rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| What the, who the, why the, ...
I'm speechless. How can the FCC make this claim while letting telco after telco merge and recreate the original Ma Bell?
I'd rather see them act on both sides of the fence rather than pick on one particular area.
Does this decision mean the poor telcos can't compete without the FCC helping them or is this just dirty pool being played by the masters? |
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fldiver
Premium
join:1999-12-27
Jacksonville, FL | $$ |
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GPSrob
join:2007-05-21
1 edit | reply to rradina
rradina, on 2007-11-10 at 21:20:13, said:
I'm speechless. How can the FCC make this claim while letting telco after telco merge and recreate the original Ma Bell?
I'd rather see them act on both sides of the fence rather than pick on one particular area.
Does this decision mean the poor telcos can't compete without the FCC helping them or is this just dirty pool being played by the masters? Did you read the reasoning behind the regulations? They're regulating CATV operations because the cable companies have done a piss poor job of it themselves.
Cable is about 11 years late to this party. Competition was forced on telcos with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Those CLECs still exist today. Cable is just lucky that they're being limited in this way instead of having their facilities broken apart to allow access by CLECs to provide their own video services over CATV's own facilities.
I'd expect the regulations to remain in place until other intra-market competition exists to a point so as to pose a meaningful threat to CATV. It might not be fair, but telco has been dealing with it on the wireline front for a very long time now. |
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rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| Until I switched to VOIP, the telco act of 1996 gave me one competitive choice to SBC (now AT&T). I was able to switch my telephone to a company called Sage Telecommunications that bundled caller id and call waiting for the same price as one of those options with SBC. I saved a few bucks a month and in return, my billing was routinely botched.
That's not competition.
The telcos have never had competition. Cable has never had competition.
If you want to cite telco 1996, I think satellite TV has given cable just as much, if not more, competition (if you want to call it that) as the regulation. And at least the TV competition was brought about by market forces vs a botched piece of regulation.
I just cannot believe the FCC thinks cable is getting too big while AT&T II has been rebuilt by SBC. |
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GPSrob
join:2007-05-21
| I think you're missing the point entirely. No one has said that AT&T isn't too big and in need of regulation. AT&T and the other telcos are already massively over regulated due to their size.
Cable is finally growing up and realizing first hand what their huge market share means when the regulators don't like their operating practices. |
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