 dru
join:2000-09-14
Corona, CA | reply to pnh102
Switch if you can? The problem is, the FCC recently issued decisions that release the Bell companies from having to lease their lines to other ISPs. Your only choice beside the cable company (and no ISP choice there)is the Bell's own ISP.
It is unclear whether the Bells will continue to lease access to their networks will continue after the FCC mandated term and long-term contracts run out. Currently, those of us in the industry speculate they will, but will impose terms and conditions that will make continuing a moot point. Verizon quickly yanked access to FIOS lines for independent ISPs within a week of the FCC ruling. ISPs can resell Verizon Online Internet FIOS under a branding agreement at retail prices, which is pointless for any ISP to do so.
In a couple of years, you may not have the choice to switch to another DSL based ISP. It will be Bell(South) or your cable company. You might, or might not have a third wireless option. Oh yeah, never mind, that's Verizon or Cingular owned by the same people, and the FCC is allowing them to snap up or otherwise tie-up new and available licensed frequencies for Wimax and other forthcoming technologies.
The FCC thinks that the "Duopoly" between cable and DSL is good for consumers and the market competition between them is sufficient to keep the internet free and open. Yeah, right.
Take one look at who owns the largest cable network after the mega mergers and Adelphia acquisition, and only a fool would bet that they will be above "content management" or other euphemisms that will be created to justify turning their pipelines into a content cash-cow.
Now look at the combined SBC/AT&T backbone, and Verizon/MCI ("uunet")backbone. Together they currently provide the majority of the World's backbone! Even if independent ISPs thrive and cable companies don't impose fees to content providers or play QOS games, what is to stop the two Bell companies from de-peering content companies or "optimizing" bandwidth to favor their services and offerings.
Unfortunately, our current administration and congress has been bought and paid for by the Bell and cable lobbyists.
To cement the propriety of the mega-mergers, the Bells hired union and charitable organization shills to stack state PUC hearings. They now have big money to lobby, advertise, and reinforce their monopoly position using legal, political, and even questionable ethics, like hiding behind organizations claiming to be "consumer groups" against government abuse and unfair competition.
Cities and local governments who have seen the handwriting on the wall with the current efforts for "national franchises" are expressing interest in establishing open broadband or wi-fi networks for all their citizens. Before you can say "unfair government competition" the Bells and cable companies descend upon City Hall with referendums, lawsuits, and attacks from shill "consumer groups" along with every other method to frustrate any meaningful attempt to establish an alternative to the entrenched incumbents.
The justification and reason for all this is that the directors of these mega-companies are responsible to their shareholders for a return on investment. Well, if that is where the buck finally stops, then any AT&T, Verizon, Time-Warner, etc shareholder should be aware that they are all a sharing the end of a free, open internet as we now know it.
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I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe. |
