[133934] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Schultze)
Mon Dec 20 12:21:45 2010
From: Steve Schultze <sjs@princeton.edu>
In-Reply-To: <4D0EBB72.50106@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:20:37 -0500
To: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Evidently this list is interested in telecommunications law. I was =
worried it would be considered OT, but since people are talking about =
it, here are some clarifications...
On Dec 19, 2010, at 8:20 PM, Bryan Fields wrote:
> On 12/19/2010 20:09, Leo Bicknell wrote:
>> They have been granted a monopoly by the local government for
>> wireline services, and in exchange for that monopoly need to act
>> in the public's interest. In the TV world this is things like
>> running the local community interest channel, and paying a franchise
>> fee. In the IP world we're still developing the criteria, but it's
>> not unreasonable to think they might have some government imposed
>> requirements there as well.
>=20
> The government granting a monopoly is the problem, and more lame =
government
> regulation is not the solution. Let everyone compete on a level =
playing
> field, not by allowing one company to buy a monopoly enforced by men =
with guns.
On Dec 19, 2010, at 9:12 PM, JC Dill wrote:
> Why not open up the market for telco wiring and just see what happens?
There are no government-enforced monopoly rights on cable or =
copper/fiber these days. The exclusivity for the telcos went away in =
the Bell breakup and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. See, for =
example, the section of the Act codified at 47 USC 253:
=
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode47/usc_sec_47_00000253----000=
-.html
Congress went so far as to force ILECs (the incumbents) to lease their =
lines to competitors for awhile, with the idea that it would lead the =
competitors to build out their own "facilities-based" lines. Even with =
those incentives, line-based competition failed to materialize to any =
substantial degree. =20
The exclusivity for cable providers went away with the Cable Television =
Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which you can read =
about in the Background section of the FCC's 2007 Order Implementation =
of Section 621(a)(1) (the first of two orders that sought to further =
remove local control over many aspects of the franchising process):
=
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2007/03/21/E7-5119/implementation-=
of-section-621a1-of-the-cable-communications-policy-act-of-1984-as-amended=
-by-the#p-21
On Dec 19, 2010, at 8:37 PM, George Bonser wrote:
> What I am concerned with happening is a cash-strapped city seeing
> Comcast (or any provider, really) trying to charge for access to
> subscribers and then the city saying "wait a minute, who are you to =
sell
> access to our people to a third party? If you are going to charge =
third
> parties for access to those eyeballs, then you can pay us, in turn for
> that access." And from there it all goes down hill.
Cities currently do not recoup anything from telephone and internet =
services. Cities are capped at 5% of gross revenue from video services, =
and the definition of what they can recoup has been consistently =
narrowed by the FCC, as I noted here (in response to the first message =
in which you raised this concern):
http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2010-December/029444.html=
