| reply to boogie74
Re: whiners You don't understand. What I'm saying is that it's not economical to have multiple companies lay fiber strands in each neighborhood. Now, I don't know if a neighborhood needs 1, 2 or 10 strands to be serviced, but that's not the point. The point is that it's clearly not economical to have 10 companies each laying down fiber to each house. |
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| said by Zorglub:
You don't understand. What I'm saying is that it's not economical to have multiple companies lay fiber strands in each neighborhood. Now, I don't know if a neighborhood needs 1, 2 or 10 strands to be serviced, but that's not the point. The point is that it's clearly not economical to have 10 companies each laying down fiber to each house.
No less economical than having 10 different companies putting peanut butter in jars. But they do- and it's not impossible for them to compete by doing it on their own.
It's a bit odd that nothing has changed since the wholesale rate structure was struck down by a federal appeals court- yet suddenly both AT&T and MCI are claiming that their profits are shrinking so much that they aren't going to even compete in the consumer markets!
So now that the Bells are announcing plans to invest in more fiber in the field, the cry is suddenly "the monopolies" are going to force anyone who wants fiber to use THEM! And they're doing it by investing in fiber! They KNOW that no one else is doing it- so they're BAD!
I just don't understand the claim that the sky is falling. Have prices gone up in phone services?
Boogie |
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| said by boogie74:
No less economical than having 10 different companies putting peanut butter in jars. But they do- and it's not impossible for them to compete by doing it on their own.
Boogie
Actually, it is very different. The telco business is one of very high fixed costs (laying down the fiber, etc.) and of extremely low variable costs. That is clearly not the case with regular consumer products, be it peanut butter, bread or a toaster.
So, that's why we'll never see 10 different companies each laying down their own fiber/copper/coax to our house, because they would not be able to recover their upfront investment. That barrier to entry is so high that we'll never see a truely competitive market on the service side unless the conduit providers are forced to share the conduits. |
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| said by Zorglub:
said by boogie74:
No less economical than having 10 different companies putting peanut butter in jars. But they do- and it's not impossible for them to compete by doing it on their own.
Boogie
Actually, it is very different. The telco business is one of very high fixed costs (laying down the fiber, etc.) and of extremely low variable costs. That is clearly not the case with regular consumer products, be it peanut butter, bread or a toaster.
So, that's why we'll never see 10 different companies each laying down their own fiber/copper/coax to our house, because they would not be able to recover their upfront investment. That barrier to entry is so high that we'll never see a truely competitive market on the service side unless the conduit providers are forced to share the conduits.
I can't agree with this concept. One might as well apply it to ANY business plan with high start-up costs- for example, international airlines, radio and tv stations, wireless phone providers, data storage and transport providers, etc.
The investment in 60 to 70 Boeing 747-400 jets would definitely make for a large barrier to any company wishing to sell overseas transportation. Likewise, the investment in several thousand GSM cell towers nationwide to provide a wireless service is a large investment and hence barrier. Satellite service is even MORE costly- as you must actually rocket a satellite into a geo-synchronous orbit. But companies are doing it all the time.
There is no reason why a company would be prevented from deploying fiber to the premise even if there is already a fiber drawn from somewhere else. You can't argue that it's a waste of time to do it and make it so redundant- only to claim that it's now too expensive when it's pointed out that redundancy is good and desireable.
Boogie |
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