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TelecomJunky
Premium
join:2005-12-12
Kansas City, MO
| reply to TKJunkMail
Re: Plenty of BB competition - Martin is right
said by TKJunkMail  :For the majority of people in the US, competition exists for broadband access... ...Those who want the government to control things are also the same people who think the best solution to everything is a nanny government to run their lives and make all their decisions for them. First, let me start by saying I am a staunch economic conservative republican (not a neo-con) and I strongly believe in less government. However, as a true republican, I also recognize it is the job of the federal government to protect the people both from foreign aggression and from interstate domestic aggression. Thus, I strongly believe it is the governments responsibility, even more so when republicans control every aspect of the fed, to make an example out of corporate criminals that put their pocket books ahead of the country and its people.
The FCC under both dems and repubs have been nothing but friends to the bells and cable companies, granting them monopolies in their respective fields and guaranteeing them profits. Now that we are reaching a point when competition actually may occur (it has not yet, a duopoly is still not good for any consumer) these monopolies are doing everything in their power to use the government to insure their monopoly based profits are protected.
You say we have competition, how many communities in this country actually have 2 cable cos offering service to the same neighborhoods? I would venture less than 1%. How many cities have both SBC(AT&T) and Verizon offering land line services? Again, less than 1% I believe.
This is not competition. And one has to ask themselves why the supposedly separate cable cos do not compete with each other and why the bells don't truly compete with each other. Can you say collusion kids? Yes, I think you can.
So what happens when this rush to broadband slows to a crawl? Well, this so called competition, your one cable co and your one bell co will give a little wink wink and prices will climb again. They all publicly state under $50 a month for broadband is too little, even SBC has stated they believe the broadband rush will only last about 2.5-3 more years, to not worry investors.
Without DSL vs DSL and Cable vs Cable competition, you'll have no real competition in 5 years.
Don't even get me started on the bundling requirements either, how easy is it going to be for your to cancel your phone, tv, cell, and internet when something goes wrong with just one of these services or with their customer service... its not, you are basically going to be a captive customer unless you can afford to pay for overlapping services for all these services, most people can not and when the collusion occurs and these prices balance out between cable and bell what incentive would you really have to switch anyway.
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| Exactly. As Alfred Kahn* pointed out, "Deregulation does not mean that you fire the policeman."
Additionally, it's good to recognize that not only Republicans cozy up to the incumbent monopolists. Reed Hundt had a fabulous vision for a competitive telco world, so good that the ILECs convinced Bill Clinton to force him out and replace him with William Kennard, who really enjoyed taking years to address anticompetitive conduct.
calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! | |
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