Letting The Market Choose Decent Broadband

An Anonymous Coward pointed out this piece on the regulation (and more to the point deregulation) of broadband Internet service. The article takes the viewpoint that solutions possible by relying on "the human spirit of innovation and creativity" are a better antidote than most of the broadband reforms so far proposed by politicians on behalf of lobbying groups. The author takes a stance some people may consider unrealistically optimistic, but makes some good points about the effects of arbitary deregulation.

Re:Verizon

[Hee Hee Hee]

In the "Verizon" four letter word link [everything2.com] you cited:

Take all of the wires in the street, and all of the telco switch facilities and give them back to the people. Make the whole infrastructure of monopoly regulated telcos belong to the people who have paid for them. They are too valuable a resource to allow to remain in the hands of a few unscrupulous companies any longer. These companies were paid a GUARANTEED profit for decades. They actually made more money because they over-built their systems. Since we already paid for it, it is righfully ours.

A cool idea! I'm all for keeping government out of our lives, but, there are times when it's necessary. We own most of the roads, most of the water and sewage distribution and treatment facilities in the U.S., why not information distribution? Look at the Interstate highway System [tfhrc.gov]. That was a long-term project designed to enhance our infrastructure. This sounds pretty close, if not identical, to the digital information distribution troubles we're having now. A far-sighted approach to wider bandwidth distribution to the masses might be something that the government needs to get in on.

Re:Typical Bell propaganda

[TheSync]

But where's the free market for "innovation" when the "wireless" options cited by the college kid author are, indeed, virtually nonexistent, under a government spectrum policy (remember, the airwaves are REGULATED) that is now aimed at maximizing license auction revenues?

There are plenty of unlicensed and trivial-to-get license bandiwdth available for wireless broadband. The tough part is building the network. Look at Metricom Ricochet, which just went under, for instance, whose last-mile was Part 15 unlicensed 900 MHz and delivered better-than-ISDN to mobile receivers.

With regards to satellite, you can get broadband Internet service from geostationary satellites today. For much of the US, this is your only solution.

In the near future, we can expect stratospheric airships or solar-powered aircraft to provide a satellite-like service to major cities without the ping-time issues of geostationary.

Of course, I share the feeling that the FCC should make it illegal for any locality to grant monopoly telecom franchises, including phone/cable/fiber-to-home.

Rural residents should pay the true cost of their rural lifestyle, while those of us who choose to live in high-density areas should benefit from a range of services provided by a competitive market.

Re:Deregulation hasn't helped so far...

[Root Down]

The telcomms really missed out in the dial-up arena because they did not think that they would turn a profit. This allowed some of the current access giants (AOL, etc) to get established, for better or worse. Don't expect them to give up another opportunity like that so easily, since now the financial gains are all but assured. They own the fiber optic cable (most or all) that is possbily the next big means of non-wireless transmission, too.

Sounds like British Telecom's business model

[Dr_Cheeks]

We've got exactly the same thing happening here in the U.K. British Telecom has been told by our telecomms regulator (OFTEL) to open up the local loop to competitors, but it's dragging it's heels. And since OFTEL doesn't exactly have a huge amount of power, the situation isn't changing too quickly.

Add to that rumours and allegations of stuff like BT giving it's own (not particularly big) ISP the lion's share of DSL connections while the two biggest ISPs in the country get a pathetic fraction of the broadband lines (AOL and Freeserve), and I guess a lot of people are going to be waiting a long time for broadband on this side of the Atlantic too. And seeing as I live in a fairly rural area (as rural as anywhere in the West Yorkshire conurbation gets anyway), I guess I'm not going to see any high speeds at a reasonable price for my home machine for several months yet.

Verizon

[mr100percent]

"Broadband's share of the Internet market in Canada is twice as high as in America."

Obviously you can't compare to Canada, because they don't have the evil Verizon killing off the competition.

Verizon's favorite four-letter word [everything2.com]