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France Makes Local Loop Unbundling Work
Country sees competition, IPTV success...
Spiegel takes a look at the success France is having with broadband deployment. The country is seeing a significant jump in penetration and adoption. They're also seeing significantly stronger IPTV deployment, with 2.6 million households served. How did a country that was struggling in the broadband arena in 2001 see such a growth explosion?
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quote:
Part of the credit goes to what could be called the Battle of the Boxes. Paris and other cities are plastered with ads for state-of-the-art home Internet gateways-with names like Livebox, Freebox, Neufbox, and Dartybox-that offer connection speeds of up to 28 megabits per second, plus voice calls, TV, and Wi-Fi. They usually come for free with a monthly broadband subscription starting around €30 ($41).
The article also says a well-implemented system of local loop unbundling (now a dirty word in the States thanks to many millions in baby bell lobbying) was also a major factor.
quote:
Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt recalls that when he began implementing local loop unbundling after the 1996 Telecommunications Act, The Wall Street Journal called him a "French bureaucrat" in an editorial. "It's the worst thing they think anyone can be called," Hundt says with a laugh. "But the French must have assumed it was a compliment because they looked at what we were doing and copied it."
Except for the French, it was apparently implemented correctly because DSL competitors using incumbent DSL networks are strong enough now that they're all starting to build their own FTTH infrastructure.
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pnh102
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pnh102

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Organization

In France, is the phone infrastructure owned by a company that is separate from companies that offer phone service? If that's the case, then that's the most likely reason CLECs had a better rate of success there.
nasadude
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nasadude

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Re: Organization

said by pnh102:

In France, is the phone infrastructure owned by a company that is separate from companies that offer phone service? If that's the case, then that's the most likely reason CLECs had a better rate of success there.
no,
France's national telecom regulator forced former state-owned monopoly France Telecom (FTE) to open up its network to rival operators, a process known as "local loop unbundling."

in the U.S., the 1996 telecom act mandated unbundling, but it was never really enforced and the incumbents did everything they could to prevent CLECs from being successful. Apparently, in France, they took the law seriously and enforced it; also apparently, the political system was not bought and paid for the the incumbent operator, enabling the enforcement to occur. In contrast, for example, the then Bell Atlantic was fined something on the order of over $1B (yes, that a B for billion) for violations to the act - just a cost of doing business to prevent competition from occurring.

then, the FCC, as an excuse not to enforce unbundling decided the new mantra was "facilities based competition". New entrants would be required to build their own infrastructure, which of course either didn't happen at all or was only done by an extremely small number of competitors.

as a result, the U.S. is now trending back towards a monopoly with the resultant high prices and restricted availability, where in France competition has been so successful the CLECs are now able and willing to build their own infrastructure.

as a former FCC official is quoted in the story,

"the U.S. is living on borrowed time,"

pnh102
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pnh102

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Re: Organization

There has to be more to the story than this.

Unbundling was never going to work in the USA simply because the ILECs were not split among functional lines. That is, the company which owns and maintains the wires and facilities is a separate business from the companies that sell and support the actual service.
nasadude
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Rockville, MD

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nasadude

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Re: Organization

said by pnh102:

...

Unbundling was never going to work in the USA simply because the ILECs were not split among functional lines. That is, the company which owns and maintains the wires and facilities is a separate business from the companies that sell and support the actual service.
that's no excuse for unbundling not working in the U.S. - unbundling didn't work because the ILECs didn't want it to work and did everything they could to keep it from working, including doing illegal things for which they were fined. That, plus support from their congressional "helpers" and the FCC in preventing meaningful oversight and enforcement.

The U.S. passed a law to encourage competition in the telecom sector, the incumbents ignored the law and congress and the FCC refused to enforce the law. The U.S. telecom sector is now pretty much an unregulated monopoly.

France passed a similar type law to encourage competition and the government made sure the law was followed. France now has competition and along with it lower prices, faster speeds and more services.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the U.S. had the right idea, just not the willingness to follow thru. And that's why I think the U.S. is screwed in broadband for years to come - it will be nearly impossible to gather the political will to do what needs to be done: separate the transport structure from content delivery and enforce unbundling.

KrK
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said by pnh102:

Unbundling was never going to work in the USA
... simply because the ILEC's didn't want it to work as envisioned, did everything possible to block it, *and* were allowed to get away with it.

They succeeded, too. Heads, they win, tails, we lose.

pnh102
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pnh102

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Re: Organization

said by KrK:

simply because the ILEC's didn't want it to work as envisioned, did everything possible to block it, *and* were allowed to get away with it.
Well anyone could have predicted that. I remember living in Penna. in 1996 and seeing the Bell Atlantic ads claiming that they were "fostering competition" in the state. My first thought is... why would they want to shoot themselves in the foot?

As long as the same company that sells the service owns the infrastructure, you will never get line sharing to work, ever.
nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD

nasadude

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Re: Organization

said by pnh102:

... I remember living in Penna. in 1996 and seeing the Bell Atlantic ads claiming that they were "fostering competition" in the state. ...
hell, the telcos are still claiming they are "fostering competition", except now the FCC parrots the line right along with them.

LookAtBT
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to pnh102
said by pnh102:

Unbundling was never going to work in the USA simply because the ILECs were not split among functional lines. That is, the company which owns and maintains the wires and facilities is a separate business from the companies that sell and support the actual service.
I have to strongly disagree. Here in the UK the resident ILEC (BT) was split amongst functional lines with the help of the regulator OFCOM. This split is:

BT Retail
BT Wholesale
BT Openreach
BT Global Services

Link here for the company structure.

The one of interest is BT Openreach which manages the UK's telecommunications infrastructure. This new split to BT started operating in January 2006 and was created to ensure that all other operators or CLECs were on an equal footing with the rest of the BT group such as BT Retail, etc. Therefore, the rest of the BT group are customers of BT Openreach, on an equal footing with the other CLECs. So when Openreach upped prices, then everyone paid including the other arms of BT.

Also, a strong regulator such as OFCOM ensured that BT Openreach was not charging excessively and took measures such as advocating price cuts to foster competition.

This "spirit" allowed CLECs to move in and start providing services. Once they have been established, they started taking advantage of local loop unbundling by providing their own PSTN services (ex. Bulldog).

Slowly other providers started leaping past BT such as offering unlimited speeds of 8Mbps download (ADSL 1- if you live close to the exchange) and upping the competition. Then BE was the first to offer ADSL2+ on a nationwide scale by provisioning their own DSLAMs in the exchanges. BT Openreach and other CLECs started to follow suit but are trailing behind.

Now from a competition point of view, it does not seem that we are as advanced as France or in technology stakes, even close to the US with FTTH but we are getting there.

IMHO, if the ILECs were divided into functional lines such as has happened with BT, and the regulator FCC was willing to undertake unpopular decisions in the eyes of the ILECs, then maybe you would be seeing more competition and services offered. The problem with the US market is that there seems to be a common agreement between ILECs not to encroach on each other's "turf". This may be a misconception but that is from the outside looking in. Also, there are multiple ILECs and regulating them is more of a burden than the UK.

In addition, there seems to be what is called a "post code" or "zip code" lottery where services will only be provisioned if it meets certain requirements as regards population density, ROI, etc. That makes the US a much harder market to foster competition and will require, IMHO, a radical enforcement of installing broadband services in all exchanges.

I now hear that why should the ILEC provision services in an unprofitable area as they are not in it for the charity. That is a good argument. Another stance on this is that the same thing could have been said about POTS when it was first rolled out. Broadband right now may be perceived as a luxury but the same was said of POTs and look how much of a necessity it has become. For something to become a necessity, there has to be full saturation of the luxury and with it, essential services become deployed using it. These essential services make it a necessity as has happened with POTs and emergency services which were not deployed when POTs was first rolled out but as an after though.

Just my 2c as my friends across the pond would say.

KrK
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KrK

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Re: Organization

Exactly, this is how is should be done in the USA but never will be because corporate lobby prevents it. Despite the fact the competition would be good for the industry and consumers as a whole, the big incumbents will make sure this type of a split NEVER happens.

ronpin
Imagine Reality
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ronpin

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High Density

...because DSL competitors using incumbent DSL networks are strong enough now that they're all starting to build their own FTTH infrastructure.
The article explains why...
The argument in the U.S. was always that if newcomers could piggyback on the networks of the incumbents, why would they ever bother to build their own? Iliad's Rosenfeld explains why the logic breaks down: "We have such a high density of subscribers in certain areas of the country that it makes sense to own the network and not to rely on local loop unbundling," he says. "Tomorrow we want to be totally independent." French consumers are the beneficiaries.
America just isn't all that [densely] urban. Even worse, our dense urban areas are only just now being recycled along european "models" to reflect upscale ("good customer") demographics -- and not urban blight ("bad customers"). 'Top 3 urban areas excepted.

Thus unbundling really set us back in getting FTTH.

Noah Vail
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Noah Vail

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All righty then

What we do is unbundle in the several hundred densely populated areas that we do have and see how that goes.

BTW. By your logic we can assume that there is no healthy deployment of FTTH in France?

NV

ronpin
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ronpin

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Re: All righty then

You will've needed to have seriously considered deploying your own FTTH network to see what happened with the former unbundling efforts in the USA. There simply was no incentive for the "majors" to do it. Even in France it only makes sense for CLEC-FTTH -- in special dense areas.

Unbundling would stop nobody from making money in Manhattan NY. It would stop anybody in Manhattan KS
viperlmw
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viperlmw

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Re: All righty then

said by ronpin:

...Even in France it only makes sense for CLEC-FTTH -- in special dense areas.

Unbundling would stop nobody from making money in Manhattan NY. It would stop anybody in Manhattan KS...
Isn't that 'cherry picking'?

ronpin
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ronpin

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Re: All righty then

said by viperlmw:

Isn't that 'cherry picking'?
Only on a neighborhood basis -- not on a borough or 'burb basis. Only a monopoly can afford to ignore demographics -- if that's what you really want

Noah Vail
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to ronpin
said by ronpin:

Unbundling would stop nobody from making money in Manhattan NY. It would stop anybody in Manhattan KS
Well, that would be in line with my suggestion. Unbundle in the densest 500 cities. I don't know how big Manhattan KS is, but Overland Park KS would be big enough.

Even though Unbundling wouldn't hurt bottom lines in Manhattan NY, Big Internet is actively opposing it, which would put you and them on opposite sides of the issue.

NV

kapil
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Re: High Density

said by ronpin:

America just isn't all that [densely] urban. Even worse, our dense urban areas are just now being recycled along european "models" to reflect upscale ("good customer") demographics -- and not urban blight ("bad customers"). 'Top 3 urban areas excepted.

Thus unbundling really set us back in getting FTTH.
That's complete and utter bullshit.

The reason the 1996 law failed is because of ILEC greed and their lobbying efforts. Can't blame them really, legislators could be had at fire-sale prices under the Republican-controlled Congress under the guise of promoting a "free market"!

It has very little to do with density or other lies used by the ILECs.

Actually, there was a period of time after the law passed where the ILECs were looked to be on their death-bed. They were bleeding POTS subscribers who were fleeing in droves to companies who could offer better service and a better customer experience for a much cheaper price...all without the typical "we're The Phone Company, so F off" that was oh so hard to miss on you every contact with an ILEC.

During this time, the ILECs were caught with their hands inside their pants...not used to competing or providing what the customers need, no real strategy for broadband...hell they tried to kill DSL because they wanted to continue charging thousands on their T1 lines.

Regulatory pressure mounted...all ILECs paid record numbers and amounts of fines to state regulatory bodies. Bad management, a hallmark of Ma Bell and its children lead to good employees leaving or being let go, the network falling into disrepair...customers leaving. It was bad.

Late 2000, early 2001 it looked like the law had worked. There were facilities based carriers like XO, Covad, Mpower, McLeod.

Of course there were also the leaches who just resold ILEC services and pocketed the difference between wholesale and retail costs....but many companies genuinely tried to follow through the vision behind the telecom act...they tried to build out their own networks.

The CLECs and the lawmakers didn't anticipate a few things. Firstly, greed and how easily it is to manipulate the system for those with deep pockets like the ILECs. Second, the 1996 law didn't adequately address the last mile.

The ILECs stumbled but eventually got their act together.

They killed off their resellers by raising wholesale costs above or close to retail costs where these guys just couldn't be profitable. Fine...these were the companies that had no intentions of ever building out their own networks any way...although the way the ILECs went about it was grossly unethical.

Then they set their sights on the facilities-based CLECs. They delayed orders, neglected to fix problems in a timely manner, played musical chairs with trouble tickets opened by CLECs as the end user got pissed off at its provider for outages or delayed orders. Created fuzzy math to imply that they were being forced to sell the unbundled loop below cost.

I mean, how many of you remember trying to use Northpoint, or Rhythms or Covad ...the orders wouldn't complete on time because the ILEC wouldn't deliver the loop?...or your service would go out while your provider, just as helpless as you, played trouble ticket football with the ILEC?...you were lucky if you were a direct customer of a CLEC, if there was an ISP partner involved, you were really screwed!

How many of you remember being denied DSL from a CLEC because of loop issues at the ILEC and then got solicited for DSL directly by the ILEC...except this time, miraculously, there were no loop issues?

So, once the ILECs effectively neutered or killed off the real CLEC competition, they got to work in DC.

Decrying forced unbundling of the loop below cost, feigning concern for the customer, lying, cheating, twisting arms...dong anything it took to essentially dismantle the competition and the law that set it all in motion.

And this brings us here: We essentially have 3 ILECs left. T or VZ will eventually buy Qwest an we'll be down to 2.

Vodaphone is already rumored to be interested in buying VZ...but they just want the whole company so they can get full control of the wireless division. As soon as that happens, Vodaphone will keep wireless and try to dump the wireline business...and guess who is the perfect buyer?...you got it, Ma Bell...except this time the logo has AT&T in lower case

Sure there is competition in the way of wireless, VoIP or cable telephony...but is that really competition? Cable is a monopoly in most municipalities...and hardly price-competitive. Wireless isn't the same as having POTS...and the big 3 wireless companies have, save for some nuances and gimmicks like "IN" or "Rollover", the same exact pricing on their plans!...and VoIP is too much of a threat to cable, ILEC and wireless...and will soon be killed off like the CLECs. See Sunrocket for a prime, and first, example.

Competition in telephony is a myth. If you want to get POTS today...real POTS...what are your options?

So, please, if you're going to advocate a position, have the decency to be truthful.

ronpin
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ronpin

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Re: High Density

You missed the point. How many CLEC buildouts (copper or fiber) can you recall during the unbundling period (1996-2003)??? That's the issue -- not poor unbundling conformance (to which we'll all agree)

kapil
The Kapil
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kapil

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Re: High Density

said by ronpin:

How many CLEC buildouts (copper or fiber) can you recall during the unbundling period (1996-2003)
You mean in the 2 years that Covad et al had to start a company, get funding, hire people, build a network, get ILECs to cooperate, get customers and become a going-concen? That would be zero.

I do think they had a pretty good start though...a fleet of local technicians, real switching equipment in the CO. What they didn't have and what eventually did them in was the ILEC control of the last mile.

The last mile isn't easy to build...there is local municipality-level red tape, right-of-way issues, cost etc. The ILECs, of course, know a little something about these troubles because they are having similar issues in their quest to offer TV....but they have the money to pay off our government and do-away with pesky things like oversight by the representatives of the people actually impacted by the corporate greed!

How many of you had community access channels on cable 10 years ago...complete with training for producers, equipment for creating programming and the works. How many of you have that today? ...and how many of you with fios tv or the non-existent att equivalent have that today?

But seeing as how Ma Bell has had over a hundred years and still can't seem to get DSL to anyone whose house isn't on the roof of the CO, or get a bill right to save their lives...I'd say that's not really a fair measure of a viable business plan.

For the CLECs to have come into their own...especially if you would have liked them to build their own last-mile plant, on a level playing field, it would have take a decade...and that's pretty ambitious.

The playing field is anything but level, the competition is like the wife-beating husband that tells the police he's sorry and he won't do it again but we all know how that works out. ...and the VCs are a fickle lot.

Had we let, say, Northpoint have a virtual monopoly over half the country and given it a free ride when it comes to tax liability with some additional subsidies, I think you would have found that their business model would have turned out to be just as viable as Ameritech's as the mayhem that is the internal workings of a telco is no better or no worse at either company when compared to the other.
hottboiinnc4
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hottboiinnc4

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Re: High Density

I think if the CLECs merged they'd have a better chance of competing on a national level with the ILECs. Their own backbone, more $$$, and over all a better advantage by having the customer base behind them.

KrK
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Kapil, your post is right on the money. This site was like a blow-by-blow of all of these issues playing out. I always loved how people talked about "CLEC's with bad business models" but the real fact is the business model was 100% sound based on the law. Too bad the ILEC's weren't held accountable and kept getting the rules changed. The laws now are gutted or wrecked so completely as they might have never well existed, and all the infrastructure built by CLEC investors was snapped up by the regional ILEC at firesale prices.

elvey
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elvey to kapil

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to kapil
said by kapil:
said by ronpin:

Thus unbundling really set us back in getting FTTH.
That's complete and utter bullshit.

Actually, there was a period of time after the law passed where the ILECs were looked to be on their death-bed. They were bleeding POTS subscribers who were fleeing in droves to companies who could offer better service and a better customer experience for a much cheaper price...all without the typical "we're The Phone Company, so F off" that was oh so hard to miss on you every contact with an ILEC.
I remember.
During this time, the ILECs were caught with their hands inside their pants...not used to competing or providing what the customers need, no real strategy for broadband...hell they tried to kill DSL because they wanted to continue charging thousands on their T1 lines.
I remember.
...
Late 2000, early 2001 it looked like the law had worked. There were facilities based carriers like XO, Covad, Mpower, McLeod.
...
I remember.
The CLECs and the lawmakers didn't anticipate a few things. Firstly, greed and how easily it is to manipulate the system for those with deep pockets like the ILECs. Second, the 1996 law didn't adequately address the last mile.

The ILECs stumbled but eventually got their act together.

They killed off their resellers by raising wholesale costs above or close to retail costs where these guys just couldn't be profitable. Fine...these were the companies that had no intentions of ever building out their own networks any way...although the way the ILECs went about it was grossly unethical.
I remember. I don't see what's wrong with having no intention of building the last mile ever. It makes sense to me; poles create a natural oligopoly.
Then they set their sights on the facilities-based CLECs. They delayed orders, neglected to fix problems in a timely manner, played musical chairs with trouble tickets opened by CLECs as the end user got pissed off at its provider for outages or delayed orders. Created fuzzy math to imply that they were being forced to sell the unbundled loop below cost.
I remember. BOY, do I remember.
I mean, how many of you remember trying to use Northpoint, or Rhythms or Covad ...the orders wouldn't complete on time because the ILEC wouldn't deliver the loop?...or your service would go out while your provider, just as helpless as you, played trouble ticket football with the ILEC?...you were lucky if you were a direct customer of a CLEC, if there was an ISP partner involved, you were really screwed!
Hell yeah, I remember.
How many of you remember being denied DSL from a CLEC because of loop issues at the ILEC and then got solicited for DSL directly by the ILEC...except this time, miraculously, there were no loop issues?
Me me, me, me!

It's not unbundling that set us back in getting FTTH! It's the ILEC's spending all their energy fucking over the CLECs. They were being paid decent wholesale prices; their retail prices prove it. It was their choice to fuck over the CLECs; they had and have plenty of $ to do FTTH where it makes sense.

battleop
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The email servers for the ILec's must be down because the fanboy alert email has not gone out.

"How many of you remember being denied DSL from a CLEC because of loop issues at the ILEC and then got solicited for DSL directly by the ILEC...except this time, miraculously, there were no loop issues?"

I was a a customer's site one day where we had a trouble ticket in. I only told the BS tech that I was their computer guy when he showed up. He proceeded to tell me that the best fix for our problem was to switch to BS and that we would continue to see problems until we did. Then I handed him my business card. The look on his face was priceless. Supposedly he was removed from his position. I guess they promoted him as I really doubt they cared when I raised hell about it.

kapil
The Kapil
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kapil

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Re: High Density

said by battleop:

business card.
Don't be a tease, do tell...why is your business card so special?

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

Re: High Density

Because when I handed my card to him I went from being the "Computer Guy" to someone who worked for the ISP he had been trashing for 30 minutes. He had been cough red handed going out for a service call we asked for supposedly working for us, instead he went out as a BS employee trying to win back that customer.

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said by ronpin:

America just isn't all that [densely] urban.
Neither is most of France. Some of the USA's urban densities are actually higher then France's large cities, and many other cities are comparable or close.

I've always felt the "defense" argument of population density or "Small vs Large Country" is largely a red herring or an excuse why progress here is slow or stopped while successful elsewhere. Obviously it applies to rural areas, but in cities and towns the argument breaks down.

elvey
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San Francisco, CA

elvey

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Re: High Density

France is way more densely populated!

BigDyno
@xo.net

BigDyno

Anon

Re: High Density

Let's compare apples to apples shall we, and not include places like Alaska in the population density argument.

Population per sq. kilometer by state and of France

1 New Jersey 438.00
2 Rhode Island 387.35
3 Massachusetts 312.68
4 Connecticut 271.40
5 Maryland 209.23
6 New York 195.18
7 Delaware 154.87
8 Florida 114.43

France (Metropolitan) 110

Outside of the cities, France has huge tracts of green farmland and lots of mountainous terrain. It has a lower population density than the EU in aggregate.

Notice something else about that list?
In all but two of those states, who is the dominant ILEC?
I'll give you a hint, it starts with a 'V'.

Sources:
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ··· _density
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ··· _density

jnorthr
@abo.wanadoo.fr

jnorthr

Anon

Re: High Density

Actually the numbers i've seen quote 238 sq.km and here where we live it IS closer to 110/sq.km. We live in the central part of Brittany, France and it is quite sparsely isolated. But when i chose Orange for our ISP i was given the choice of line speeds up to 24MB/sec. if my pockets were deep enough (they arn't) but the service is exceptional compared with what we had in london with pipex and demon.co.uk. i am siper impressed with the availability here in rural areas. Yes, we are in a small city with many schools so that may be the reason. i known several of our friends live just outside the borders of thsi town and they only have 56k dial-up service. Guess the telco. infra-structure has not caught up with them yet. But i bet it will soon. 8-)

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You're overlooking where I said in cities and towns.

France may have more population per landmass then the USA, but many cities in the USA exceed the population density of Cities in France or rival it, so the argument that it can't work here because of population density is a false statement.

elvey
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elvey

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Re: High Density

said by KrK:

You're overlooking where I said in cities and towns.

France may have more population per landmass then the USA, but many cities in the USA exceed the population density of Cities in France or rival it, so the argument that it can't work here because of population density is a false statement.
I wonder if it's the US' suburbia that's most expensive to serve.

P.S. GREAT TAGLINE!
PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR

PDXPLT to ronpin

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to ronpin
said by ronpin:

America just isn't all that [densely] urban.
Neither is France, once you get outside of the greater Paris area. Take a look at the Tour de France coverage on Versus if you need confirmation.

I was staying in a little cabin up in the French Alps ten years ago, and even there I had ISDN. Not bad, and much better than I can get in the USA even today. It's just that the French not only have a policy that everyone should have advanced telecom services, like we do, but they actually go to the trouble of implementing it.

Noah Vail
Oh God please no.
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Noah Vail

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Now is the Time....

for the Corporate Beholden to come to the Aid of their Masters.

Cue the Clown Music and watch...
as Data that shows Pro Consumer Regulation benefits Everybody...
is Spun beyond all recognition.

or just generally trashed if the right angle can't be found.

NV

johnarama
join:2007-02-15
France

johnarama

Member

Freebox sucks

I live in France, and just ordered my Freebox 2-3 months ago...and it looks like it's going to be another 2 months before those clowns delivered it. I ordered it not just for broadband access but because it will allow me to call the US for free, unlimited.

This is an oddity in France, as this is the most backwards-assed country I've ever seen. (as an example, banks here charge you to consult your account online; also, try buying something on Sunday, everything is closed on Sunday except for bars/restaurants/movies...ah but I still love it here!)

••••

A Bell
@acanac.net

A Bell

Anon

N.A. stuck in 20th century.

North America is not at the technological leading edge anymore, Europe is. I recently rented an apartment in Paris for a month. The apartment is on the 7th floor (North American 8th floor)in a Haussman period (18th Century) building. It had LiveBox internet which included IPTV,VOIP,unlimited broadband from a fibre connection. I was amazed at how good the IPTV worked and the totally net neutral internet connection. I also had a French Bouygues cellphone network SIM card in my unlocked GSM phone and didn't pay for any incoming calls, including data, on a pay-as-you-go (Carte Nomad) plan. »aka.e-merchant.com/12-ca ··· mme.html In my neighbourhood in Paris, there were at least 15 cellphone stores, independents and the majors, within 10 minutes walking distance which offered a variety of very competitive plans and many different cellphones at very competitive prices. North America is technologically stuck in the 20th century because of the lack of open competition.

Slangevar
@proxad.net

Slangevar

Anon

Freebox sucks

Well, I'm renting an apartment in Paris right now and I get about 5 minutes of clear cable/phone/Internet service at a time before Freebox chugs and my TV signal/phone call/email/e-chat freezes. That never happens at home in the US with my combined cable/phone/Internet provider.

I'm not saying we're better... I'm just saying maybe we're not as bad as everyone says we are. And maybe you are just a bit worse than you think you are.