Charles, Given your position on this issue, I have to believe that your comments are partially tongue-in-cheek. The telcos have had a government-mandated monopoly for over 50 years where they were allowed to collect monopolistic profits to build the grand network that they possess today. They own their cable plants as a direct result of the money that the public contributed (and continue to contribute in most areas) to them; not because they were one of the competitors offering a top-notch service. The ILECs continue to control last-mile access to consumers not because it is impossible for competitors to mirror their connectivity, but because it is cost-prohibitive to build that infrastructure when the expected gross return hovers around $300/year [1].
ILECs aren't comparable to cable providers for three reasons: 1) cable providers generally built their networks from capitol generated from their operations without financial assistance from the government and were not granted taxation authority to subsidize network construction a la USF; 2) Cable providers' services have not been a nearly required utility for the past 50 years. 3) Cable providers have cost-analogous competition in virtually every market from Satellite based television providers, video rental stores, online information services, etc. ILECs aren't comparable to WISPs for the same reasons above and for these additional reasons: 1) WISPs for the most part haven't had any assistance from the public sector that wasn't available to any other business at the time; 2) WISPs could have a viable competitor enter their market at any time for a relatively low start-up cost. The only potentially limiting factor is tower locations and as many of you know, if one municipality rejects you, you just beam it in from outside the town [2]; 3) Most WISPs have little power to eliminate competition by undercharging because they don't have the ability to generate monopolistic profits from other operations. <guestimation> The ILECs are deathly afraid that the government will not allow them to exclusively exploit their monopoly-gained infrastructure because they know that their operation is so incredibly inefficient and out-dated that they can't compete with other carriers even when they are on slightly-elevated ground. If $14.95/month business 1.5MB DSL isn't desperate dumping to eliminate competition, I don't know what is. They couldn't do this without their monopoly phone line revenue from the past 75 years. How much do they charge for a T-1? $700/month? Is it really that much different? </guestimation> Allowing ILECs to prevent competitors from using their newly-built infrastructure in 2004 was a shaky proposition because they usually possess the ability to build that infrastructure as a direct result of their previous monopoly. Allowing ILECs to prevent others from using their existing infrastructure that was paid for as a direct result of their monopoly amounts to nothing less than government corporate welfare which will lead to fewer choices for consumers [3] and higher prices [4] for the services that they have the privilege of ordering from the duopoly. - Tony P.S. Anyone want to bid on this with me? Oh, you don't have enough capital? I can't imagine why... http://news.com.com/2061-10800_3-5819312.html [1] Assuming $50/month revenue and a 50% chance that they choose a competitor. Yes, I know that we can bundle services to get this number to $100 or more, but that generally hasn't happened and it's simpler to just talk about Internet-based services. Additionally, the _net_ return from an individual consumer probably hovers around $200/year. Can you even build wireless connectivity for this kind of return while running the inefficient operations that the ILECs have? [2] Maybe this part of WISP operations should be regulated. I can see some benefit to having an equal-access-to-towers regulation that covers all structures in an economically- or politically-limited tower environment. [3] Most ISPs rely on ILEC connectivity for either last-mile access to their customers or for their interconnectivity to the Internet. If the ILECs are allowed to discontinue or artificially inflate the cost of these services we will see a similar loss-of-competition that occurred three years ago with competing DSL providers. [4] They will probably look lower though. I am amazed by how foolish most consumers act. Many actually believe that $14.95/month DSL + $50/month (required) phone line is a better deal than $35/month Internet and $25/month (optional) phone line. Maybe a consistent pricing system is a better way for government to foster broadband development. On 8/4/2005 12:07 PM, Charles Wu created: > Here's the issue > > If you vote to regulate the bells, then you (as WISPs) must also be ready to > ultimately submit yourself (or at least your facilities based network > infrastructure) to regulation sometime in the near future - to requote > myself...the government won't support "double standards" > > Good or bad, that's hard to say > > -Charles -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
