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Then that will be a good market for a startup, or other players. Are the telcos obliged to provide you with telecommunication?

by lucio 9y ago

maxerickson 9y ago
Historically, yes, telcos have been obliged to provide service. The post you replied to mentions this: The point is that regulations previously required the telco provide an alternative service that works just as well as the existing copper before they are allowed to stop maintaining the copper. But that is no longer the case as of this vote.
chx 9y ago
Under current rules yes and they are paid for it. Check Connect America Fund
brians 9y ago
Yes, in return for getting poles along streets throughout the rest of America. Similarly, they have to interconnect with other telcos.
charliesome 9y ago
In other parts of the world, yes. Telstra in Australia is bound by the Universal Service Obligation, for instance: https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Telco/Carriers-and-service-providers/Obligations/universal-service-obligation-obligations-i-acma https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Telco/Carriers-and-service-... This is an area where it's critically important to regulate the market to make it actually work for the people, not just profit margins. If the service providers were not obliged to provide service to people in remote areas at the same price as everyone else, no service provider would.
- Banthum 9y ago
  I don't have an established opinion here, just a question. What's the rationale for forcing people who live in densely populated areas to subsidize those who live in remote areas this way? Why don't we subsidize them for, say, gasoline as well, for their longer travel distances?
  - abalashov 9y ago
    The overriding social policy objective isn't to effect urban-to-rural subsidies per se, but to provide certain types of basic infrastructure universally — and it just so happens that the unit economics point toward a wealth from urban to rural areas as a means of accomplishing that. To the best of my understanding, the consensus around this formed out of the Depression and was bolstered subsequently by post-war thinking. The idea was that we as a society should be able to make certain social guarantees of living standard and access to services. Lots of things gave rise to that strain of thinking across the Western world, some of which were in response to specifically American conditions, others not. To the extent that it was influenced by the same kinds of currents that gave rise to the Western European welfare states, there was a pattern of concern over the ways in which savage inequalities between country and society perpetuated intergenerational poverty, which was in turn exploitable by demagogues and populists. There was a time in American history when the society was moving in the same general political direction as Europe as far as universal social benefits, and while the trend was unquestionably weaker here, it give rise to Medicare and Medicaid and other LBJ War on Poverty-era initiatives. Another, less acknowledged motivation was to defeat the allure of the Soviet model; revolutionary Bolshevism was big on redressing the historical gap between the sophistication and modernity of the city vs. the backward depression of the country, and universal literacy, universal electrification, universal medical infrastructure, etc. were widely touted goals. And of course, this factor was even more pronounced among the European social democracies. The more locally American consideration was most likely that telephone service should be folded, together with farm price supports, into the overall package of stabilising subsidies to the critical agricultural sector. This was thought necessary to cushion them against a repeat of the acute economic devastation of the Depression, the Dust Bowl, etc. Telephone access was essential to economic development and automation in the twentieth century in the same way that Internet access is regarded to be now, and was practically important for farmers as a means of getting their products to market. Last but not least, participation in the social bargain of universal service was generally a condition of being granted some sort of natural monopoly status, as for example with electrical utilities. The same general thinking was extended to the telephone, since AT&T did, after all, monopolise the local loop in most of the country for much of the twentieth century.
fencepost 9y ago
In the US, the telcos were generally required to provide service. Some of that cost was subsidized. In return they got effective monopolies, easements to put in the infrastructure required to provide service (including in profitable areas), etc.

Then that will be a good market for a startup, or other players. Are the telcos obliged to provide you with telecommunication?

by lucio 9y ago

Then that will be a good market for a startup, or other players. Are the telcos obliged to provide you with telecommunication?

maxerickson 9y ago

Historically, yes, telcos have been obliged to provide service. The post you replied to mentions this: The point is that regulations previously required the telco provide an alternative service that works just as well as the existing copper before they are allowed to stop maintaining the copper. But that is no longer the case as of this vote.

chx 9y ago

Under current rules yes and they are paid for it. Check Connect America Fund

brians 9y ago

Yes, in return for getting poles along streets throughout the rest of America. Similarly, they have to interconnect with other telcos.

charliesome 9y ago

In other parts of the world, yes. Telstra in Australia is bound by the Universal Service Obligation, for instance: https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Telco/Carriers-and-service-providers/Obligations/universal-service-obligation-obligations-i-acma https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Telco/Carriers-and-service-... This is an area where it's critically important to regulate the market to make it actually work for the people, not just profit margins. If the service providers were not obliged to provide service to people in remote areas at the same price as everyone else, no service provider would.

Banthum 9y ago
I don't have an established opinion here, just a question. What's the rationale for forcing people who live in densely populated areas to subsidize those who live in remote areas this way? Why don't we subsidize them for, say, gasoline as well, for their longer travel distances?
- abalashov 9y ago
  The overriding social policy objective isn't to effect urban-to-rural subsidies per se, but to provide certain types of basic infrastructure universally — and it just so happens that the unit economics point toward a wealth from urban to rural areas as a means of accomplishing that. To the best of my understanding, the consensus around this formed out of the Depression and was bolstered subsequently by post-war thinking. The idea was that we as a society should be able to make certain social guarantees of living standard and access to services. Lots of things gave rise to that strain of thinking across the Western world, some of which were in response to specifically American conditions, others not. To the extent that it was influenced by the same kinds of currents that gave rise to the Western European welfare states, there was a pattern of concern over the ways in which savage inequalities between country and society perpetuated intergenerational poverty, which was in turn exploitable by demagogues and populists. There was a time in American history when the society was moving in the same general political direction as Europe as far as universal social benefits, and while the trend was unquestionably weaker here, it give rise to Medicare and Medicaid and other LBJ War on Poverty-era initiatives. Another, less acknowledged motivation was to defeat the allure of the Soviet model; revolutionary Bolshevism was big on redressing the historical gap between the sophistication and modernity of the city vs. the backward depression of the country, and universal literacy, universal electrification, universal medical infrastructure, etc. were widely touted goals. And of course, this factor was even more pronounced among the European social democracies. The more locally American consideration was most likely that telephone service should be folded, together with farm price supports, into the overall package of stabilising subsidies to the critical agricultural sector. This was thought necessary to cushion them against a repeat of the acute economic devastation of the Depression, the Dust Bowl, etc. Telephone access was essential to economic development and automation in the twentieth century in the same way that Internet access is regarded to be now, and was practically important for farmers as a means of getting their products to market. Last but not least, participation in the social bargain of universal service was generally a condition of being granted some sort of natural monopoly status, as for example with electrical utilities. The same general thinking was extended to the telephone, since AT&T did, after all, monopolise the local loop in most of the country for much of the twentieth century.

fencepost 9y ago

In the US, the telcos were generally required to provide service. Some of that cost was subsidized. In return they got effective monopolies, easements to put in the infrastructure required to provide service (including in profitable areas), etc.