I don't post on DSLreports, but here's my opinions with the various stories mentioned here and the sometimes illinformed commenters.
1. Painting all broadband providers as greedy isn't accurate. Greed is part of the problem, but not all of it. Nothing unique about that regardless of the line of work or opportunity. In reality, there is not much room for slow paying investment, as everything gets outdated quickly in the world of computing, so if someone can make a fast payback once in a while, it's good for the long term success of the company and it's ability to keep upgrading things. Small businesses like ours can use this payback for investment, bigger duopolies use this for either paying down massive debt from acquisitions or for making another acquisition. 2. Most of these writers except the one below get this wrong or don't clarify: Capitalism isn't failing us, because the duopoly is hardly capitalism, even though the duopolies might have stock ticket symbols. Phone especially, and to a lesser extent cable, have such a tremendous lobbying ability at ALL levels of government, they might be more capable at getting what they want than the government entity they are dealing with. I'm not exagerating, the phone companies have state government around their finger. The state government is a puppet of the phone companies in many respects regarding regulation and legislation. Anything that is better managed at a federal level also has another team of lobbyists and inside connections. Anything in between is litigated and appealed till the problem runs out of money, time, and business opportunity. Anything they don't want regulated at one level of government they manage to keep regulated at another level. I'm not following the cable companies as well, but a testament to their lobbying ability is when the phone companies wanted statewide franchise agreements, they were able to stop the phone companies from getting it for the most part. As far as more DSL, etc.. There isn't a need for government funding as much as a need for the government to remove artificial barriers to entry for more competition. The telco act of 1997 was a weak and slow start with insufficient followthrough. Wholesale DSL is more expensive than retail DSL in many cases, meaning no meaningful competitive choice as far as service choices riding on the same infrastructure. Poles access is pricy for rural areas, and the telcos make sure it's pricy and slow to get access. CO access options are expensive and few. "Interconnection" is pricey and complicated. Those things might be worthwhile in urban areas, but not in rural areas. This is why things like VOIP, Wireless broadband, cellular, and Sat TV are growing in leaps and bounds. We bypass everything we can (while staying legal) in the name of progress. On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 02:19:33PM -0700, Jack Unger wrote: > > http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Whats-The-US-Doing-Wrong-With-Broadband-101328 > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- /* Jason Philbrook | Midcoast Internet Solutions - Wireless and DSL KB1IOJ | Broadband Internet Access, Dialup, and Hosting http://f64.nu/ | for Midcoast Maine http://www.midcoast.com/ */ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
