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| In a perfect world How about the "deregulated" gas and electric model? It's a model, not a 1:1 plan, but how's this utopian idea:
Everyone has broadband media into their home and any interested provider puts their content in a slot. The provider contracts with each customer and authorizes a transceiver to use whatever the customer wants to pay for. In fact they could cut out the middleman altogether and everyone could pay channels directly a la carte or buy packages.
Not too many areas are technically ready for that yet, but the competitive alternative is a whole lot of cables being buried or strung up on poles to get competition. Aka a high barrier to entry.
The CATV outside plant should be spun off as a separate subsidiary which charges a distribution fee. Or, it could be a coop owned by two or more content providers. I know there are a lot of technical issues but somehow the Bells managed to separate LD from local, didn't they? Put up walls through the middle of COs? (The ILECs also say it would be too hard to separate switching from cable plant, but why would they express interest in giving up a monopoly?)
The question is whether the customer pays less in the end. Looking at my gas bill, the jury is still out on that. |
| LD and local are seperate issues, mostly only a billing issue, not a physical plant type of issue.
One of the problems with deregulation is that they aren't truly deregulated. They were split up, but still regulated out the ying-yang. Check out all those extra fees on your bill. The majority are taxes and regulatory fees imposed by the government, not the company.
There are also taxes included in your bill that you won't see due to the law stating that it is illegal for the companies to tell you that you're paying it. BPOL taxes, for instance, are illegal to be placed on a customers bill. In typical fashion, the government believes that if few people complain, its ok. And since its hidden, few people will know about it to complain, so that must mean its ok.
If the government would get their sticky figners out of the pie and let us Americans do what we do best, it would be a HELL of a lot cheaper. |
