In a message written on Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 08:20:49PM -0500, Bryan Fields wrote: > The government granting a monopoly is the problem, and more lame government > regulation is not the solution. Let everyone compete on a level playing > field, not by allowing one company to buy a monopoly enforced by men with > guns.
While I like the concept, reality doesn't allow it. When speaking about the folks who actually run fiber/copper/coax to the home there are a number of physical, real world issues. Rights of way specifically easements, poll space and similar are limited quantities. There is both a finite number of folks who can put in resources in any reasonable way, and an expoentially increasing chance of them damaging each other as they pack in closer and closer. There is also the problem that most residents get really upset if the road between home and the grocery store is torn up this week by AT&T, next week by Comcast, the following week by Level 3, the next week by Cogent and is then a rutted potholed mess. Many cities are requring carriers to do joint physical duct builds to keep from digging up streets repeatedly, but due to the inconvenience factor but also because it reduces the lifespan of the streets, and thus raises costs to residents. After looking at many models I think Australia might be on to something. The model is that a quasi-government monopoly provides the last mile physical wire, but is unable to sell services on it. Basically they only provide UNE's. Then, at the switching center any ISP can pick up those UNE's and provide services. Competition to the end user, while the last mile is always a single povider limiting the issues above. Many cities are trying the same with electric service, one companie provides the transport infrastructure and when you select a generation provider. Simply put, physical real world issues means there will never be individual residences in most places where there are 6-10 wired infrastructures coming in, so the user can select one and 5-9 can go unused. Huge waste, lots of problems running it that add cost and create conditions users don't like. I dream of a day where we have municipal fiber to the home, leased to any ISP who wants to show up at the local central office for a dollar a two a month so there can be true competition in end-user services. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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