FTC chief warns against 'unnecessary' Net regulations

TalkBack 21 of 21:

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Probably no monopoly at your location

In the big metro areas of the US, the cable TV company has a monopoly on coax and the incumbent telco has a monopoly on residential copper subscriber loops. But that's where the monopolies end.

The monopoly phone company operates the copper that comes into my house, a box on the streetcorner called a DSLAM, and an ATM "fabric" that runs from the DSL "modem" in my house through the DSLAM and the telco's fiber to a central office a few miles from here. All of that is part of the regulated public utility known as "phone service." Since the 1996 telco "deregulation" the incumbent telcos have been REQUIRED to rent central office space to independent data services.

I pay the telco $11/month, and the FCC $3/month, to run that layer (complete with Plain Old Telephone Service), and they do it really well, because the Public Utilities Commision (and the Communication Workers of America) force them to.

I pay a fiesty little independent (DSLExtreme.com) to provide IP ("Internet") service *over that phone service*. The telco here, SBC/AT&T, has shown itself incompetent to run TCP/IP. They've outsourced the email to Yahoo and it's unusable for real work. They don't know if that service is up or down. Their network is full of spammers and worms. You can't talk to anybody who knows what's going on.

But that doesn't matter. I've set up DSL service for my friends using Speakeasy.net and Sonic.net, and we're looking at ISPwest.com.

I get my IP address from DSLExtreme, not from AT&T. DSLExtreme has a big Ethernet switch somewhere near the San Francisco airport. As far as my home router is concerned, it's talking IP over Ethernet through that switch to DSLExtreme's router. They don't care if it's ATM or Ethernet or two cans and a string.

Generally the incumbent telcos run a cheap, consumer entertainment grade IP service. If you're a cheap consumer seeking entertainment, go for it. But if you're doing real work, buy your IP from a real TCP/IP network service company. If you're lucky, you're close enough to the CO that you can get that DSL signal from an independent too, and have even more choices than I do. If you're out in the burbs like me, you'll have to choose from the independents who use the telco fabric. Check the reviews at, for example, broadbandreports.com.

Posted by: cls@...   Posted on: 11/07/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Breaking DB2 Platform Barriers Quest Software Are you supporting DB2 on multiple platforms? In this Quest white paper ... Download Now
• Five Steps to Determine When to Virtualize YourServers VMware Server virtualization isn't just for big companies. Entry-level ... Download Now
• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now