tuna hp
@covad.net
| Re: Yea But......... On one side, I totally agree that it would be disastrous for the government to be handling ISPs like they do abroad. There needs to be competition. On the other hand, I do agree with Lessig that the physical "lines", ie the copper, cable, or fiber, are definately infrastructure. The property and scale barriers to creating competing information networks means that the government might want to have some part in it.
Don't get me wrong. I used to be a staunch libertarian/laissez-faire capitalist and still believe heavily that the government should stay small and shouldnt do much. But in an industry where the government all but built the phone and cable company's for them, they should be providing an avenue for turning the ISP business from being a monopoly or duopoly into something more commoditized and price competetive.
They could do this by building or even just facilitating the building of an independent network (probably fiber) that wouldnt transport its own services, but only be hired out by ISPs that would all pay a per/megabyte rate to carry data over the network. |
