[ale] OT: Craig Newmark of Craig's List on Net Neutrality

[Chris Farris]

Re: ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) investing in copper/fiber 
in the ground. Yes the invested their own money, but they get sweet 
deals from the local government regarding right-of-way. Its would be 
nearly impossible for a new telco to obtain all the right-of-way permits 
to run a parallel wired network.

As for the ILEC restricting that bits travel down their lines, there are 
  ways around that. As it stands DSL can be provided by third parties 
(read non-ILECs) through two methods. Method 1 is the DSL provider rents 
a circuit from the ILEC, connects to the ILECs switch and uses ILEC 
resources. The second method is where the DSL provider rents the copper 
line from the ILEC and cross-patches it over into the DSL Provider's own 
switch. This is what happens when you order naked DSL (DSL where you 
don't need to also have a phone number).

So you want to get a DSL line from speakeasy. If you use method one 
speakeasy rents the circuit from Bellsouth. If you use method two 
speakeasy rents the circuit from Covad who rents the copper from Bellsouth.

Where is the competition: Well, pretty much anyone can sign a deal with 
Covad to become an ISP. Covad is not in the business of being an ISP so 
they don't look at bits. If Bellsouth (soon to be SBC) wants to degrade 
service for its customers then those customers are free to switch to any 
of a number of other ISPs using Covad (Speakeasy, Speed Factory, 
Earthlink, etc). Or switch to cable.

I do not fear the lack of net-neutrality on the retail Internet access 
side.

Also, in the example of Bellsouth or even Speakeasy deciding to filter 
Earthlink or Vonage VOIP traffic thereby forcing users to use Bellsouth 
or Speakeasy's phone service - that is covered under other pre-existing 
anti-trust and anti-competition laws. Don't create new laws unless its 
obviously clear you need them.

Chris


Jim Popovitch wrote:
> Pete Hardie wrote:
>> Personally, I think it's closer to the company that built my
>> subdivision's roads requiring me
>> to rent a vehicle from them to drive on those roads.
> 
> Hey, it's almost like that today.  You have to have a license (and a 
> licensed vehicle too) to use the roads provided by others.  You also 
> have to have insurance, pay ad valorem taxes, get tested, and (if 
> required) use special equipment.  Additionally, based on your age and 
> conduct you can be restricted from said roadways during certain times of 
> the day.
> 
>> Enforcing Net Neutrality might slow down the deployment of higher
>> speed connectivity.  But allowing the *monopoly wire providers* to
> 
> Just don't forget that those "monopolies" invested a significant amount 
> of the $$ to build the "roadway" you now want to make the rules for. ;-)
> 
>> block out any traffic that either does not pay them for favored
>> access, or competes with a service that the monopoly wants to provide,
>> means that we will not get good versions of that service - witness the
>> quality of lon-distance service once Ma Bell was forced to allow
>> competition.   Sure, there were many fly-by-night shoddy LD services,
>> but the market weeded them out, and we now have good, cheap LD.
>>
>> As long as Bellsouth want to offer any bone of a service, they will be
>> able to block better services - look at DSL, now that they are not
>> required to allow equal access to Speakeasy/SpeedFactory/etc.
> 
> No one is preventing Speakeasy/SpeedFactory/etc from doing what the 
> Cable companies did (bury their own lines). ;-)
> 
> -Jim P.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Chris Farris				chris at vitalpowers dot com
The Exercise of Vital Powers		404 806 1403
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