[148184] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Whacky Weekend: Is Internet Access a Human Right?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aled Morris)
Thu Jan 5 10:48:44 2012
In-Reply-To: <969790.3281.1325776972705.JavaMail.root@benjamin.baylink.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:47:56 +0000
From: Aled Morris <aledm@qix.co.uk>
To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On 5 January 2012 15:22, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
> Understand: I'm not saying that FiOS should be a human right. But as a
> society, America's recognized for decades that you gotta have a telephone,
> and subsidized local/lifeline service to that extent; that sort of subsidy
> applies to cellular phones now as well.
>
>
There is a subtlety here too - when we grant a monopoly (e.g. to operate a
physical loop or in licensing spectrum) in return we often place a
"universal service obligation" on the operator in order they don't abuse
their monoply by not providing service to "less profitable" customers.
This isn't the same as a "right" to a phone.
Aled
