[151478] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: last mile, regulatory incentives, etc (was: att fiber, et al)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Thu Mar 22 16:53:09 2012
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <69ECC0E5-29E9-431E-8AD3-9798B3EF0750@puck.nether.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:48:14 -0700
To: Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Mar 22, 2012, at 10:17 AM, Jared Mauch wrote:
>=20
> On Mar 22, 2012, at 1:12 PM, chris wrote:
>=20
>> Why is it that the big companies are controlling what happens?=20
>=20
> They have used the past decades or century to establish these assets.
>=20
> - Jared
1. Do not mistake a large telco for a communications company or an =
entity that considers itself in the communications business. They are =
not and do not. They are very large law firms and lobbying organizations =
that happen to have significant telecommunications infrastructure. One =
of the key differentiators of the internet is that it is not dominated =
as a battleground for lawyers and diplomats, but, rather is worked out =
between cooperating and competing entities as a (relatively) unregulated =
business transaction.
2. Because companies are allowed to own infrastructure and sell services =
over that infrastructure and in many cases without being required to =
make that (subsidized) infrastructure available to other services =
providers.
3. Because it is very expensive to build out the infrastructure to a =
given area and the maximum revenue potential from it is limited to a =
value unlikely to support 2x or more the infrastructure build-out cost, =
thus resulting in a sort of natural monopoly because it is cost =
effective to build out if you have a reasonable chance of capturing =
~100% of the revenue, but, much less so if you are faced with the =
possibility of capturing 50% or less of the revenue.[1]
Owen
[1] Comparing across topologies is not as valid as the carriers would =
like you to believe. While the end services being offered share =
significant similarities in a converged digital world, they still retain =
unique properties that make certain things more optimal for different =
purposes. Consider the number of places in the US that have more than =
one cable provider or more than one DSL provider or more than one PON =
provider. These are few and far between and usually only reflect the =
very densest population centers.
