[12544] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Bell Atlantic to Build......
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (TELEWORKER@aol.com)
Fri May 20 21:15:42 1994
From: TELEWORKER@aol.com
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Fri, 20 May 94 10:33:40 EDT
Bell Atlantic's announcement yesterday of its plans to build an $11 billion
video dial tone network raises many questions -- at many levels. The
questions range from: Why does "BA TV" beat tariffing of residential ISDN in
about 98% of Bell Atlantic's service area? Why is it that Bell Atlantic is
obviously so well prepared to go into a business that it was forbidden by law
to enter until 9 months ago? And for this community: Does "asymmetrical"
bandwidth access fit into an emerging model of an "Internet on demand" when
ADSL is constrained to a very narrow return path in its present incarnation?
More fundamentally, the issue of public interest is continually put to rout.
In today's (5/20) Philadelphia Inquirer, BA President Jim Cullen is quoted as
saying: "These are investments that are going to be made by Bell Atlantic
stockholders." Frankly, this is a shocking statement. What about Bell
Atlantic's ratepayers? Isn't there an existing public interest infrastructure
in place? Isn't this proposed investment in fact an extension to that public
trust infrastructure? This statement reveals the fundamental operating
assumption that guide the BOCs as they look to evolve into full-service
network and content providers -- that this transition is an effective (and
convenient) point of departure for ridding themselves of the vestiges of
public interest holding of their asset base. It's there in black and white --
"this investment is being made by the stockholders" -- for the benefit of the
stockholders. The rate-paying public is absent from this announcement, as it
is apparently absent from BA's accounting of its overall asset base.
This prevailing perspective -- of stockholder ownership of what is (was?)
public trust infrastructure -- begs a further interesting question: If Bell
Atlantic's roll-out is a disaster -- if it is scuttled by a variety of more
nimble and responsive players moving into the local loop and providing a more
balanced and cost-effective access model for residential and small enterprise
data services -- and by more capable regional carriers who see opportunities
for intelligent network deployment far beyond the prevailing models held out
by the BOCs -- what happens then? If the infrastructure is to be sold off --
who gets the proceeds? Put simply: When the BOCs go to the blocks, who gets
the bucks? Picture the bankruptcy auction, with Teleport and Metropolitan
Fiber executives sitting in front with their checkbooks on their laps -- are
BA's stockholder first in line for the proceeds? Why should they be? The
infrastructure is still primarily a public trust -- despite the constant,
long-term bombardment of misinformation from the BOCs. There is and has been
an investment component to each dollar paid by ratepayers to the BOCs and
their predecessor. The stockholders can benefit from the publicly-guaranteed
rate of return derived from this infrastructure, but they cannot lay claim to
ownership of it. The BOCs claim to be making infrastructure investment in the
name of their stockholders, conveniently ignoring their public interest
obligations for the sake of maintaining an Orwellian unreality about their
obligations. It is crucial , however, that the BOCs be confronted on this
issue of public trust, otherwise they will cash it in for their own benefit
while nobody is looking. This is what the BA/TCI merger was all about.
We paint this apparently strange scenario -- of an RBOC on the auction block
-- not from any sense of caustic oversimplification, but from an analytical
perspective that sees fatal technological and market development flaws at
every stage of the proposal. Our threshold is simple: Does this product/tool
aid in facilitating telecommuting? We have developed a rich body of
analytical and evaluator methods to answer this question. Telecommuting, and
all the issues related to it -- both contextually (e.g. the broader issue of
teleaccess, the distinct nature of telework and telelearning, and the
environmental, social, and mandate-related issue trip reduction) -- and
immediately (net access at speed, availability of protocol service, resolving
inter-LATA issues, etc.) are the defining issues for gauging the future
success of a network product. This assertion, about the how telecommuting is
the key developmental distinction for judging the success of a network could
be debated -- it obviously would be by someone who thinks that implementing a
virtual toggle switch (which is what ADSL amounts to in its present
incarnation) is the paradigm for digital interactivity into the 21st century.
But developing a network where the revenue stream is as asymmetrical as the
access method leads one to believe that someone is going to have to develop a
parallel network that would open the flow of digital goods and services in
ways that are unbounded. If all one's work and all one's earning potential
for the rest of one's life are intimately and inextricably intertwined with
digital exchange, then wouldn't one want (require) that the access to the
exchange medium be one of peer-to-peer -- as opposed to supplier-recipient?
This is the fatal flaw of this plan -- the asymmetry extends beyond
technology and into the access paradigm. An infrastructure for digital
commerce must be based on the ability to exchange as a peer with any other
peer in the network. If the network does not provide this -- it fails the
test. From all we can see, BA fails our test.
So our painting this doomsday scenario merely points to a failure to plan
for a workable, equitable, responsive network for supporting widespread
digital commerce, where everyone can play as both provider and consumer.
Instead, BA chooses to become DisneyBell. While it's a nice play as a
fantasy, its also a play into a very fickle environment. Do we want our
public trust providers defining their future in terms of fantasy and fickle?
We don't.
It is imperative to develop a constituency for demanding that the BOCs
acknowledge their public trust. In this era of uncertainty, one of the few
absolutes -- the public trust nature of the existing telecommunications
infrastructure -- must be reinforced. This must happen in the face of the
risks that the emerging BOCs run in their transformation into whatever
configuration they choose. From our perspective, the BOCs plainly intend to
use the prevailing chaos as a smoke-screen to obscure their ongoing efforts
to shift their relationship with their asset base from one of trust to one
of ownership. This must not be allowed to happen.
= Rich Thoma and Joe Raimondo =
Telecommuting Solutions for America
______________________________________________________________________________
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Evaluation, advisory, and advocacy for technology adoption regarding
telework, teleaccess, and telelearning.
2200 Benson Steet
Philadelphia, PA 19152
(215) 342-0644
Teleworker@aol.com, teleworker@mcimail.com
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