BrianDamage
We Are The Hounds From Hell
Premium
join:2001-08-14
Rowlett, TX
clubs: 
| reply to ctooley
Re: Missouri Rural DSL
It's still not available in all SBC areas here in Austin TX which is supposed to be a Technology city.
Well, here's what I can tell you about that.
I was the Senior Field Network Engineer in the Austin/San Antonio, Texas market for Covad from 1998-2000, and ran those deployments for them.
In Austin, we built out just about every CO in the metro area, including Wimberley.
Covad had a large footprint in Austin. San Antonio was a little harder to get started (it's the lion's den, after all), but there, we built out most COs except for the ones in the lowest income areas.
Of course, I haven't been involved with Covad in Austin since the summer of 2000, but I have followed what they have done since and stayed in contact with folks that I still know there.
I know that Covad did pull out of many COs in many cities, as part of their restructuring.
But, for the COs that had 200 customers or so, the concensus would be to stay in them. Those with less than that were not logical to keep.
This is not to say that these COs were in areas that were economically disadvantaged or anything like that, but for whatever reason, were slow to subscribe, and Covad had to focus on areas where the subscription rate was higher.
I have remained in the broadband industry all this time, and I have seen the trickle-down of the effects of the downsizing, bankruptcies, and restructurings that have occurred and have seen how they affect consumer's choices.
The logic is pretty simple. SBC, for example, only started offering DSL in areas where some CLECs were doing so only in an effort to thwart their efforts, not so much that SBC saw any profit potentials there.
With the CLECs gone or otherwise removed from an area, the ILECs see no reason to continue their services there either.
This should be a sign of things to come for people.
I mean, this only demonstrates that if there is no competition in an area from a direct competitor/provider (and not a reseller), that the RBOC/ILECs have no real incentive to offer services either, and they likely won't, despite whatever promises they continue to make.
SBC has gotten the regulatory relief they want in Oklahoma already, but there is no proof yet that they have spent any money on the deployments and RT upgrades and such that they assured the state that they would.
With the environment in place, there is no reason for them to do so, and nothing to say when it is shown that they won't.
The point is, without competition, there is no incentive to innovate. Without regulation at either the federal or state level, there is nothing to do to stop the economic tyranny that will follow. The Bell companies will be entirely free to do whatever they want, how they want, and when they want, and that does not ensure ANY advances in technology or availability to consumers. On the contrary, the only thing that it ensures are less choice, higher prices, and continued monopoly.
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The rich get richer, the poorer get the picture, the bombs never hit you when yer down so low...some got pollution, others evolution, there must be some solution but I just don't know....briandamage@dslr.net |
