Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 15:43:32 -0600 (MDT) From: Jawaid Bazyar <bazyar@hypermall.com> To: alex@comsys.com Cc: inet-access@earth.com, linuxisp@friendly.jeffnet.org, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG, iap@vma.cc.nd.edu Subject: Re: US West and RADSL (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.980606150600.2636B-100000@hypermall.com> In-Reply-To: <3579976D.6974D1FA@comsys.com>
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On a note not directly related to Alex, folks, *please* be careful not to let your lines exceed 80 columns. Actually, 75 or 76 is a good margin. There are still lots of us who use (*gasp!*) UNIX mailers from time to time. On Sat, 6 Jun 1998 alex@comsys.com wrote: > I don't agree. "Let the phone companies...." has little meaning. What you > suggest.. is > that the phone company monopoly is a good thing. That the on-ramp to the > Internet > is a better serviced by the telephone company, and that the telephone company > really should collect the local loop charges for access to all networks of the > future. Let's drop all the loaded words. What you're saying is that end-user access to the Internet should *not* be provided by telephone companies. Well, they're in a good position to do this because the Internet infrastructure itself is provided entirely by telephone companies. So let's drop the fallacy that small ISPs somehow solely make up "The Internet" and that large telcos are somehow trying to muscle in on a business they had nothing to do with creating. > Your figures for qualified copper are not representative of the US telco copper > plant. That may be, but even if half your customer base is within distance limits, that's still a substantial cost for not much incremental benefit to the ISP. > We have lots of Personal T1 modem customers and ISPs that have little trouble > getting > qualified copper and competing in the local market with the ILECs, CLECs and > CAPs > of the world. > > There is no reason that ISPs with a POP adjacent to COs or those wishing to > collocate in > telco COs shouldn't pursue that. Oh, I agree. We looked at that and found it unviable. A couple local ISPs actually tried it, and also found it unviable. > Free enterprise is why the Internet is a > viable, lively place > to be. Ok, keep in mind you said "free enterprise". > Imagine the Internet dominated by the leading telco companies. Wait! The government-chartered monopolies are ended. No longer are there laws on the books that mandate a single phone company. There used to be, and that's how you got Ma Bell in many places. The Internet is already dominated by the big telcos. WorldCom, Sprint, MCI, etc? Many users go with a local ISP for better service, but many of those dollars all end up at the big boys. > Wouldn't > it look > much like the telephone system does? There's really been very little innovation > from the > telephone companies, unless you'd like to count advances such as $.50 to > complete > your Directory Assistance call, $.50 to find out who rang your telephone, $.50 > to make > a directory inquiry, $.50 to conference in another party. and on. We have these great "features" because the *governments* of many places mandated telephone monopolies. Those ended only two years ago. And, what's still in place is that telcos have to ask the permission of government bureaucrats to do *anything* related to POTS. It's hard to be innovative when you have to spend months and thousands of hours of lawyer-time in front of the PUC to haggle over a 5 cent raise in the price of directory assistance. I personally consider US West installing DSL and actively working to make that network accessible to ISPs and businesses to be highly innovative. It's even better, because US West has the capital and manpower to roll it out in force, to very quickly make it a viable choice in the eyes of consumers. Small ISPs get to ride US West's coattails. We're benefitting from US West's marketing and product education efforts. > I can't imagine the Internet becoming a network of billing machines. In fact, > over 49 billion > a year is spent just on facilities for billing in the telco marketplace. And we see how successful they are :) We're currently being billed by two separate divisions of MCI *for the same service*. But, the fact is, that not all services can be sold on a flat-rate basis, nor does that always make sense for the customer or the provider. > I suspect that $.45 of each > service bill goes to pay for the billing equipment and $.05 pays for the > amortized cost of the > digital switch. And advertising and customer support and network operations personnel and reserves for upgrades and R&D and... > ISPs should unite, make as much noise as possible to their congress > representatives and senators. > Insure an open and free enterprise environment for ISPs, the bulk of whom we can > thank for > low cost Internet access, great service, integrity, innovation and much of the > excitement of the > past 4 years in the technology economy. You cannot ensure "free enterprise" by chaining somebody. It is inherently contradictory to say "guarantee a free market by regulating some companies". Now, as I've said before, the situation is a BIG MESS because of the many years of government coercion in the telephone industry. Did the shareholders of the telcos come by their assets legitimately, or illegitimately? Should the telcos have been auctioned off CO by CO? There are many philosophical questions here, but it's clear that where we need to go does not involve perpetually regulated telephone companies. Regulation begets regulation. > The economy is changing in ways yet not to clear to most. The efforts to > centralize the Internet > under the old-world telco development, billing, service and maintenance umbrella > isn't attractive. Those efforts will fail if it doesn't provide what consumers want. If it *does* provide what consumers want, then who are we to say that's wrong? > Distributed, open, competitive, innovative is much healthier for the US > economy This is a pragmatic/utilitarian argument, and completely ignores one important element of our society: rights. Particular, property rights. You're saying that competition is good - unless that competition is coming from a big telco? In that case, your formula really breaks down to this: Small Good Big Bad Stop Big From Doing Anything Make Big Give Away Stuff To Small That's certainly "distributive" - as in, a socialist redistribution of wealth. > What would the cost of a hub be if they were being built by only 3 > companies? I'm not sure what you mean by this. > There are many ISPs that compete in high density financial districts and > there are many who offer service in rural locations. It makes great sense to > set up POPs since every one can produce money. It isn't necessary to > create POPs in every CO area, just as the telco's demonstrated with ISDN > availability. Who says the telcos have ever made money with ISDN? ;) Seriously, though, yes, you could conceivably grow incrementally like that. But most likely, you'll find it's simply not cost-effective for a small company. But, and here's the point I was trying to make earlier, if one company (whether it's the telco or a third-party co-located) makes the investment, then re-sells to ISPs, all ISPs can benefit, as many consumers as possible can benefit, and both customers and ISPs have the widest possible market. As I said before, the economics of the situation lend themselves to the development of one or a few service providers who will own and operate the DSLAMs. ISPs will then rent access to those DSLAMs. These service providers don't *have* to be the local RBOC, but I fear the backlash that will be caused by people screaming to *stop* the RBOC from doing so. It doesn't make sense for most ISPs to try to build their own DSLAM network, just as it doesn't make sense for them to try to build their own POTS network. > Keeping copper accessible to all ISPs, it's an important part of an > on-ramp to the Internet, See, the problem here is that that copper is the property of the shareholders of the telco. It's not yours. It's not any other ISP's. It does not belong to you, and you have no rights over its use or disposition. The telco has a moral (albeit not currently legal) right to sell or rent it -- or not -- to anyone they like. Your arguent boils down to this: just take what you want, to hell with property rights. Now, I would have argued that telco properties in any government-mandated monopoly zone were essentially nationalized and should have been auctioned off. But, that didn't happen, and so we now have a variety of independent private businesses, which benefit in many cases from those years of government-coerced monopoly. There's nothing that can be done about that now. This may make it take longer to reach a proper free-market equilibrium - but it will not prevent it. A company that's being stupid can only bleed money so long. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. > and networks of the future. A toll road owned by a few centralized businesses > isn't my cup of tea. But it may not be your decision. Ultimately, it's the consumer's decision, since it's the consumer that pays for the services that keep ANY company - ISP, telco, whatever - in business. Don't tell me you want what's best for the consumer, then say that if they pick a system that doesn't include you that you will make such a system illegal. That's a slap in the face to the freedom and choice that you say you want for the consumer. It may be that the what the consumer wants does not include you continuing in the marketplace. If that's so, you need to deal with it in a way befitting a civilized society, instead of proclaiming that you're going to pass laws to tie down the big guy so you can rob them at your leisure. > Hang in there and keep the roads open. Let's hang in there and protect *everyone's* property rights. -- Jawaid Bazyar | Affordable WWW & Internet Solutions Interlink Advertising Svcs | for Small Business bazyar@hypermall.com | 910 16th Street, #1220 (303) 228-0070 --The Future is Now!-- | Denver, CO 80202 (303) 789-4197 fax To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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