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Who said anything about providing anything for free? Who said anything about subsidizing access? Do you not get an electric bill, water bill, and possibly othe

by pdkl95 13y ago

Who said anything about providing anything for free? Who said anything about subsidizing access? Do you not get an electric bill, water bill, and possibly other utility bills? "Public Utility" != "free" While some sort of subsidized access for the poor is going to be necessary, of course, that is another discussion entirely. The issue here is how to deal with a monopoly. More specifically, how to deal with a "natural monopoly"[1] that forced out all other competition. Such behavior is expected from natural monopolies, and the usual way of dealing with such businesses is to make them utilities. As for the DSL diversion - you seem to be under the impression that you get a choice[2]. > kill capital investment in the networks LOL - We paid massive amounts in the 90s-00s[3] to pay for the necessary infrastructure, and I still don't have a fiber connection. That song and dance has been used to swindle voters, politicians, and businesses for several decades. If they had any intention to actually put that money towards infrastructure, we would have seen it by now. Note: upgrading the modems and such on the edge of the network (i.e. DOCSIS 2 -> 3) is merely using existing infrastructure in better ways. They were paid for "last-mile" deployment of fiber, and so far we've only seen tiny bit of FIOS (and similar). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly [2] http://www.broadbandmap.gov/summarize/nationwide#wirelineProviders http://www.broadbandmap.gov/summarize/nationwide#wirelinePro... http://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers/wireline/served http://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers/wireline/ser... (compare: min:1/max:1 vs min:2/max:whatever) [3] http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026... (to name one example; there are several)

rayiner 13y ago
> More specifically, how to deal with a "natural monopoly"[1] that forced out all other competition. Such behavior is expected from natural monopolies, and the usual way of dealing with such businesses is to make them utilities. I understand the theoretical justification. However, in practice, regulating businesses as utilities is associated, in America, with all sorts of things that don't go directly to addressing the monopoly, and can effectively kill industries. For example a common issue is cross-subsidization, particularly geographic cross-subsidization. Rural votes carry about 2x the weight in the U.S. as urban votes, which means there is a huge pressure on public utilities to waste capital building out to rural areas at the expense of urban areas. This isn't a theoretical issue, it's a feature of our political system that causes problems with everything it touches. For example, regulation as a public utility effectively killed passenger rail here in the U.S. It continues to hamper the remnant of passenger rail, in Amtrak, because the company is forced to carry unprofitable lines that run through mostly rural states instead of focusing on the profitable, high-density northeast corridor. In another example, about $4.5 billion a year is transferred from users of long distance service to subsidize phone service in rural areas. There must be something to deal with the natural monopoly issue, but the public utility regime in U.S. municipalities is simply too dysfunctional to be appropriate for a rapidly-changing area like telecom. > They were paid for "last-mile" deployment of fiber, and so far we've only seen tiny bit of FIOS (and similar). The $200 billion figure often bandied about is a total fabrication, achieved by comparing telecom profit rates to that of rate-regulated utilities and calling the delta "excess profits." It's highly disingenuous. Time Warner and Comcast have a net margin of 10-11%. Apple and Google are around 20-21%. Saying that the cable companies are making "excess profits" and calling that a "$200 billion payment to upgrade infrastructure" is utterly ridiculous.

by pdkl95 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

> More specifically, how to deal with a "natural monopoly"[1] that forced out all other competition. Such behavior is expected from natural monopolies, and the usual way of dealing with such businesses is to make them utilities. I understand the theoretical justification. However, in practice, regulating businesses as utilities is associated, in America, with all sorts of things that don't go directly to addressing the monopoly, and can effectively kill industries. For example a common issue is cross-subsidization, particularly geographic cross-subsidization. Rural votes carry about 2x the weight in the U.S. as urban votes, which means there is a huge pressure on public utilities to waste capital building out to rural areas at the expense of urban areas. This isn't a theoretical issue, it's a feature of our political system that causes problems with everything it touches. For example, regulation as a public utility effectively killed passenger rail here in the U.S. It continues to hamper the remnant of passenger rail, in Amtrak, because the company is forced to carry unprofitable lines that run through mostly rural states instead of focusing on the profitable, high-density northeast corridor. In another example, about $4.5 billion a year is transferred from users of long distance service to subsidize phone service in rural areas. There must be something to deal with the natural monopoly issue, but the public utility regime in U.S. municipalities is simply too dysfunctional to be appropriate for a rapidly-changing area like telecom. > They were paid for "last-mile" deployment of fiber, and so far we've only seen tiny bit of FIOS (and similar). The $200 billion figure often bandied about is a total fabrication, achieved by comparing telecom profit rates to that of rate-regulated utilities and calling the delta "excess profits." It's highly disingenuous. Time Warner and Comcast have a net margin of 10-11%. Apple and Google are around 20-21%. Saying that the cable companies are making "excess profits" and calling that a "$200 billion payment to upgrade infrastructure" is utterly ridiculous.