ISP's In Uproar Over Verizon-MCI Merger

Tue Aug 23 22:23:49 UTC 2005

At 05:45 PM 8/23/2005, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:

>On 23-aug-2005, at 23:24, Richard Z wrote:
>
>>US is trailing other industrial countries in broadband penetration
>
>I'm not sure that's the case, AFAIK the US holds its own.
>
>>because no carrier is interested in investing and building
>>an infrastructure to be shared by their competitors. The only way they
>>argue to get the industry out is to have a few large companies with
>>little competition.
>
>So I guess the choice is between lots of broadband against monopoly
>prices or less broadband at lower prices?
>
>Now I didn't take all that much economy in school, but something
>there doesn't sound right...

Economics don't result in a good solution, no.

I'm not opposed to local telco and cable companies being the only 
players, IFF there's a "must serve" rule, same as there is for local 
telco service. There are lots of towns that have no broadband, and no 
chance of ever getting it unless there's a "must serve" rule like 
there was for rural telephone service.

So, if we're going to put Ma-bell back together, then let's do it 
right and make last-mile broadband a required service just like the 
telcos have to provide dialtone.

Or, let's stop the farce and recognize we're living in the United 
Corporations of America.

(exits soapbox, slaps self for off topic rant)