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JPLPremium
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA
kudos:1
1 edit | reply to insomniac84
Re: Less talk, more action said by insomniac84:The problem is we are dealing with near monopolies. Even in this case you have a reseller that costs more because they are a reseller(granted that may change if TWC implements expensive bandwidth fees) and dsl competition that is crap because most of the people live too far from a CO to get decent speeds. The only easy option people have is to regulate. Thew whole fighting with your wallet thing can't work in monopoly situations. The hard but better option is to build a municipal fiber network. But of course if you try that the companies that opposed regulation and supposedly support the free market will sue the hell out of you to stop you from creating competition. They need MORE regulation?! Huh? OVER-regulation is part of the problem - note this from the posting:
"Unfortunately the city has an uphill battle, given Frontier has an exclusive telco franchise with the city."
Why is Frontier the only telco in town? Because of regulation! What they need here is more DE-regulation.
Frontier has a monopoly in this case not because of ruthless business practices... but because of government regulation. They're granted that status by regulation. How is increasing the regulation going to allow in for more competition? It won't. They need to eliminate/reduce the regulation that's already in place.
I know in this business environment people have come to associate: deregulation = evil; regulation = good. I'm not trying to jump on you, but I really don't think alot of people understand this. It's DEregulation that allowed for cable competition in the first place. Verizon was only able to roll FiOS into this area after the cable companies lost their monopoly status - only after my township descoped the regulation. In other words, only after they deregulated.
I'm not advocating a total deregulation schema here. But there has to be a balance - regulation is done ostensibly to protect consumers. That's great. But it comes at a cost - both in terms of lack of competition and in terms of actual dollars. You have to strike the right balance. Go too far in one direction, and you leave consumers vulnerable to unscrupulous business tactics... but go to far on the regulation side, and you stifle, and starve-out, competition, in effect CREATING the monopoly. What's going on here appears to be the latter - too much regulation, preventing competition from coming in. | | |
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2 edits | If you aren't arguing for total deregulation, then you should support the banning of price gouging. We do it with gas stations. Because that is what 1 dollar a gb is, price gouging.
Yes we should open up places to more competition, but that is not what is being argued here. That telco probably has a long standing contract that just cannot be broken. We are arguing about if it's ok to charge 1 dollar for something that costs 1cent while you are already charging enough to cover all bandwidth costs and fixed costs. This is just a consumption tax/tariff being added to the price of a profitable product to deter competition. This is what regulation should be used to stop. | |
| reply to JPL
You are speaking of an isolated incident and not city/county should be able to give ANY one companies exclusive rights to service people. This goes for power/waste/water/cable/telecoms/cable.
You mention deregulation has as bringing cable company competition. That is misleading. The fact that your city "allowed" them to bring FIOS is regulation in itself. Once FIOS is fully installed they can implement the exact same rules and restricts that were there before. Just takes a vote to make Verizon complete their build out to ALL customers, even those deemed not profitable. So regulation hasn't gone anywhere, it is just in the corps court right now.
However, the true underlying issue is that Verizion wouldn't bring FIOS in if they didnt get their way. THAT is what needs to be addressed because regardless of regulations 1 or 2 companies aren't ever going to what is best for the consumer. They will ALWAYS do what is best for their stock jockies. | |
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