| reply to inteller
Re: welcome to the "consessions" I've had Bellsouth DSL for a long time. It's decent service, but I do believe it is overpriced. Fiberguy makes the point that no one is required to buy it, and of course that is true. Free market, yada, yada.
But that's not really the issue. Companies like Bellsouth have a virtual monopoly on telephone service and, therefore, DSL service. If I had twelve choices for high speed internet, sure, each company could charge whatever it wishes and they could slug it out for my business. If I had two or three choices, I'd feel the same way. But the reality is, if you want a landline in my area, you've got no where to turn but Ma Bell.
It is Bellsouth's dominance of the market that gives rise to regulation. Though it may be a private company, Bellsouth serves the function of a public utility. In exchange for a monopoly on tens of millions of users, Bellsouth should be able to offer its services at a pretty competitive price.
The word monopoly is especially relevant since the recent AT&T / BS merger has taken us a long way back toward the bad old days of the AT&T monopoly. Not that I think AT&T will ever be as powerful as it once was. The world has changed and there are a lot of options that didn't exist 30 years ago. Still, if AT&T does not achieve market domination it won't be because it didn't try.
Since Bellsouth is charging above average prices for its DSL service (compared to other carriers in other parts of the country), I think it's pretty apparent that some concession to the consumer is not unreasonable. That's what the FCC tried to do with the naked DSL deal, but since private industry is usually smarter than government regulators, I expect BS will find a way to avoid losing any substantial revenue on the naked DSL deal. They will make it so hard to get that the vast majority of people will never even know it exists, or so hard to qualify for that those of us who are watching will be out of luck. |
