I don't think the "sharing" thing was ever the real objection. Everyone talks
like they had to let CLECs use their copper pairs for free, but actually the
wholesale pricing was supposed to be set at cost plus a fair profit. Some of
the UNE pricing I saw made me question how a CLEC could possibly make a profit.
The objection was to exactly what Congress hoped to accomplish with the 1996
Telecom Act, which was to lower the entry barrier for competition in local
access. The idea was that CLECs would initially rent colo cage space in the CO
for their own switch, and lease copper pairs ("unbundled network elements")
from the ILEC. Congress expected that once the more successful CLECs reached a
certain size, they would start deploying their own physical infrastructure.
None of this happened as planned. The ILECs were very successful in their
maneuvering (a lot of it at state level) to put the CLECs out of business, plus
the CLECs mostly didn't ever bury their own fiber or copper. The whole thing
pretty much fizzled. But the big ILECs wanted to block this attempt to create
competition for them. They wanted to keep the duopoly - 1 telco, 1 cableco per
town. You'll notice the cable companies don't overbuild each other, and the
wireline phone companies don't overbuild each other. I think when the govt
broke up Ma Bell, they expected the RBOCs to build into each others territories
and compete for local wireline customers.
-----Original Message-----
From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Seth Mattinen
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2016 1:35 PM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] T-Tommy Wheeler staying corrupt to the very end
On 12/19/16 10:11, Chuck McCown wrote:
> The ILECs are focusing on fiber for several reasons:
> 1) Dramatic loss of land line only customers due to cell phones.
> 2) Loss of DSL customers to WISP due to long and poor copper.
> 3) It is a good way to put more rate of return investment dollars in
> the ground.
4) Don't have to share it with anyone else.
~Seth
