Re: [PLUG] and now, the more mundane

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 10:24 PM, Art Clemons <artclemons@aol.com> wrote:
> I don't think there is any way to escape Verizon for DSL.  As far as I
> can tell none of the remaining players provide their own lines.

Correct - the final loop is always run by the ILEC (as far as I know).
 From what I've read online they tend not to play nice with the CLEC.
I remember reading a post by a lineman and at his CLEC the unofficial
policy was that when an ILEC DSL customer's connection was finicky
they would just swap his line with another "random" one in the cable.
The other "random" one would inevitably be a subscriber to the CLEC,
so over time the competition ended up with all the flaky copper.

I've always been an advocate of separating the roles of running the
lines (a natural monopoly) and providing ISP or phone service.  If you
just rented a wire/fiber back to the CO, then it would be economical
for dozens of companies to rent rackspace in the CO to provide you
service with various terms/rates/etc. The PUC would regulate the rates
to rent the wire, and that would be it.  The utility would be
forbidden from owning or investing in companies that provided content
services over the wire.

The current state is really just the legacy of the days when there
weren't 47,000 companies around that know how to run the non-wire
aspects of a phone company.

Rich
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