said by bogey7806:Regulate cable= bad
Regulate telco= good
Telco regulation for pots made sense at one time. Even the USF started out on the right track. But money and power corrupt all.
Regulation is a tricky thing to get right. Take Verizon. Builds a new network and is mostly unregulated. Makes sense for now.
If they were forced to do open access they would not invest in the network. No franchise agreements and they move into towns quickly.
The downside, no build out requirements so not everyone gets it. CLECS are locked out, you take what verizon offers. Towns loose public access channels.
Everything is a trade-off. With these kind of natural monopolies we have limited choices:
No regulation, the customer is at the mercy of the corporations, most of which choose their own interests over the good of the customer or the state.
More regulation, adds costs and the corporations have no incentive to roll out new technology so they settle back into their fat government regulated world and abuse the customer with as many fees and as limited service as they can get away with.
Unless the FCC, PUCs and other regulators work for both the good of the customer and corporation, one side or the other comes out the looser, and the funny thing is when the corporations loose, in the end the customer always looses too.