CityDepartments/AC/Cable15/FranchiseFees/tabid/499/Default.aspx

Franchise fees are calculated as a percentage of your bill.
Southfield's fee is eight percent of gross revenues.

Googling Franchise Fee turns up thousands of other documents.

This is also why, when speaking to folks at the cable and iLEC
companies I remind them that when it comes to network neutrality I
do regard them as different from CLEC's and independant companies.
They have been granted a monopoly by the local government for
wireline services, and in exchange for that monopoly need to act
in the public's interest. In the TV world this is things like
running the local community interest channel, and paying a franchise
fee. In the IP world we're still developing the criteria, but it's
not unreasonable to think they might have some government imposed
requirements there as well.

--
Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

pgpsO0qC5iso8.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: UN mulls internet regulation options

2010-12-19 Thread Fred Baker


On Dec 19, 2010, at 4:09 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

 Well, if you have followed the news, it comes down to the fact that
 some of our old friends from WSIS/WGIG/IGF+ICANN/GAC we're the
 government and we like the idea of being in charge friends are at it
 again. In one corner, Brazil, China, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia;
 in the other, US, Austria, and so on. The current state of play is
 that the folk in the first corner would like an exclusive club, and a
 combination of parties including the folks in the second corner and a
 variety of civil society, industry, and etc parties and rocked the boat
 back in the direction of multi-stakeholder discussions.
 
 My prediction: the boat will keep rocking, and the givmint folks
 will try again. And again.
 
 s/again/still/

That too...

 randy

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Bryan Fields

On 12/19/2010 20:09, Leo Bicknell wrote:
 They have been granted a monopoly by the local government for
 wireline services, and in exchange for that monopoly need to act
 in the public's interest.  In the TV world this is things like
 running the local community interest channel, and paying a franchise
 fee.  In the IP world we're still developing the criteria, but it's
 not unreasonable to think they might have some government imposed
 requirements there as well.

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.


-- 
Bryan Fields

727-409-1194 - Voice
727-214-2508 - Fax
http://bryanfields.net

Re: UN mulls internet regulation options

2010-12-19 Thread John Curran

On Dec 19, 2010, at 7:43 PM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:

 fred, and others with (misspent) wsis++ / ig++ travel nickles,
 
 it would _really_ help me if you provided more context, off-line if 
 necessary, as i spent the week before last more involved with the gac than at 
 any prior point in my decade of icann involvement.

Eric (et al) - 

On Tuesday, December 14th, I spoke in NYC on behalf of the Number Resource 
Organization (NRO) at the Open Consultations on the process towards Enhanced 
Cooperation on International Public Policy Issues pertaining to the Internet 
held by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). 
 This consultation was being held to get multistakeholder inputs regarding the 
process towards the implementation of enhanced cooperation in order to enable 
governments, on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities 
in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet.  This was 
specifically not about the Internet Governance Forum, but a second initiative 
for a more decisional body regarding the Internet that some governments assert 
was already agreed to by means of the UN World Summit on the Information 
Society (WSIS) Tunis Agenda in 2005[1].

I presented an NRO prepared statement[2]  which outlined the considerable 
progress that had been made in enhanced cooperation between governments, 
business, and Internet technical organizations in dealing with Internet policy 
issues, emphasized the increasingly complex nature of the Internet, and asked 
keeping these factors in mind when considering next steps.  I also intervened 
twice requested clarification of exactly how a government-only decision body 
for Internet policy would fulfill the consultation with all stakeholders 
paragraph specified in the Tunis agenda. The answer from several countries was 
not encouraging, suggesting the consultation could be done in the UN manner 
through their Member State delegations.  This government-only view is being 
asserted by several countries, but India, Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia 
are carrying it most strongly, and it is likely to result in a recommendation 
in this matter from the Under Sec General to the UN General Assembly sometime 
next May.  While we had many interventions speaking in favor of a more 
multistakeholder approach (including the US and UK, the Internet Society on 
behalf of itself and the IETF, and ICANN), several other presenters did not 
stay on topic of enhanced cooperation and fulfilling the Tunis Agenda, but 
instead explored a wide range of topical Internet concerns (those interested in 
detailed positions of presenters are recommended to review the filed positions, 
statements as presented or listen/view the UN archives all of which are 
available online [3].

Overall, I believe that the Internet community did well in presenting its 
points, and am hopeful that if a more decisional intergovernmental body is 
formed for addressing these matters, some functional mechanism for consultation 
with non-governmental parties will receive some consideration. I do not believe 
that there is much more that can be done until we see the draft recommendation 
that emerges from this process early next year.

I hope this helps provide some context as you requested.

Happy Holidays,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN

=== REFERENCES

[1] WSIS Tunis Agenda: http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html
[2] NRO statement: http://www.nro.net/documents/pdf/StatementbyJohnCurran.pdf
[3] DESA / WSIS Folloup website:  http://www.unpan.org/dpadm/wsisfollowup

RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 Google finds some:
 

http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7364
 
 The Franchise Agreement requires ATT to pay the City $0.88 per
 residential subscriber per month to maintain and enhance PEG access
 services provided by MPAC. ATT has chosen to pass this $0.88 fee on
to
 subscribers, which it is not prohibited to do under Federal law.
...

If you look at that agreement, you will see that it specifically does
not apply to Internet services, and it specifically prohibits any
monopolies.

This is simply a charge for access to public right of way or a payment
to the city for stuff the city has to maintain to support ATT's
infrastructure.

For example, if ATT undergrounds cables under a street, this increases
the maintenance cost of that street because they must now be sure to
avoid ATT's cables when they dig and must take those cables into
consideration for any civil engineering work they do.  I don't see that
as an access fee for subscribers.

What I am concerned with happening is a cash-strapped city seeing
Comcast (or any provider, really) trying to charge for access to
subscribers and then the city saying wait a minute, who are you to sell
access to our people to a third party?  If you are going to charge third
parties for access to those eyeballs, then you can pay us, in turn for
that access.  And from there it all goes down hill.  Comcast charges
for access to eyeballs and then the cities turn around and charge
Comcast an access fee and then it becomes ubiquitous and cities start
charging all ISPs for eyeball access as a revenue source.  It is the
opening of a box that is better left closed, in my opinion.

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Richard A Steenbergen

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 where government regulation of the entities who 
ARE granted the monopoly status comes into play, to protect consumers 
against abuses like we're seeing Comcast commit today.

Personally I think the right answer is to enforce a legal separation 
between the layer 1 and layer 3 infrastructure providers, and require 
that the layer 1 network provide non-discriminatory access to any 
company who wishes to provide IP to the end user. But that would take a 
lot of work to implement, and there are billions of dollars at work 
lobbying against it, so I don't expect it to happen any time soon. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen r...@e-gerbil.net   http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)

RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 Personally I think the right answer is to enforce a legal separation
 between the layer 1 and layer 3 infrastructure providers, and require
 that the layer 1 network provide non-discriminatory access to any
 company who wishes to provide IP to the end user. But that would take
a
 lot of work to implement, and there are billions of dollars at work
 lobbying against it, so I don't expect it to happen any time soon. :)
 
 --
 Richard A Steenbergen r...@e-gerbil.net   http://www.e-
 gerbil.net/ras
 GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1
 2CBC)


I agree.  The highway model of commerce is better than the railroad
model of commerce.

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Leo Bicknell

In a message written 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.

While I like the concept, reality doesn't allow it.  When speaking
about the folks who actually run fiber/copper/coax to the home there
are a number of physical, real world issues.

Rights of way specifically easements, poll space and similar are
limited quantities.  There is both a finite number of folks who can
put in resources in any reasonable way, and an expoentially increasing
chance of them damaging each other as they pack in closer and closer.

There is also the problem that most residents get really upset if
the road between home and the grocery store is torn up this week
by ATT, next week by Comcast, the following week by Level 3, the
next week by Cogent and is then a rutted potholed mess.  Many cities
are requring carriers to do joint physical duct builds to keep from
digging up streets repeatedly, but due to the inconvenience factor
but also because it reduces the lifespan of the streets, and thus
raises costs to residents.

After looking at many models I think Australia might be on to
something.  The model is that a quasi-government monopoly provides
the last mile physical wire, but is unable to sell services on it.
Basically they only provide UNE's.  Then, at the switching center
any ISP can pick up those UNE's and provide services.  Competition
to the end user, while the last mile is always a single povider
limiting the issues above.  Many cities are trying the same with
electric service, one companie provides the transport infrastructure
and when you select a generation provider.

Simply put, physical real world issues means there will never be
individual residences in most places where there are 6-10 wired
infrastructures coming in, so the user can select one and 5-9 can
go unused.  Huge waste, lots of problems running it that add cost
and create conditions users don't like.

I dream of a day where we have municipal fiber to the home, leased to
any ISP who wants to show up at the local central office for a dollar a
two a month so there can be true competition in end-user services.

-- 
   Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/


pgpO1lwpM1DUX.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style


 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.


jc

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 Personally I think the right answer is to enforce a legal separation
 between the layer 1 and layer 3 infrastructure providers, and require
 that the layer 1 network provide non-discriminatory access to any
 company who wishes to provide IP to the end user.

SE

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread David Conrad

On Dec 19, 2010, at 4:12 PM, JC Dill wrote:
 And if a competing water service thought they could do better than the 
 incumbent, why not let them put in a competing water project?

Because they'd have to dig up the streets, people's yards, etc. to do it.  

There really are some natural monopolies.  

Regards,
-drc

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Richard A Steenbergen

On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 05:58:26PM -0800, Leo Bicknell wrote:
 
 I dream of a day where we have municipal fiber to the home, leased to 
 any ISP who wants to show up at the local central office for a dollar 
 a two a month so there can be true competition in end-user services.

Take a second and think about what THAT would do to the ratio wars. 
Imagine if any hosting/content provider, with potentially hundreds or 
thousands of gigabits of unused inbound capacity on their networks, 
could easily get into providing IP service to eyeballs. Even ignoring 
the existing 95th percentile silliness like free inbound transit, 
which would no doubt rapidly evaporate under this kind of model, the 
difference in efficiencies between the highly competetive hosting world 
and the highly non-competetive last mile world are simply staggering. 
For many content networks, it would be an opportunity to start making 
money on their bits instead of paying for them, and networks without 
content expertise would be in serious trouble.

I personally can't think of a single thing with more potential for 
massive disruption to the business models of incumbent providers. There 
are so many billions of dollars at stake protecting the status quo that 
it's not even funny, which IMHO is why you'll never see any of this 
happen in the US, in any kind of scale at any rate. :)


-- 
Richard A Steenbergen r...@e-gerbil.net   http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Richard A Steenbergen

On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 06:12:02PM -0800, JC Dill wrote:
 
 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.

The laws of diminishing returns have already set the bar for the point 
at which it's not profitable for a new company to enter the market and 
try to compete. Right now the number is roughly 2, cable and dsl, give 
or take a few outliers. I do believe the point would be to encourage a 
little more competition than that. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen r...@e-gerbil.net   http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Seth Mattinen

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

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Jeffrey S. Young

one of the most interesting things about coming to Australia (after working in 
the USA telecom industry for 20 years) was the opportunity to see such a 
proposal (the NBN) put into practice.  who knows if the NBN will be quite what 
everyone hopes, but the premise is sound, the last mile is a natural monopoly.

I believe that 'competition' in the last mile is a red herring that simply 
maintains the status quo (which for many broadband consumers is woefully 
inadequate). I agree with you that the USA has too many lobbyists to ever put 
such a proposal in place, the telecoms in a large number of states have even 
limited or prevented municipalities from creating their own solutions, 
consumers have no hope.   one has to wonder how different the telecom world 
might have been in the USA if a layer 1 - layer 2/3 separation was proposed 
instead of the att breakup and modified judgement

jy

On 19/12/2010, at 8:48 PM, Richard A Steenbergen r...@e-gerbil.net 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 where government regulation of the entities who 
 ARE granted the monopoly status comes into play, to protect consumers 
 against abuses like we're seeing Comcast commit today.
 
 Personally I think the right answer is to enforce a legal separation 
 between the layer 1 and layer 3 infrastructure providers, and require 
 that the layer 1 network provide non-discriminatory access to any 
 company who wishes to provide IP to the end user. But that would take a 
 lot of work to implement, and there are billions of dollars at work 
 lobbying against it, so I don't expect it to happen any time soon. :)
 
 -- 
 Richard A Steenbergen r...@e-gerbil.net   http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
 GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Chris Adams

Once upon a time, JC Dill jcdill.li...@gmail.com said:
 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.  

Look up pictures of New York City in the early days of electricty.
There were streets where you couldn't hardly see the sky because of all
the wires on the poles.

 And there certainly won't be 50 all trying to service the same neighborhood.

And there's the other half of the problem.  Without franchise agreements
that require (mostly) universal service, you'd get 50 companies trying
to serve the richest neighborhoods in town, and none, or maybe one
high-priced vendor, serving the poorer areas.

 And if a competing water service thought they could do better than the 
 incumbent, why not let them put in a competing water project?

There is limited space, and most people don't want the road and their
yard being dug up because their neighbor wants different water service.
Also, the more people digging, the more breaks you'll have in existing
services (and if there are fibers from 10 different companies cut,
they'll be pointing fingers for blame and all trying to get in the hole
at the same time to fix theirs first).

-- 
Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 
 I believe that 'competition' in the last mile is a red herring that
 simply maintains the status quo (which for many broadband consumers is
 woefully inadequate). I agree with you that the USA has too many
 lobbyists to ever put such a proposal in place, the telecoms in a
large
 number of states have even limited or prevented municipalities from
 creating their own solutions, consumers have no hope.   one has to
 wonder how different the telecom world might have been in the USA if a
 layer 1 - layer 2/3 separation was proposed instead of the att
breakup
 and modified judgement
 
 jy

I like the *idea* of having the infrastructure separate but I am not
sure how well that could work unless there was a national infrastructure
company that could spread costs over the entire customer base.  If you
look at what ATT did in Fairbanks after the 1964 EQ, it was amazing
what they were able to do in such a short time.  They could draw on
resources nationally and spread those costs over the entire operation.
A local infrastructure company couldn't do that.

I think it would have to be a national layer1 company.  Maintaining
infrastructure is costly and charges for services help subsidize
infrastructure expansion/repair.  Then you get to the finger pointing
problem where the service provider points at the wire company and vice
versa.  Then you have to ask yourself ... is the current system really
all that broken?  The *only* problem I see with the current system is a
lack of competition for broadband in many areas.  Address that problem
and I think the other problems work themselves out.  Even if there are
only two choices, that is much better than one provider only.

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Mike


On 12/19/2010 06:12 PM, JC Dill wrote:



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.


On this point I would like to add some anecdotal information that may or 
may not be relevant:


	Where I used to live, a rural community in northern california, the 
township was the exclusive provider of water service to the community. 
The cost of water service was obscene compared to urban water service, 
and in fact we had to put up with drought conditions due to insufficient 
water storage in system and no connections to other water systems. They 
went ahead and passed laws that made it illegal for you to have your own 
water storage tanks on your own property (which is something the local 
population has easy access to and would be considered normal for the 
area). Furthermore, the lack of available 'water permits' severely 
restricted the abillity of land owners to build the properties they 
bought, and drove down property values since you couldn't find a buyer 
for land you can't develop (in that area).


	A second water / sewer provider would have set the township govt' on 
it's ear, to the benefit of the residents and property owners

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Owen DeLong


On Dec 19, 2010, at 5:50 PM, George Bonser wrote:

 Personally I think the right answer is to enforce a legal separation
 between the layer 1 and layer 3 infrastructure providers, and require
 that the layer 1 network provide non-discriminatory access to any
 company who wishes to provide IP to the end user. But that would take
 a
 lot of work to implement, and there are billions of dollars at work
 lobbying against it, so I don't expect it to happen any time soon. :)
 
 --
 Richard A Steenbergen r...@e-gerbil.net   http://www.e-
 gerbil.net/ras
 GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1
 2CBC)
 
 
 I agree.  The highway model of commerce is better than the railroad
 model of commerce.
 
 

Australia is actually experimenting with something like that as we speak.

Owen

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Owen DeLong


On Dec 19, 2010, at 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.
 
You can send letters just as well as packages via the other carriers.

The USPS monopoly on first class mail is absurd. In fact, FedEx, UPS,
et. al could offer a $0.44 letter product if they wanted to.

They could not call it mail. They could call it first class document delivery.

However, the reality is that they probably couldn't sustain their business
at that price point.

The USPS doesn't have an actual monopoly so much as ownership of
the term Mail almost like a trademark. What they do have is an infrastructure
built at taxpayer expense that creates a very high barrier to entry for
competition at their price points.

 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.
 
The point is that the cost of the infrastructure usually exceeds what you can
recoup if you only have part of the population in a given area as your
customers, thus, creating natural monopolies.

Owen

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

2010-12-19 Thread Owen DeLong


On Dec 19, 2010, at 6:21 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:

 On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 05:58:26PM -0800, Leo Bicknell wrote:
 
 I dream of a day where we have municipal fiber to the home, leased to 
 any ISP who wants to show up at the local central office for a dollar 
 a two a month so there can be true competition in end-user services.
 
 Take a second and think about what THAT would do to the ratio wars. 
 Imagine if any hosting/content provider, with potentially hundreds or 
 thousands of gigabits of unused inbound capacity on their networks, 
 could easily get into providing IP service to eyeballs. Even ignoring 
 the existing 95th percentile silliness like free inbound transit, 
 which would no doubt rapidly evaporate under this kind of model, the 
 difference in efficiencies between the highly competetive hosting world 
 and the highly non-competetive last mile world are simply staggering. 

You say this as if having such a disruption would be a bad thing.

 For many content networks, it would be an opportunity to start making 
 money on their bits instead of paying for them, and networks without 
 content expertise would be in serious trouble.
 
I'm not seeing the problem here. Like any business in a changing climate,
they would have to either develop expertise or perish.

 I personally can't think of a single thing with more potential for 
 massive disruption to the business models of incumbent providers. There 
 are so many billions of dollars at stake protecting the status quo that 
 it's not even funny, which IMHO is why you'll never see any of this 
 happen in the US, in any kind of scale at any rate. :)
 
Yes... This is where the market makes it best philosophy fails. When the
market has become entrenched in one way of doing things, a better way
can face serious opposition because of this very fact.

Personally, I don't see such a disruption as a down-side. I think it would
be the introduction of a relatively level playing field in an area where the
playing field has long been very uneven.

Owen

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style


 On 19/12/10 6:25 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:

On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 06:12:02PM -0800, JC Dill wrote:

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.

The laws of diminishing returns have already set the bar for the point
at which it's not profitable for a new company to enter the market and
try to compete. Right now the number is roughly 2, cable and dsl, give
or take a few outliers. I do believe the point would be to encourage a
little more competition than that. :)


This is true but ONLY in the current climate where the incumbents have a 
monopoly on the ability to put in cabling for the last mile to homes.


I live in an area where there are 2 ILECs (ATT, Verizon) in nearby 
proximity.  Both are putting in fiber to some homes in their respective 
areas.  Imagine what would happen if they could both put in fiber in the 
other areas.  Then they would be *competitors* for those customers.  
Right now, they don't compete - they each have a territory and in their 
territory they are the predominant telco player (competing with the 
cable incumbent - usually Comcast).


jc

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style


 On 19/12/10 8:31 PM, Chris Adams wrote:

Once upon a time, JC Dilljcdill.li...@gmail.com  said:

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.

Look up pictures of New York City in the early days of electricty.
There were streets where you couldn't hardly see the sky because of all
the wires on the poles.


Can you provide a link to a photo of this situation?

And there certainly won't be 50 all trying to service the same neighborhood.

And there's the other half of the problem.  Without franchise agreements
that require (mostly) universal service, you'd get 50 companies trying
to serve the richest neighborhoods in town,


No you wouldn't.  Remember those diminishing returns.  At most you would 
likely have 4 or 5.  If you are player 6 you aren't going to spend the 
money to build out in an area where there are 5 other players already - 
you will build out in a different neighborhood where there are only 2 or 
3 players.  Then, later, you might buy out the weakest of the 5 players 
in the rich neighborhood to gain access to that neighborhood when player 
5 is on the verge of going BK.


It's also silly to think that being player 6 to build out in a richer 
neighborhood would be a good move.  The rich like to get a good deal 
just like everyone else.  (They didn't *get* rich by spending their 
money unwisely.)


As an example, I will point people to the neighborhood between Page Mill 
Road and Stanford University, an area originally built out as housing 
for Stanford professors.  They have absolutely awful broadband options 
in that area.  They have been *begging* for someone to come in with a 
better option.  This is a very wealthy community (by US national 
standards) with median family incomes in the 6 figures according to the 
2000 census data.


Right now they can only get slow and expensive DSL or slightly faster 
and also expensive cable service.


The city of Palo Alto has sonet fiber running right along the edges of 
this neighborhood. (see, http://poulton.net/ftth/slides.ps.pdf slide 18.)


It's a perfect place for an ISP to put in a junction box and build a 
local fiber network to connect these homes with fiber to the Palo Alto 
fiber.  But apparently the regulatory obstacles make it too 
complicated.  THAT is what I'm talking about above.  Since the 
incumbents don't want to provide improved services, get rid of those 
obstacles, let new players move in and put in service without so many 
obstacles.


jc

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style


 On 19/12/10 8:44 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:

You can send letters


Technically, this is illegal.  You can send documents via FedEx and UPS.


just as well as packages via the other carriers.

The USPS monopoly on first class mail is absurd. In fact, FedEx, UPS,
et. al could offer a $0.44 letter product if they wanted to.


No, they can't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes


They could not call it mail. They could call it first class document delivery.

However, the reality is that they probably couldn't sustain their business
at that price point.

The USPS doesn't have an actual monopoly so much as ownership of
the term Mail almost like a trademark.



It's not just a trademark, it's the class of service.  Just try starting 
up a regular mail service, and see how far you get before they SHUT YOU 
DOWN.



  What they do have is an infrastructure
built at taxpayer expense that creates a very high barrier to entry for
competition at their price points.


FedEx entered the package delivery market even though there was a very 
high barrier to entry, and they succeeded.


jc

RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 
 You can send letters just as well as packages via the other carriers.
 
 The USPS monopoly on first class mail is absurd. In fact, FedEx,
UPS,
 et. al could offer a $0.44 letter product if they wanted to.

There are certain legalities involved with first class mail that is not
the same with other forms of transit of written material.  Intercept
requirements are different, for one thing, as are other privacy
requirements.  For example, it is a federal crime to tamper with a US
mail box or with US mail, not so sure if that is so for a FedEx box.

First class mail enjoys certain expectations of privacy that other
forms of letter transport may not enjoy.

RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 Yes... This is where the market makes it best philosophy fails. When
 the
 market has become entrenched in one way of doing things, a better way
 can face serious opposition because of this very fact.

The problem is that we don't *have* a market in many places.  We have a
monopoly provider and the people have no alternative in too many places,
what we need in those places is a market.  One provider does not a
market make.  It is a company store at that point.

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 There were streets where you couldn't hardly see the sky because of all
 the wires on the poles.
 Can you provide a link to a photo of this situation?

come to tokyo.  or hcmc.  or ...  it's an art form.

RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

 
  There were streets where you couldn't hardly see the sky because of
 all
  the wires on the poles.
  Can you provide a link to a photo of this situation?
 
 come to tokyo.  or hcmc.  or ...  it's an art form.

C 1925 when each subscriber (or party line) had their own pair:

http://www.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/beltran/2009/07/24/Tina_modott
i_wires447x625.jpg

Vietnam: 

http://constructionknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/tangled_power_w
ires_vietnam.jpg

Nepal:

http://constructionknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/tangled_power_w
ires_nepal.jpg

Location unknown:

http://constructionknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/tangled_wires_t
oilet.jpg

India:

http://pinkbunnyears.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/telephone-pole.jpg

blackhole-1.iana.org and blackhole-1.iana.org servers are down?

2010-12-19 Thread Oleg A. Arkhangelsky

Hello,

It seems that 192.175.48.6 and 192.175.48.42 not replying to RFC1918
addresses DNS-reverse lookups.

Does anybody noticed this?

-- 
wbr, Oleg.

Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style