TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet -- Wash Post

Re: The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet -- Wash Post

jmeissen@aracnet.com
24 Jan 2006 20:56:00 GMT

In article <telecom25.36.9@telecom-digest.org>,
William Warren <william_warren_nonoise@speakeasy.net> wrote:

> The reason SBC-AT&T and the other "Baby Bells" are whining is because
> the Internet has drawn the premium services out from under the Bell
> umbrella, and left the RBOC's with only a basic service -- the pipes --
> to make their profits. Shannon's rule applies in both a technical and
> an economic sense here: bandwidth is the enemy of switching, and
> bandwidth-intensive industries like Google/Yahoo/MSN et al are now
> girding for battle with the old-line switching organizations that see
> their chokehold on business communications slipping away.

Well, yes and no. The content delivery they're talking about is mostly
over broadband, which these days isn't part of the switched phone
network. And these same phone companies are also trying to compete and
generate revenue in the content and service arena as well. Verizon's
already managed to get our government to rule that they can exclude
all other ISP's and make themselves the sole ISP offering over DSL and
FIOS, similar to cable's arrangement, effectively relegating all
independent ISP's to the dial-up world.

> In short, the RBOC's are trying to convince the Congress that they
> should enjoy a share of the profit made on the Internet because they
> are involved with providing the basic service that makes it possible:
> it's an old argument, but the RBOCs are old companies and they think
> that old scams work best. Since the Internet, by its very nature,
> concentrates power at the endpoints, the former monopolists are
> floating trial balloons to see if the public will stand for them
> finding a new way to gouge the consumer.

No disagreement there. The problem with their argument, which our
elected Congress will no doubt be unable to see, is that they're
already being paid to provide the basic service that makes it
possible.

John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com

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