TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites

Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites

Robert Bonomi (bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com)
Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:38:36 -0000

In article <telecom24.267.12@telecom-digest.org>,

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is a question for the collected
> readership: _If_ Bell had not gotten divested, and was still in
> charge of most everything relating to telecommunications, what would
> the internet be like today? Would it all be run by 'the telephone
> company'? Would we be getting all our attachments and peripherals from
> the telephone company? I suggest that might be the case.

I think you forget about the CarterPhone decision.

Final decision, merely six years before the filing of the lawsuit that
led to the Bell system divestiture.

Bell system (nor any other telco) could not require use of "their"
interface equipment. So the 'third party' market for 'attachments and
peripherals' would have bloomed -- as it, in fact, did -- regardless.

The primary "alternative" long-distance carriers (United Telecom and
MCI) were already building out their own long-haul _physical_plant_
infrastructure long before the Bell system break-up occurred. Well
before the the lawsuit was even filed.

As "_off_ ARPAnet/NSFnet" IP use spread, going to the 'alternative'
carriers for point-to-point _data_ connectivity was a "natural". both
ends were going to be in 'bigger towns' -- the places the alternative
carriers serviced _first_; it was *not* covered at all by PSTN
regulations, none of the regulatory/tax issues of 'by-pass' came into
play, etc. And those alternative carriers could offer better quality
circuits, *cheaper*.

And, of course, MFS had been doing the same under-cutting in the
city-center for high-cap 'local loop'.

If the "Bell System/AT&T/Western Electric" had remained a monolithic
entity, The rate of change in the "Internet" would likely have been
much slower. There probably would not have been the telecom boom/bust
of circa 5 years ago,

OTOH, DSL would not likely be ubiquitous, as it is today; "high speed"
to the residence would probably mean 2-B ISDN.; today's "date" would
probably be "September five-thousand-and-something" instead of the
current number.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sounds a little grim to me. PAT]

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