Maybe we need a new term "natural commons" for cases where it's hard to have competing exclusive ownership but we want to encourage everyone to contribute. These are situations where it's hard to make a profit with elements in isolation but communities can hire people to do work such as digging ditches or lighting fibers.
Network SERVICES are not at all a natural monopoly. The infrastructure at scale is a natural commons. You need to be careful about the term "Network services" -- today we don't distinguish between the Internet channel and the Histrionics channel. If you mean transporting packets -- that's a fundamental misunderstanding -- the railroad analogy and an accidental byproduct of the prototype Internet. If you look at our home networks it's something we do with the wire and radios -- it's not a service. This is an essential point because it's at the heart of today's controversy and why structural separation won't fix thing and why cities that own the fiber but price it as a service miss the entire point of connectivity. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Benson Schliesser Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008 02:47 To: Lauren Weinstein Cc: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: Competition Lauren- For once, I agree with everything you said in your note. The monopolistic foothold of legacy carriers (RBOCs) in the access market is a difficult problem in the US. But I'd like to point out that it's not the only problem. I assume that everybody here wants their Net connectivity and bandwidth to cost less. Naturally, as consumers we want the cheapest price for the most product we can get. This is why we (the collective we, not necessarily you or me of course...) buy Chinese goods from Walmart despite the fact that it puts smaller shops out of business, the longer-term effect of trade deficit on our economy, etc. In a similar situation, consumer-oriented ISPs and the carriers that serve them have experienced downward pressure on their prices. If you look at prices in the carrier-wholesale market for bandwidth you'll see that they've been falling for quite some time. Even if they stabilize at today's rates (as some suggest) they're now at the point where a service provider has to operate at significant scale to make any money. And even then it doesn't have a very attractive return on investment. So there aren't any significant new entrants to the market. And existing players are increasingly merging and/or looking for ways to provide "value-added" services. From an economist's point of view, the market is in a consolidation phase. And ultimately it's our fault for wanting lower prices. So... Are network services in the US a natural monopoly? If so, then isn't the access issue moot? I'm earnestly interested in hearing thoughts on this, because it seems like this illustrates the future of the network business and is at the root of the network neutrality issue. -Benson On 2/29/08, Lauren Weinstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Just as a point of interest, there are readers of this list in some > parts of the world who are laughing themselves silly at some of the > arguments we see here. > > Why? Because they realize that if there was broad competition in > the Internet access industry in the U.S., especially if wholesale and > retail components were *effectively* decoupled so that the range of > options were available here that are available in various other > countries, many of these other problems would vanish, or at least be > significantly reduced. U.S. Internet users by and large don't have > a clue about how incredibly limited and primitive their choices are > here. They simply don't know that there's better possible. > > The essential problem with letting ISPs make these decisions in > our largely unregulated environment is that most Internet users have > few options (some have none!) when it comes to alternatives to ISP > policies with which they don't agree. > > Voting with your feet is impossible if effective competition is > so limited that your feet are cut off. > > --Lauren-- > NNSquad Moderator >
