Hostage Negotiations > Typical Telco market manipulation

reply to oliphant5

Re: Typical Telco market manipulation

said by oliphant5:

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This is no different than Comcast's crap charging a penalty for those who have the nerve to buy HSI without their blessed CATV.

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"There is a big difference between Comcast and Telco Policy
Comcast just charges you extra $15.00 Dollars and you can still get a DISH."
First of all, this is just wrong. I shouldn't have to pay more money to have less service.

"The Telcos are telling you CAN NOT get DSL from anyone else unless you have a $25-40 phone line from them which you may not want, if you go cellular or VOIP."
No, what they are saying is if you want their service then you need to be their customer. Let me ask you this, with your car insurance, do you get pip coverage from one company and liability from another?

"The Telco policy is based on making you keep the ILEC as your local phone carrier. If they can provide third party DSL on their voice line, then why can not they provide DSL on a third party voice line."
They can and the technology is there. It is called line sharing. I agree that they should want to do this to at least get some of the pie rather than none but, they shouldn't be forced to do so. It is not their responsibility to subsidize every other company in the market.

"They control the local loop no matter who you have for what. The only reason I can figure is they want all the buck for the local loop and not just a small rental charge on the local loop."
BellSouth doesn't control the loop, they own it and maintain it. The CLEC can put anything they want on the pair as the telephone police are not going to be monitoring every little thing they do. But, I understand that everyone thinks it is all the ILEC's fault that the CLEC's don't want to invest in their own equipment to provide DSL service. Why should they invest within themselves and be that much stronger and more profitable company when they can just pressure the government to force the ILEC's to do it for them. Realistically, if there is that much of a demand from their customers for this service then why not provide it themselves? When you look at it, both the CLEC's and the ILEC's are turning money away because neither one wants to provide the service. And like always, we the consumers get screwed.
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Spandex - it's a privilege not a right....

the problem with your assumed scenario is that, as is the case in most SBC CO's, SBC will not allow any other competitor to install DSL equipment, thus creating the anti-competitve situation. I can get a non-SBC telco to provide POTS out of my CO but the only provider who can provide DSL out of my CO is SBC. I have no choice but to purchase SBC POTS and DSL to get DSL out of my CO.
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I am a bomb technician. If you see me running, try to keep up.

I do know that BellSouth does have numerous co's that have clec dslams in them. I do agree that SBC is wrong to limit what the clec can put in the space that they lease. I know that there are some co's here where the clec's have not put any equipment in just because of the area. The town I live in has no clec providers for service. It's BellSouth or nothing. I personally have the cellphone/cable combo. Especially since my cable is 3 times as fast as the DSL on average.
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Spandex - it's a privilege not a right....

reply to eak
sorry your wrong about sbc , i know for sure ip communication and covad have their own dslams in sbc areas around st louis, and must in other areas as well , unless you think covad is building their own co's all over for coverage

reply to eak

said by eak:

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the problem with your assumed scenario is that, as is the case in most SBC CO's, SBC will not allow any other competitor to install DSL equipment, thus creating the anti-competitve situation. I can get a non-SBC telco to provide POTS out of my CO but the only provider who can provide DSL out of my CO is SBC. I have no choice but to purchase SBC POTS and DSL to get DSL out of my CO.

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said by boogie74:

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See the pattern yet?

Boogie

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Why is it when someone backs the ILEC on something after looking at the big picture that someone has to come in and start calling names. The reality is that both the ILECs and the CLECs are out to screw each other and at any means possible. What this ultimately means is that all of us consumers have to put up with the crap that comes down the pipeline. What people fail to realize is that they are complaining that they want DSL service and they want it at a lower price. They want one company to provide it where another one doesn't. Well, you know what? I want to win the lottery so you should buy me the winning ticket. It seems that people are demanding a luxury item. You don't need DSL to live. Yes, there are people that make their living on the net but for the average person that wants their high speed connection to play games, surf the web, check email, pirate software, music and movies could live without internet. If they didn't have it they would find something else to do with their time. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of the phone company of their choosing. My opinion is simple. They all suck - clecs and ilecs alike. The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence but, you still have to mow it....
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Spandex - it's a privilege not a right....

No it's when they mindlessly defend the telcos no matter how much evidence is presented countering their claims. They choose to ignore it and move on to the next red herring just to be shot down again...and again...and again. Boogie74 has a LONG history of this nonsense even going so far as to claim that telcos don't take price increases.

It's one thing to feel that ILECs shouldn't have to complete, but to defend them no matter how wrong they are is shilling. I'm favorable to cable companies, but there are no shortage of posts from me complaining about bundling penalties, lack of content competition and price hikes. In fact the topic of this thread (which I started) BEGINS with a slam of my cable provider Comcast, whom I'm very content with. I like Comcast, but I don't hesitate to slam them when I think they're doing wrong by their customers. The same goes for VoIP. I love my Vonage service, but when they started up with the junk fees, not only did I bitch about it here, I cancelled virtual numbers and my fax line over it. I'm also bashing them about 911 faults. That's objectivity.

You can be telco leaning without being a shill so long as the person acknowledges when market manipulation and anti-competitive trade practices occur.

But if you sit there and make claims like they never take price increases, don't take money from the gov't to build infrastructure or other wild claims and just shill for them no matter how wrong they are or how ever much they screw over customers...well...I'm going to call them a shill 'cause that's what they are.

It's about objectivity...and shills like Boogie have none.
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-- Munis Killed the Telco Star -- Powered by Barry McKockenner Racing in association with Jack Mikkokov Motorsports
[text was edited by author 2003-10-29 11:10:30]

I see your point and it is very reasonable to me. I just don't want to get wrapped up with the same tag on that. I do think that both the ilecs and the clecs are wrong on different levels about different things. I personally dis-like all the phone companies because they make my life miserable everyday in some form or fashion. But, until something better comes along and someone else starts to sign my paycheck then I will do what I have to to survive. I have had the unique position to see quite a bit in the wholesale market and have had the opportunity to see a lot of things behind the scenes.
Now, do I think there should be competition amongst the companies? Very much so. That is in the best interest of the consumer. I do think that the ilecs should have to lease out facilities as it would just clutter the market if everyone had to place their own out there. Should an ilec be forced to provide a service in an area to an end user that does not have service with them? No, they shouldn't be forced. But, they should be willing to do so so they can make some money off of the service they spent so much to install rather then just leave it sitting there. I don't think there should be a penalty from telco's or cable co's alike if you subscribe to data and not pots/standard tv. If I buy a car from Ford/Chevy/Nissan or whoever, the car is the same price if I take the extended warranty or not.
If I ran the phone company, the products I offer would be available to everyone that is within the specifications for that service regardless of whether or not they have phone service thru my company or someone else. I don't make money on my product if it stops at the dslam/xbox.
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Spandex - it's a privilege not a right....

I think we agree on many things. But I approach it this way. Should telcos be forced to deploy? No, but they shouldn't then be permitted to sue a muni (like CenturyTel did) when they do deploy in their stead. Do I think there would be bundling requirements for unrelated services? No, it's anti-competitive and it abuses their market position in one industry (ISP) to affect another (POTS). This is no different that what Microsoft got busted for. To me, voice and data are two completely separate services. It's not like voice-mail and voice where there is an obvious requirement to have voice service before you can get caller ID or voice-mail from them. I'm also of the mind that the way to level the playing field isn't to kill off the clecs, but force cable competitors to do the same, open their lines to content competition like Time Warner does. Both Comcast and Time Warner do it in select markets and if they want to continue getting franchise rights, municipalities should force them to open their infrastructure to content competition. I also think the cable bundling is bull crap. You should have to pay $15 more for one service when you don't want another? No way. Comcast is a C.I.P. You pay the $15 penalty if you want HSI and no CATV, but there is no such penalty if you want CATV but not HSI. That to me is crap. It's not about saving money by getting more services since it obviously doesn't work in both directions. It's about Comcast abusing their market position in HSI to compete against satellite with their often substandard and more often overpriced CATV services.

So long as telcos take money from the government and are granted these monopoly rights and easements, then they should have to follow the rules which include those which curb anti-competitive behavior like forcing someone to buy an unrelated service (local toll service) in order to get a completely different service (ADSL).
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-- Munis Killed the Telco Star -- Powered by Barry McKockenner Racing in association with Jack Mikkokov Motorsports
[text was edited by author 2003-10-29 11:56:45]

reply to boogie74
Ummmm... not quite. That would be a violation of sec 271 which specifically details the requirements of co-location. The problem at hand is simply that CLECs who use UNE-P don't want to offer DSL because it would make them ineligible for UNE-P pricing. DSLAMs don't fall under the definition of UNE-P network elements.

Ummmm... not quite. One of the Unbundled Network Elements is the loop. If a DSL provider wants to collo a DSLAM in the CO, they, by law, do have access to the unbundled loops.

If the voice CLEC is using UNE switching - there is no additional equipment! SBC is providing the service.... There is no technical reason that SBC cant provide DSL on that loop.

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If the voice CLEC is using UNE switching - there is no additional equipment! SBC is providing the service.... There is no technical reason that SBC cant provide DSL on that loop.

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