The FCC could easily have forced CLEC's to build out at the same time it forced the ILEC's to unbundle.
Would have been nice :). All I care about is the divide between us and and the rest of the world.
Whether you admit it or not, economically broadband is a utility. It is the utility for home-based workers, entrepreneurs, the Creative Class, and innovation. As more and more people get PC access and get online, more and more ideas, projects, and innovation happens. I want that to happen in the US. Not in India. Not in China or Korea, but here in America.
Agreed, although broadband speed doesn't really do that much to help this (past a certain point, increasing bandwidth leads to diminishing returns). Broadband penetration is the important factor here. We have a shortage of doctors in America. A shortage of teachers.
Some of this can be solved via broadband like tele-medicine and distance learning.
To a point, although economics is more of a factor here than technology. I'd agree on the doctors; however, distance learning is a pathetic substitute for on-site teachers. Good teaching is more about inspiring the person to want to learn rather than the passing on of information--technology won't solve what is essentially a problem created by us placing educational funding as a fairly low budget priority.
> Forced wholesale access of the physical layer / network layer does > absolutely nothing to increase availability and, in fact, actually > hurts availabilty. You are incorrect there. The plant company would need to keep building out to increase revenue. The Application side would want that as well.
I think you missed my point here. My point is that forcing telcos to resell their network layer does absolutely nothing to connect additional people. If I resell AT&T DSL to someone on AT&T's network, they could have just as easily gotten it from AT&T. I definitely agree that seperating the physical layer and the network layer would be a great way of regulating and getting good competition; it forces each component to become more efficient and breaks up the vertical monopoly (which is, in the end, more damaging than the horizontal monopoly). However, I think the idea of forcing ILECs to (when all is said and done) allow resell of their retail products is just stupid. It doesn't increase broadband penetration at all
The ISP / CLEC that is basically reselling ILEC copper is not > connecting anyone who wouldn't / couldn't have been connected via the > ILEC. However, because the ILEC is less profitable due to forced > reselling, then they can't buildout as much infrastructure > (theoretically). Sure it is. CLEC's and ISP's are always stealing clients from each other and ILEC's. Sometimes they steal them from cable. But more than just the red ocean is the blue ocean when a new idea like Metro E over copper or VDSL or HPNA or BPL comes along and stretches the use of the copper and brings consumers new apps and new access. (Covad is rolling out 15MB DSL - are any ILECs? NO).
AT&T is doing ADSL2 (although you won't get any more usable bandwidth than currently available). I think the bigger question is why aren't more CLECs rolling out ADSL2? Why did COVAD wait 5 years to start? Why do they gripe and moan about how the FCC is killing the "innovative" part of the industry instead of actually implementing innovative technologies? 15Mb/s DSL would have been interesting 5 years ago. Given massive fiber rollouts and the upcoming DOCSIS 3 rollouts from the cable companies, 15Mb/s DSL will be too little, too late. I'm not saying that these aren't decent business models, btw, and can't make people some dough. But, national policy is not structured around making sure that an extra couple of CLECs or NSPs are cash positive... running the same old tired copper to the same old customers does not increase broadband penetration. Metro-E over copper is, by and large, a disappointing technology (getting good quality copper is too difficult by and large). In some sense as well, copper just needs to die and be replaced by a better medium (ie fiber or at least cable HFC plants).
> The fact of the matter is that the US is doing pretty damn well at > broadband deployment, and, corruption aside, most of the current > administration's policies have been fairly benificial towards making > broadband more widely available (with some very major exceptions). I actually don't think that more DSLAM's are being deployed. I see how often a business comes up as Unqualified, even when DSL is available in that area. That's due to CAPEX being spent to over-build DSL penetrated areas with fiber. That's not a helpful strategy.
Isn't it? Copper needs to die as a physical medium...it's expensive to maintain and is severely handicapped. I'm perhaps backtracking a bit on my bandwidth points earlier, but we have reached pretty close to the limit to what you can shove over a pair of copper. While we have sufficient bandwidth for the time being, I believe, copper won't be able to deliver the needed bandwidth for 10 years down the road... Qwest is no longer the ILEC in Omaha. That's the first MSA. VZ has asked
for forbearance in 6 MSA's, due in 80 days. In 80 days, you won't be able to buy access from VZ unless they want to sell it to you. Why? The stats say cable has beat them out. And I think it is almost on purpose, so the ILEC can get out from under regulation and do what it wants. Do you think that the CLECs are actually hurting the ILECs? Or the ISP's?
ISP's have less than 1% of the DSL in the US. FISPA members at one time
had 3% of the BellSouth market in 2001. CLEC's in their hey day had a whopping 15% of the market (2001 I think). Not any more. The largest CLEC has less than 100,000 customers. And even with the Super CLEC's - all 3 of them - approaching $1B in revenue, their debt is 3/4 of that number and they pay more than 50% of revenue to the ILEC.
How does that hurt the ILEC? They make money from CLEC's. They don't
make a dime from cable.
Does it hurt the ILEC? Heh...probably not all that much. But, are CLECs really helping the consumer? I tend to argue no, by and large...why IS CLEC market share so small? Why are independent ISPs have so little market share? CLECs have killed themselves because they tended to think in quarterly and yearly terms for P/L and investment. The cable companies and the ILECS tend to think longer term and so have been able to win out in the long term. NSPs pay ~$30/month to resell DSL service; $3,600 over ten years to provide DSL service to a residence. That's enough money to start financing a fiber buildout, and that's just some crummy DSL service. Owning the physical infrastructure makes a huge difference, something that CLECs, by and large, never learned, and just kept on paying huge chunks of money to the ILEC rather than building their own network and making themselves sufficient (in a lot of cases, it isn't feasible, since you do have to have a certain market penetration for it to be worthwhile.). Anyway, that's a lot of rambling. I tend to agree with a lot of your points, Peter; I just don't really see the value. The CLECs got special market regulation and so forth on the premise of creating a lot of extra competition, increasing broadband penetration, and (vaguely) the promise of innovation. They have by and large failed miserably in all three areas... Put them to rest. Put the efforts on getting more people involved in actually building out networks and increasing REAL competition (yes, wireless does fit in there to some degree). Clint Ricker Kentnis Technologies On 7/24/07, Peter R. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Clint Ricker wrote: > I'll duck after this post, but I by and large tend to agree with the > basis of the article. > > Scottie, exactly what regulation would you recommend? STRUCTURAL SEPARATION like BT is experiencing in the UK, which would never happen here. > > What has regulation solved in the past 11 years? By and large, I've > not seen a single bit of FCC regulation that has had a net positive > impact for getting access to the consumer, especially post 2000 (it > was probably a good force behind making dialup Internet access widely > available and affordable). It was not FCC regulation; it was the TA96 that was tattered and torn by lobbying and litigating. The FCC SHOULD have advanced its policy and then set to forcing it. Instead it went to bed with 2 of the industries it is supposed to regulate (media & telco). The FCC could easily have forced CLEC's to build out at the same time it forced the ILEC's to unbundle. Let me extrapolate this for you: In the NFL cities you would have endless construction as fiber is laid to all the MTU's. But in all other markets, not so much competition. And then you would have VZ selling off its rural ... oh, wait, they do that now because they don't want to invest the money. They make a good rate of return (as attested to by their increasing profits -- not revenues). They get USF and other funding to provide service in rural areas, but do not want to live up to the promises that they made back in 1997-1999. Do you think I care about the 15th or 21st or whatever study number? No. All I care about is the divide between us and and the rest of the world. Whether you admit it or not, economically broadband is a utility. It is the utility for home-based workers, entrepreneurs, the Creative Class, and innovation. As more and more people get PC access and get online, more and more ideas, projects, and innovation happens. I want that to happen in the US. Not in India. Not in China or Korea, but here in America. We have a shortage of doctors in America. A shortage of teachers. Some of this can be solved via broadband like tele-medicine and distance learning. > > Forced wholesale access of the physical layer / network layer does > absolutely nothing to increase availability and, in fact, actually > hurts availabilty. You are incorrect there. The plant company would need to keep building out to increase revenue. The Application side would want that as well. > The ISP / CLEC that is basically reselling ILEC copper is not > connecting anyone who wouldn't / couldn't have been connected via the > ILEC. However, because the ILEC is less profitable due to forced > reselling, then they can't buildout as much infrastructure > (theoretically). Sure it is. CLEC's and ISP's are always stealing clients from each other and ILEC's. Sometimes they steal them from cable. But more than just the red ocean is the blue ocean when a new idea like Metro E over copper or VDSL or HPNA or BPL comes along and stretches the use of the copper and brings consumers new apps and new access. (Covad is rolling out 15MB DSL - are any ILECs? NO). > > The fact of the matter is that the US is doing pretty damn well at > broadband deployment, and, corruption aside, most of the current > administration's policies have been fairly benificial towards making > broadband more widely available (with some very major exceptions). I actually don't think that more DSLAM's are being deployed. I see how often a business comes up as Unqualified, even when DSL is available in that area. That's due to CAPEX being spent to over-build DSL penetrated areas with fiber. That's not a helpful strategy. Qwest is no longer the ILEC in Omaha. That's the first MSA. VZ has asked for forbearance in 6 MSA's, due in 80 days. In 80 days, you won't be able to buy access from VZ unless they want to sell it to you. Why? The stats say cable has beat them out. And I think it is almost on purpose, so the ILEC can get out from under regulation and do what it wants. Do you think that the CLECs are actually hurting the ILECs? Or the ISP's? ISP's have less than 1% of the DSL in the US. FISPA members at one time had 3% of the BellSouth market in 2001. CLEC's in their hey day had a whopping 15% of the market (2001 I think). Not any more. The largest CLEC has less than 100,000 customers. And even with the Super CLEC's - all 3 of them - approaching $1B in revenue, their debt is 3/4 of that number and they pay more than 50% of revenue to the ILEC. How does that hurt the ILEC? They make money from CLEC's. They don't make a dime from cable. > -Clint Ricker > Kentnis Technologies > - Peter @ RAD-INFO, Inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like to see your advertisement here? Let the WISPA Board know your feelings about allowing advertisements on the free WISPA lists. The current Board is taking this under consideration at this time. We want to know your thoughts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
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