[2036] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Balkanization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sean mclinden)
Mon Jan 20 07:30:40 1992
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 92 07:14:06 -0500
From: sean@dsl.pitt.edu (sean mclinden)
To: LAWS@ai.sri.com, com-priv@psi.com
The issue is not how many network companies we have. Sure, we have
something like 400 phone companies. But through Federal mandate (using
various forms of regulation and anti-trust law). You can pretty much
reach everyone using the same interface. And most of what you say
about competition in the phone industry is not really true, anyway.
How many choices of a local carrier do you have? How many choices of
local cable TV do you have?
And I would argue that your competitive model is too shallow. In the
past month of travel I have used one private carrier that would not
accept my billing card and another, along the Pennsylvania Turnpike,
that disabled touch tone after the call was completed in order to
prevent cascade calling. Of couse, this also meant that for 300 miles
(some 6 hours if I stayed with the Federally mandated speed limit),
I couldn't access voice mail at work!
Did I have a choice, here? Was this service better under competition
than it would have been if Bell had provided the phones? It wasn't
even cheaper!
So tell me, who benefited under competition, here?
Sean
