Looking for success stories in Qwest/Centurylink land

Rob McEwen rob at invaluement.com
Tue Jan 29 06:20:25 UTC 2013


On 1/28/2013 4:57 PM, david peahi wrote:
> and underscores the need for a national broadband buildout in the USA, funded and run by the Federal Government

Maybe Australia has a better track record... but over the past few
decades, the US Federal government:

(A) ...cannot do a darn thing without MASSIVE graft & corruption... plus
massive overruns in costs... including a HEAVY dose of "crony
capitalism" where, often, the companies who get the contracts are the
ones who pad the wallets of the politicians in charge. About the ONLY
thing the Feds do efficiently is write & mail checks.

(B) In the US, we have this thing called the 4th amendment.... which
ensures a certain level of freedom and civil liberties and privacy.
Unfortunately, 4th amendment rights essentially disappear if the US
Federal government owns and operates broadband access. Additionally,
such ownership will then allow them to control/regulate the
information... to ensure that information damaging to the incumbent
politicians is minimized, especially close to election times. (as they
did with campaign finance reform!) And their ability to "eavesdrop"
increases exponentially, as legal and technical hurtles significantly
lessen!

(C) This allows them to do what the FCC ACTIVELY trying to do recently,
but hasn't yet found a way.

Ya think this is "conspiracy hysteria"? Again, look at aspects of
campaign reform law, which limited certain ads close to election time in
a manner which disproportionately benefits incumbents! Furthermore, when
the Federal Government proposes atrocious things like the proposed
"Disclose Act" (from just a few years ago), then you have to wonder
about their true motivations. Here is an article written by 8 former FCC
chairmen about the "Disclose Act":

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703460404575244772070710374.html
...can any sane person read that article... and then trust the US
Federal Gov't motives with owning/operating vast amounts of Broadband?

Finally, while I've witnessed incompetence amongst certain unnamed baby
bells, there ARE... MANY... bright spots in Internet connectivity.
Frankly, we're spoiled by our successes. And the worst of the baby
bells, like all baby bells, do NOT have a monopoly. Often, they must
compete with (at minimum) the local cable access provider. For example,
in many areas that the baby bells failed to provide competent service,
the local cable access provider filled the void, and did much better.
I'm trying to not "name & shame"... but I've seen THAT... FIRST HAND.
The market will eventually sort this out... and in many cases already
has! Meanwhile, Amtrack and the Post Office show no signs of ever making
it without their MASSIVE taxpayer subsidies. And the Department of
Education continues to not know where billions of dollars goes each
year... Yet, in contrast, Enron execs in are jail and Enron is no longer
in existence. As I said, the free market tends to sort these things out
over time. (especially when crony capitalism is NOT a part of the mix.)

-- 
Rob McEwen
http://dnsbl.invaluement.com/
rob at invaluement.com
+1 (478) 475-9032





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