Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Mon Dec 20 04:37:24 UTC 2010

> 
> 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 at&t
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 AT&T 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.