Very nice explanation, thanks Fred. Victoria Proffer - President/CEO www.ShowMeBroadband.com www.StLouisBroadband.com 314-974-5600
-----Original Message----- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Fred Goldstein Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 1:43 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Flexible rules promised for wireless At 12/21/2010 01:57 PM, MDK wrote: >The whole problem was creating monopolies in the first place, and then >pretending you can "fix" what you broke by half-baked notions of government >created markets... Uh, no. Wireline is a natural monopoly. That is NOT what it has sometimes been taken to mean, an excuse to regulate. Rather, it's an economics concept, which means that the cost of entering the market as a new provider is substantially higher than the cost to an existing provider of adding incremental capacity. In other words, the incumbent can always underprice the new entrant, so it's impossible to compete. If you don't believe it's the case for wireline loops, think about roads. How much would it cost for a second road company to pull up to your front door? Absurd? Wire is almost the same thing. When there is a natural monopoly, the holder of that monopoly has the potential to abuse its power. Hence such companies are normally regulated. That applies to electric distribution, natural gas distribution, water, and until recently telecommunications. These are thus regulated "utilities", where being a utility means that the company is entitled to make a fair profit, but that the value of the product or service is assumed to be greater than its price, so the monopoly utility can't charge whatever the market will bear (monopoly rents). Wireless is not, of course; market entry is regulated based on spectrum allocation rules. That too is now optimized for corporate profit, not maximal public utility. If it were not regulated to protect license values, then there would be much more unlicensed spectrum, since WISPs make much more efficient use of spectrum than many of the licensees. Telcos have been regulated as utilities since the 19th century; telegraph was regulated before then. And common carrier regulation (the old concept of "bailment" translates to "neutrality" when it's applied to bits) goes back for several centuries, when it applied to horse-wagon and canal-boat carriers, and then to railroads. >There is NOTHING broke about 'internet' because it hasn't been regulated. Information service should not be viewed as a monopoly or utility either. HOWEVER, the FCC has created an untenable monster in which ISPs are vertically integrated, from information down to physical medium. so the natural break between the information service and the telecommunications service (to use the somewhat broken TA96 terms) is now gone. That's the elbow joint in the arm of communications policy. Remove its flexibility, as was done a few years ago, and no matter which way you point the arm, it can't do its job. THAT is what's broken. It creates the *possibiilty* that the wire owner will abuse the user's Internet information, with the user not having a choice of alternative ISPs. There was no public call for "network neutrality" until after the FCC revoked Computer II in 2005. >Your issue is nothing but a complaint about the results of what should never >have been done in the first place. What should never have been done is remove the ISPs' open access to the telcos' wire. And what should not be done now is regulate small, non-dominant non-telco ISPs the same way as the telcos. >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >Neofast, Inc, Making internet easy >541-969-8200 509-386-4589 >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > >-------------------------------------------------- >From: "Fred Goldstein" <fgoldst...@ionary.com> >Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 6:56 PM >To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> >Subject: Re: [WISPA] Flexible rules promised for wireless > > > Well, no, what IS PROFOUNDLY BROKEN is that the ILECs are no longer > > required to be common carriers. They built their network using > > common carrier privileges. They got their market share using common > > carrier privileges. And then they turned around and got their > > common carrier obligations lifted by the profoundly corrupt > > Cheney-Rove FCC. So now they control the content on their wires, and > > you can't lease them. That's just wrong. And the Genachowski FCC > > isn't doing squat about that, though they absolutely have the power > > to do so. We do need a national common carrier utility. There is a > > clear distinction between carriage and content. ISPs are content, not > > carriage. And WISPs are self-provisioned ISPs who deliver content > > over unlicensed facilities without using a carrier, and without being one. > > -- Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ +1 617 795 2701 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
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