Re: [PLUG] Net Neutrality

["Eric at Lucii.org" <eric@lucii.org>]

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I believe you are precisely correct - the last mile is where the regulation
comes in.  After that you must have competition.  Energy delivery is a good model.

I fear that the marriage of the multi-billion dollar telecom and cable
industries with the profligate bureaucrats in Washington, Harrisburg, Trenton
etc, will create a chimera.  It will be overly expensive and at the same time
totally unresponsive to the wants and needs of the consumers.  It will stifle
most innovation - particularly innovative small companies without the deep
pockets to buy the influence they need,

If we're not careful, we're going to end up with the most expensive, least
innovative, and least open broadband Internet system in the world.

Eric

On 12/04/2010 08:31 AM, Richard Freeman wrote:
> On 12/03/2010 11:44 PM, Doug Stewart wrote:
>> Not everyone's fer it -- I, for one, am agin' it. I'd rather have
>> companies, competing against each other, with a small measure of
>> accountability to their customers "in charge" of this field, as
>> opposed to nameless, faceless gov't bureaucrats with zero
>> accountability and no market pressures to keep them in check.
> 
> I would agree, but only if last-mile data carriers were forbidden from
> offering any content services, or a connection to the internet, and that
> they could not be owned by companies that do any of these either.
> 
> They should provide a connection from my house to the central office,
> and charge me by the byte (on a shared line), or by the month (for a
> dedicated line).
> 
> They would then terminate that line at the CO at an ISP of my choice,
> with that ISP only paying a nominal fee for colocation space.
> 
> So, I might use Comcast as my last-mile provider, and AOL as my ISP.
> Or, I might use Verizon as my last-mile, and Google as my ISP.
> 
> Since all Comcast does is move packets along the last mile, and they
> charge by the byte, they cannot filter or prioritize by content (in
> fact, they have no incentive to do so).  Comcast, of course, could only
> keep either its data business, or its TV business, being forced to sell
> the other.  Ditto for Verizon.
> 
> The last-mile provider would be price-regulated by the PUC just as is
> the case with electricity and local phone service.  Beyond that things
> would be fairly deregulated.
> 
> I think that this is the only way a free-market can regulate the ISP
> business.  The problem is that rights of way and costs of entry keep the
> last-mile internet business down to a few providers (and in many areas
> really only 1).  However, once you get past the last mile then
> competition could actually work.  So, you just have to keep last-mile
> providers from vertically integrating and then using their power to
> control the entire rest of the industry.
> 
> Imagine what would happen if PECO sold light bulbs and appliances, and
> they were allowed to sell flat-rate "unlimited" electric service, but
> they would have caps on power use for non-PECO appliances?  Sometimes it
> just makes more sense to meter the use and then let consumers do
> whatever they want with it.  PECO would never complain if I were a
> "power abuser" - they'd happily run 30kV 3-phase to my house as long as
> I consumed the power.  In fact, my rates would probably go down the more
> I "abused" my service.
> 
> Rich
> ___________________________________________________________________________
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- -- 
#  Eric Lucas
#
#                "Oh, I have slipped the surly bond of earth
#                 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings...
#                                        -- John Gillespie Magee Jr
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