6 ms·

Another case of the government intervention in the free market hurting the consumers, since large corporations will always be better than consumers at hijacking

by diskcat 11y ago

Another case of the government intervention in the free market hurting the consumers, since large corporations will always be better than consumers at hijacking the legislative/legal system to their benefits. If you have the only poles in town (because the local government said there is only enough space for one pole line) then you have effective monopoly over lined communication. The solution to this of course is Georgian rent over space, in this case a rent over the only space in town that poles are allowed to be erected, which would be quite expensive, thus making their monopoly position untenable.

xenadu02 11y ago
Or you know - have the government own the poles and sell access to anyone who wants to run lines. Private roads are impractical except in limited circumstances (that require a huge number of public roads to enable). Infrastructure like this is similar.
- diskcat 11y ago
  >Or you know - have the government own the poles and sell access to anyone who wants to run lines. That's the status quo with the government owning the land upon which poles may be erected instead of poles. So I don't see how moving the government ownership up a step would solve anything.
  - guelo 11y ago
    Because you can't have multiple poles on the same land. One pole owned by the government that all businesses can use.
    - adventured 11y ago
      That can work but you have to do a much better job of outlawing all forms of government-protected monopolization and its half-way equivalents. Otherwise what you end up with, are local governments that want to cut deals for extra cash with AT&T et al. Local governments are supposed to not be allowed to cut monopoly deals today, but they still conspire with big telco to rig the game any way they can.
      - rayiner 11y ago
        For example?
    - diskcat 11y ago
      You can though. The second poles group might need to be taller and more expensive, but there is no reason to be a monopoly.
      - snsr 11y ago
        Multiple, taller telephone poles. Yet another stellar solution from the "free market".
        CalRobert 11y ago
        Not entirely unlike the GSM/CDMA redundancy.
- zanny 11y ago
  People always like to say private roads are impractical, but that is 1970's thinking. Today all we need is a common standard for toll readers like most states have for their internal highway toll system, and people could drive on toll roads and be automatically billed, and your GPS can factor in the toll costs in your travels (just as they do now - in most GPS navigation apps, you can elect to avoid toll roads). The comparison to utility lines is not particularly relevant, though. If I want to travel over a road, I just need to bring my car and do it once. If I want to run gigabit fiber over phone poles, it is building a road on a road - the fiber cable is itself a road, build on the infrastructure transit center of phone poles. The more apt comparison is that I want to send data over said fiber channel - it is the functional equivalent to wanting to drive my car along a road, the only real difference is the marginal cost of that traversal is so insignificant on the fiber line (the cost of beaming light along it in a fixed data path) that you may as well disregard it, whereas cars have significant per-distance and per-usage costs associated. But roads and coax / twisted pair / fiber lines are really great comparisons to roads. They have usage limits, they can become congested, but when they are underutilized they are effectively wasted. It seems like something private enterprise would actually be good at, if not for the fact possessing the road or cable line grants yourself an untenable market position giving yourself a monopoly. But public transit authorities demonstrate very poor ability to adapt to consumer demand for expanded roads where there is great congestion, because they aren't profiting off road traffic and are not incentivized directly to fine the maximum tradeoff of value against consumer satisfaction - there are many degrees of separation between the funding of road construction, the maintenance of the road system, and the consequences of your "customers" being dissatisfied. Usually, the only ways dissatisfied customers who dislike the public road network can demonstrate their demand is by moving or voting out politicians - if those were the same barriers to faster Internet speeds, we would probably be as bad off as we are now with telecom monopolies.
  - MaysonL 11y ago
    How in hell do you build a private road without government intervention?
    - zanny 11y ago
- rayiner 11y ago
  Under federal law, utility pole owners are required to sell access to poles on a non-discriminatory basis. There is no doubt that Google is allowed to run their fiber on the poles. The lawsuit is over provisions of the federal law that provide for a notice/"make ready" procedure for new attachments. Under that procedure, Google would file a request to use the pole, and the pole owner would have 145 days to notify everyone else using the pole and move equipment as necessary in order to get it ready for Google's attachment. Here, the municipality passed on ordinance allowing Google (and those similarly situated), to bypass that procedure and move other companies' equipment already on the poles in the process of putting up its own.
ta434 11y ago
> Another case of the government intervention in the free market hurting the consumers Your statement is worded as if this is the expected outcome whenever there is government intervention in to a market. I'm not sure if I perhaps misinterpreted that, because your conclusion suggests further regulation. Regulation (from government intervention) doesn't ruin a market - bad regulation does. Just like all private companies are not like Enron - some governments have regulated the telecom market to increase competition. It's easy to critique the failings of regulation because there are so many examples. Good regulation in my limited observations is very difficult. In my experience, the best regulations are from independent groups such as IEEE. IEC-60079 (Explosive Atmospheres) for example is a great set of rules and regulations from my perspective. As a manufacturer it would likely increase costs, and pure market thinks may suggest that the safest/cheapest manufacturer would win. However that simply doesn't happen in the real world as there are many more variables that our simple models account for. I'm afraid I'm not sure what Georgian rent over space means, so I can't comment there. However I believe you have effectively suggested more regulation - rather than encouraging further free market, which I would agree with. Any time there is a monopoly (poles in the ground), it must be controlled with appropriate regulation to ensure the system isn't abused. I lean towards government owned and privately operated/maintained in these scenarios - however that too has it own set of dangers.
- diskcat 11y ago
  > because your conclusion suggests further regulation. no it suggests fewer regulations > Regulation (from government intervention) doesn't ruin a market - bad regulation does. This is the same argument as communism has never been tried argument and that Mao, Stalin et al were doing 'bad communism'. >some governments have regulated the telecom market to increase competition. Regulation increases barrier to entry and therefore can not possibly increase competition. Almost all monopolies are the result of government intervention in the market. >the best regulations are from independent groups such as IEEE. IEC-60079 Im not sure if this regulation is mandated i.e. it is enforced or not, but if it isn't then it's not really comparable to regulation from the government. > Good regulation in my limited observations is very difficult. Not surprising. >However I believe you have effectively suggested more regulation It's not. It is simply asking the holder of space to pay its rent value. >Any time there is a monopoly (poles in the ground), it must be controlled with appropriate regulation to ensure the system isn't abused. The only reason poles in the ground is a monopoly is because there are regulations that stop people from putting more poles in the ground. Do you suggest that the solution to regulations is more regulations?
enraged_camel 11y ago
>>Another case of the government intervention in the free market It's kind of incredible how free-market worshippers always find a way to blame the government for the fucked up behaviors of corporations.

by diskcat 11y ago

xenadu02 11y ago

Or you know - have the government own the poles and sell access to anyone who wants to run lines. Private roads are impractical except in limited circumstances (that require a huge number of public roads to enable). Infrastructure like this is similar.

diskcat 11y ago
>Or you know - have the government own the poles and sell access to anyone who wants to run lines. That's the status quo with the government owning the land upon which poles may be erected instead of poles. So I don't see how moving the government ownership up a step would solve anything.
- guelo 11y ago
  Because you can't have multiple poles on the same land. One pole owned by the government that all businesses can use.
  - adventured 11y ago
    That can work but you have to do a much better job of outlawing all forms of government-protected monopolization and its half-way equivalents. Otherwise what you end up with, are local governments that want to cut deals for extra cash with AT&T et al. Local governments are supposed to not be allowed to cut monopoly deals today, but they still conspire with big telco to rig the game any way they can.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      For example?
  - diskcat 11y ago
    You can though. The second poles group might need to be taller and more expensive, but there is no reason to be a monopoly.
    - snsr 11y ago
      Multiple, taller telephone poles. Yet another stellar solution from the "free market".
      - CalRobert 11y ago
        Not entirely unlike the GSM/CDMA redundancy.
zanny 11y ago
People always like to say private roads are impractical, but that is 1970's thinking. Today all we need is a common standard for toll readers like most states have for their internal highway toll system, and people could drive on toll roads and be automatically billed, and your GPS can factor in the toll costs in your travels (just as they do now - in most GPS navigation apps, you can elect to avoid toll roads). The comparison to utility lines is not particularly relevant, though. If I want to travel over a road, I just need to bring my car and do it once. If I want to run gigabit fiber over phone poles, it is building a road on a road - the fiber cable is itself a road, build on the infrastructure transit center of phone poles. The more apt comparison is that I want to send data over said fiber channel - it is the functional equivalent to wanting to drive my car along a road, the only real difference is the marginal cost of that traversal is so insignificant on the fiber line (the cost of beaming light along it in a fixed data path) that you may as well disregard it, whereas cars have significant per-distance and per-usage costs associated. But roads and coax / twisted pair / fiber lines are really great comparisons to roads. They have usage limits, they can become congested, but when they are underutilized they are effectively wasted. It seems like something private enterprise would actually be good at, if not for the fact possessing the road or cable line grants yourself an untenable market position giving yourself a monopoly. But public transit authorities demonstrate very poor ability to adapt to consumer demand for expanded roads where there is great congestion, because they aren't profiting off road traffic and are not incentivized directly to fine the maximum tradeoff of value against consumer satisfaction - there are many degrees of separation between the funding of road construction, the maintenance of the road system, and the consequences of your "customers" being dissatisfied. Usually, the only ways dissatisfied customers who dislike the public road network can demonstrate their demand is by moving or voting out politicians - if those were the same barriers to faster Internet speeds, we would probably be as bad off as we are now with telecom monopolies.
- MaysonL 11y ago
  How in hell do you build a private road without government intervention?
  - zanny 11y ago
rayiner 11y ago
Under federal law, utility pole owners are required to sell access to poles on a non-discriminatory basis. There is no doubt that Google is allowed to run their fiber on the poles. The lawsuit is over provisions of the federal law that provide for a notice/"make ready" procedure for new attachments. Under that procedure, Google would file a request to use the pole, and the pole owner would have 145 days to notify everyone else using the pole and move equipment as necessary in order to get it ready for Google's attachment. Here, the municipality passed on ordinance allowing Google (and those similarly situated), to bypass that procedure and move other companies' equipment already on the poles in the process of putting up its own.

ta434 11y ago

> Another case of the government intervention in the free market hurting the consumers Your statement is worded as if this is the expected outcome whenever there is government intervention in to a market. I'm not sure if I perhaps misinterpreted that, because your conclusion suggests further regulation. Regulation (from government intervention) doesn't ruin a market - bad regulation does. Just like all private companies are not like Enron - some governments have regulated the telecom market to increase competition. It's easy to critique the failings of regulation because there are so many examples. Good regulation in my limited observations is very difficult. In my experience, the best regulations are from independent groups such as IEEE. IEC-60079 (Explosive Atmospheres) for example is a great set of rules and regulations from my perspective. As a manufacturer it would likely increase costs, and pure market thinks may suggest that the safest/cheapest manufacturer would win. However that simply doesn't happen in the real world as there are many more variables that our simple models account for. I'm afraid I'm not sure what Georgian rent over space means, so I can't comment there. However I believe you have effectively suggested more regulation - rather than encouraging further free market, which I would agree with. Any time there is a monopoly (poles in the ground), it must be controlled with appropriate regulation to ensure the system isn't abused. I lean towards government owned and privately operated/maintained in these scenarios - however that too has it own set of dangers.

diskcat 11y ago
> because your conclusion suggests further regulation. no it suggests fewer regulations > Regulation (from government intervention) doesn't ruin a market - bad regulation does. This is the same argument as communism has never been tried argument and that Mao, Stalin et al were doing 'bad communism'. >some governments have regulated the telecom market to increase competition. Regulation increases barrier to entry and therefore can not possibly increase competition. Almost all monopolies are the result of government intervention in the market. >the best regulations are from independent groups such as IEEE. IEC-60079 Im not sure if this regulation is mandated i.e. it is enforced or not, but if it isn't then it's not really comparable to regulation from the government. > Good regulation in my limited observations is very difficult. Not surprising. >However I believe you have effectively suggested more regulation It's not. It is simply asking the holder of space to pay its rent value. >Any time there is a monopoly (poles in the ground), it must be controlled with appropriate regulation to ensure the system isn't abused. The only reason poles in the ground is a monopoly is because there are regulations that stop people from putting more poles in the ground. Do you suggest that the solution to regulations is more regulations?

enraged_camel 11y ago

>>Another case of the government intervention in the free market It's kind of incredible how free-market worshippers always find a way to blame the government for the fucked up behaviors of corporations.