Fred gave his reasons, which if I were to answer to, I'd have to quote him, but the gist of what he said, was that the NEXT operator to come along would have to pay MORE to compete than the original.
That's about as flawed a premise for technological matters as it is possible to have. Technology gets CHEAPER as it become more popular, subsequent competitors pay LESS to provide services than the first. This is WHY telcos and utilities were given monopoly status in the first place, so they would be protected from competition, thereby ensuring healthy and long term profits from their investment. Fred used the example of roads, as a comparison. Hardly a valid one, since wire takes up minimal real space, and roads take up ALL the space we have for them. Roads are publicly owned, for the most part (yes, I know, private toll roads exist, but that's really outside of free market business, just the same), and consume the only space that exists for them, they live in a 2 dimension world. The two are NOT comparable, not even slightly. What's really at issue here, is that the incumbents were built with money extracted from the consumer at usurious rates, and profits were protected and guaranteed by both federal and state law. And, incumbents have the historical benefit of having had that guaranteed profit from which to build an infrastructure that competitors would not have, and would have to start from scratch. Ideas of separating the lines from the service are merely responses to that fact, and in no way fix the issue. It can't be fixed, but we could undo some of it, if we wanted. And, that would mean, quite simply, the deregulation and non-protected status of "common carriers". Basically, just doing away with it entirely. Sadly, that leaves some with a historical advantage, but NOT one that cannot be overcome. RF space could be allocated to overcome the lack of land space that states have created by making monopolies out of rights of way, etc. There's myriad ways of putting the "free" back in the market, rather than just trying to rent-seek, by trying to divert profits or cash flow from one entity to another. States could recognize the validity of the need for free market services and stop protecting the incubent by allocation of space adequate for multiple competitors. I don't know why the idea of "natural monopoly" has such sway on some people. For the most part, it's just a dodge against doing the hard thing... Undoing historical mistakes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Neofast, Inc, Making internet easy 541-969-8200 509-386-4589 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: David E. Smith Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 1:17 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Flexible rules promised for wireless On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 15:08, MDK <rea...@muddyfrogwater.us> wrote: So, I disagree with his premise, and his argument about the premise, that wired telephony is a "natural monopoly", and I'm not allowed to say so? If you claim telephony isn't a natural monopoly, by the definition of that phrase, you have to back up the assertion. By the macroeconomics definition of the phrase, telephone wires are pretty much a perfect example; what's your counter-argument? David Smith MVN.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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