Our New National Broadband Plan Doesn't Address Competition? > *raises hand timidly*

reply to iansltx

Re: *raises hand timidly*

I'm not following you. True competition isn't brought about by government intervention. That's government-sponsored competition, which doesn't really work in the long term.

People can compete for rollouts right now; that's what you call "first mover advantage". The big problem though is with areas where there's no first mover. The FCC should dole out enough funds to get a first mover, and if the market is profitable enough other companies will follow.

reply to Angrychair

reply to fAcEtIOUs
TK...how ridiculous your comments are! You would, by the same logic, support the privatization of all roads and highways so that everyone is charged a toll once they pull out of their driveway! Clearly the concept of "natural monopolies" is foreign to you.

reply to fAcEtIOUs
Your premise is exactly rebutted by history. By your logic, the country would have almost exclusive cable modem services in rural areas, because telcos would have no reason to roll out DSL.

But in reality, the rural LECs in particular were quite aggressive about deploying DSL, Fixed Wireless, and even fiber offerings in the areas where they faced competition in data, voice and video from cable. They ate into their margins for a short while, but it was sink or swim for them.

Now, big publicly traded companies like Qwest may be beholden to your type of short term gain mindset (unlike the RLECs), but they too will need to sink or swim to compete with D3.

reply to Vespid
Rural wireline telephone and internet service is a natural monopoly. So why are we talking about competition being the prime objective here when there are areas that are on the verge of sustaining a natural monopoly, but don't have any sort of service available quite yet?

reply to fAcEtIOUs
not sure why you guys respond to TK with rational, truthful arguments - he doesn't care.

from his comments, he is clearly worshipping at the alter of the "free market" and capitalism unchained, regardless of the impact on "main street".

I find snark works much better if you can come with something good.

reply to Karl Bode

reply to Bill Dollar
Many of those rural LECs also built the rural cable systems and remain the only game in town, so your argument is only partially correct.

reply to fAcEtIOUs

reply to nasadude

reply to KrK
What we need to do is break up the giant incumbent ISPs. They`re so big and have so much money that they can lobby Washington with just their pinky finger. Break up AT&T (again), along with Verizon into 50 smaller companies and voila, competition.

reply to 56403739

Hi Karl. Got anything real to report instead of snarky comebacks? No?

The part you are missing is expansion into already-well-served markets is almost certainly going to be a vicious dogfight and any small newcomer is going to hemorrhage cash beyond any hope of profitable recovery should one ignore the reality of the market. So "his argument that competition means companies would get nervous and never invest in expansion in a competitive market" is not quite as silly as your wannabe tubthumping.

reply to sonicmerlin
What the Government should do is stop spending (wasting any more money on Broadband studies, plans, stimulus, incentives, etc)

All that money should be redirected. The USF money also should be redirected.

What should happen is the Government should start building with this money they now waste a nationwide FTTH network. Obviously this would take years and years, but nothing worth doing (and doing right) happens quickly. To achieve a quicker critical mass to allow the project to start supporting some of it's costs, it would make sense to start in several large midwestern metro areas and spread from there. Once the Network was set up, it would be open access to all service providers who wanted to provide services over it, be it IPTV, VOIP, Internet access, other telecommunications, etc. A mom and pop could start-up, OR a current giant like AT&T could offer service over it.... the key would be no matter who they were, they would pay the exact same access fee. So instantly you have a lot of competition, with a totally level playing field, and it comes down to services/price/customer service to keep customers from switching.

Of course, the current Telecommunications companies would scream bloody murder as they won't want such a public infrastructure to compete with their private systems--- they don't want competition, they want to control the market and the consumer's usages of the market, and so they would undoubtedly block any such effort at any turn. Which is why it won't happen, and out Government will continue to hand our tax money to Corporations.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini