US West and RADSL (fwd)
Chad Skidmore
cskidmor at nwnexus.com
Fri Jun 5 02:46:51 UTC 1998
Actually, they are not cross-marketing in ALL 14 states. The Washington
Association of ISPs managed to work with the Utilities Commission in
Washington to put language in the tariff that prevents/limits
cross-marketing. Take a look at the tariff at http://tariffs.uswest.com
and check the Washington MegaBit tariffs. Some of the language from
that tariff could be incorporated into other state tariffs to prevent
this kind of cross-marketing.
If you know of any cross-marketing please let us know. The WUTC would
love to hear as well.
---------------------------------------------
Chad Skidmore
Director of Network Engineering
Northwest Nexus, Inc.
http://www.nwnexus.com
1-888-NWNEXUS
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dax Kelson [mailto:dkelson at inconnect.com]
> Sent: Thursday, June 04, 1998 2:31 PM
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: US West and RADSL (fwd)
>
>
>
> Doesn't look like her email made it to the NANOG list.
> Co-marketing of an
> ILEC ISP along with the DSL circuit is going to be a big issue as the
> ILECs rollout DSL nationwide. DSL is coming probably faster then you
> think, we turned up the first DSL connection in Utah a couple
> weeks ago.
>
> Dax Kelson
> Internet Connect, Inc.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 12:18:39 -0600
> From: Marianne Granoff <granoff at nm.net>
> To: dkelson at inconnect.com
> Cc: jarneault at inet-solutions.net, nanog at merit.org
> Subject: US West and RADSL
>
> [snip]
> >I could go on and on about the VERY APPALLING situation here
> with USW and
> >DSL and Internet access, about regulated and unregulated
> services, etc,
> >etc.
> >
> >Dax Kelson
> >Internet Connect, Inc.
>
> The preceeding message was forwarded to me by one of our NM
> ISPs. US West
> has been co-marketing its Internet service _with_ its RADSL
> service in all
> of its 14 states
> (http://www.uswest.com/com/customers/interprise/dsl/).
> Actions by ISP groups in Oregon and New Mexico may provide
> some relief to
> local ISPs there.
>
> I have just put up a listserve for ISPs in the US West states
> to use in
> sharing information. Technet has had one for the NM ISPs for
> several years
> - it has been a big help in getting out the word about some of these
> actions. How about uswisp at lists.nm.net? Please feel free to
> send this out
> to any interested ISPs.
>
> To subscribe, just send an empty note to:
>
> uswisp-subscribe at lists.nm.org
>
> I believe that all the RBOCs/ILECs have taken or will be
> taking similar
> actions. Even Sprint's new ION services are part of this
> trend. In my
> opinion, this is anti-competitive behavior by monopoly
> organizations. I
> think that many local ISPs will be severly hurt by such
> actions, and more
> than a few will close their doors.
>
> As I see it - the biggest problem is that local ISPs are not
> organized and
> do not know how - or have the forums - to work together to
> fight actions by
> a company the size of US West (or other RBOC/ILEC). My
> company, New Mexico
> Technet, is one of the larger ISPs in NM. We wholesale
> Internet access to
> other ISPs. We have intervened in the NM tariff filing for US West's
> Megabit services (see http://www.technet.nm.org/press.htm) to
> attempt to
> correct some of the things that are very anti-competitive about the
> proposed tariff. So far it has cost us over $30,000 in legal
> fees and we
> have not even had the hearing yet. Most local ISPs cannot do
> this. Most
> local ISPs do not know how to take the actions with the FCC
> or with the
> state public regulatory agencies so that their concerns can
> even be heard.
> Frankly - most ISPs are not members of CIX or of ISP/C - and
> many of them
> do not even know about those organizations, or understand why
> they should
> care.
>
> In NM, the local ISPs come in mostly 2 flavors: those that serve urban
> areas (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Los Alamos) who
> "may" be affected
> by what US West does but are not sure, and those in rural
> areas who do not
> feel they will ever be affected by these actions, and so do
> not care. In
> much of US West's 14 state territory - I suspect that this is
> similar. The
> local ISPs in the urban areas have mostly seen the other local ISPs as
> competitors, not collaborators. They have seen US West (or
> the RBOC/ILEC)
> as a vendor, not as a competitor. Most local ISPs worry
> about retribution
> from US West (or other RBOC/ILEC) (delayed service,
> unresponsiveness on
> outages, unfilled orders) if they come on too strong in criticizing a
> company that they are _so_ dependent on. I am not sure that
> their concerns
> are not valid.
>
> The local (state) regulatory agencies are overworked and
> underfunded in
> this age of telecommunications transition/revolution. It is
> not that they
> don't care. It is that they simply have too much on their
> plates already.
> Few states provided extra funding to handle all the _new_
> issues raised by
> the 1996 Telecommunications Act at the _state_ regulatory
> agency level. No
> one is championing any of this in most states. I think
> probably because it
> is not considered a problem by the vast majority of ISP
> _customers_. I had
> one of my customers tell me to "just get out of the way" and
> let US West
> introduce the high speed service because the customer needed
> it right away
> and I was just holding it up. They never saw that US West
> owned some of
> the blame in the constant delays, counterfilings,
> interrogatories, motions
> to compel, and other actions that have caused this
> intervention to drag on.
> Unfortunately, this person is more typical of ISP customers
> than local
> ISPs want to believe.
>
> The saddest aspect of this is that unless something changes,
> US West and
> the other RBOCs/ILECs will likely dominate the supply of
> Internet access in
> large urban areas in a few years - and the rural areas will
> have a great
> deal less Internet access than they do today.
>
> I think the answer is that the local ISPs _and their
> customers_ have to
> come together if they want to have choices about ISPs in the
> future. It
> will take some of the larger ISPs reaching out to the smaller
> local ISPs to
> help them get _all_ of their respective customers informed of
> the issues.
> It will take the larger ISPs intervening in more state and
> FCC proceedings.
> It will take constant email, listserves, and newsgroups
> spreading such
> information - and reaching customers - not just ISPs. It
> will take some
> national politicians to "champion" this cause - some who are
> not worried
> about losing RBOC/ILEC campaign contributions - which are
> considerable. It
> will take involvement by media organizations that are not
> worried about
> losing the RBOC advertising revenues - which are also considerable.
>
> It will take every local ISP who is harmed by US West actions calling,
> writing, or emailing their local and national politicians and
> letting them
> know that they have informed all of their own customers about
> the actions
> by US West or other RBOC/ILEC and informing their customers
> of the fact
> that the politician has not responded to these
> illegal/unethical/anti-competitive actions.
>
> In NM, it is now other internet professionals and businesses that have
> joined ISPs in questioning the actions of US West. Web
> designers, web page
> hosting services, internet trainers, web-advertising services
> and other
> businesses are starting to realize that US West wants to take their
> Internet-based business as well. This is a start.
>
> Regards,
>
> Marianne
>
> Marianne Granoff
> Director of Operations
> New Mexico Technet, Inc.
> 5921 Jefferson NE
> Albuquerque, N.M. 87109
> Ph: (505) 345-6555
> FAX: (505) 345-6559
> email: granoff at nm.net or granoff at technet.nm.org
>
>
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