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| reply to Alpine
Re: Can Someone Explain... said by Alpine:So how will more regulations encourage anything other than more "faux" competition? What's the end goal here in your opinion? Will bunches of companies just jump into the fray and be viable all of a sudden if we regulate more? I have yet to see the pro-regulation crowd come up with an intelligent explanation for how more regulation will equal more competition. Reality has to set in at some point. Adam Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
The 1996 telecom bill mandated (sounds like regulation to me!) line sharing by the ILECs. Sometime after the bill passed, there appeared these companies called Earthlink, Mindspring,Covad and others that came into being to provide internet service. You remember all those companies doncha? Hardly anyone left now and those that are left are barely hanging on; after all, line sharing was done away with a year or so ago.
For a while there actually was competition, because of a REGULATION requiring line sharing. Now this particular experiment didn't last very long because the ILECs fought tooth and nail against the CLECs, including doing illegal things to prevent them from connecting customers for DSL. Bell Atlantic/Verizon was fined a few $$$B (yes, that's a B for billion) for violating these laws/regulations. Ho hum, what's a few billion to destroy your competition?
I've got a regulation for you: mandate line sharing and severely and immediately levy HUGE fines against any ILEC obstructing or otherwise preventing competitors from offering and connecting service. I don't know if there are any companies out there willing to try again, but we might just get competition. |
