[133700] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay Ashworth)
Thu Dec 16 01:41:03 2010
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 01:41:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com>
To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
In-Reply-To: <4D09AEDA.4030202@gmail.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
----- Original Message -----
> From: "JC Dill" <jcdill.lists@gmail.com>
> > see also my running rant about Verizon-inspired state laws
> > *forbidding*
> > municipalities to charter monopoly transport-only fiber providers,
> > renting
> > to all comers on non-discriminatory terms, which is the only
> > practical
> > way I can see to fix any of this.
>
> The problem is that this should have been addressed 5-10 years ago,
> when
> there *were* alternative ISPs who could have provided competition. Now
> that Comcast has a monopoly on cable, and fiber is so bleeping
> expensive
> to install, at best we might get *one* alternative to Comcast, and a
> duopoly is really no better (for consumers, for the marketplace) than
> a monopoly.
I believe you misunderstood my assertion.
Many local municipalities are doing the trenching themselves (well, generally,
subbing it out to a contractor), and then offering the customers out to
all IAP comers -- you meet-me in my fibernoc, and we'll cross connect every
customer you sell to you.
Lots of *other* municipalities would dearly love to do this, but state laws
(lobbied for, in many places, by Verizontal) make this *illegal*. Wonder
why Verizon would want to do *that*...
See http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2010/03/15/tech_tt_fiber_fios.cnnmoney/
and also http://www.freepress.net/files/mb_telco_lies.pdf
And ORA's Mike Loukides:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/03/google-fiber-and-the-fcc-natio.html
and a whole lot more here:
http://www.ftthcouncil.org/en
Those links from the consumer-level piece I wrote on this earlier this year:
http://baylink.pitas.com/#LASTMILE
Cheers,
-- jra
