[9638] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Telecommunications Competition Act of Washington State
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chip Morningstar -- "Software With)
Fri Jan 14 21:00:24 1994
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 94 16:49:43 PST
From: grand-central!amix!chip@psi.com (Chip Morningstar -- "Software Without Moving Parts")
To: adamfast@u.washington.edu, com-priv@psi.com, communet@uvmvm.BITNET,
adamfast@u.washington.edu (adam fast) writes:
>
>Telecommunications Competition Act of Washington State
>------------------------------------------------------
>
This is the sort of well intentioned meddling that I have been fearing would
eventually come of all this NII/Datahighway/Open Platform stuff, and now we are
seeing it. In fact, I think this just part of the calm before the storm.
Actually, I suspect that this particular Act is sufficiently impractical to be
enacted into actual law, as a few others on this list have already observed.
However, I have every confidence that we are going to be seeing more of this
kind of thing coming our way, some of which will appear more reasonable, on the
surface at least, and will wind up on the books. I don't see a way to stop it,
but I sure wish I could.
I don't really wish to flame at Adam, who I'm sure means well, but this one
pushed me over the edge -- at least to the point of responding (which I rarely
feel I have time to do).
The Internet in particular and the global telecommunications infrastructure in
general are expanding at an historically unprecedented rate. Prices are
plummeting, bandwidth is rising, connectivity is spreading, providers are
proliferating, access is becoming more and more available to people with an
increasing diversity of technical capabilities and funding appetites, and
interoperability is being recognized as a crucial element in nearly every major
provider's business strategy. All of these things are good, and are happening
naturally as a consequence of the natural forces technological evolution and
the marketplace.
The only significant consequence of an Act such as this that I can think of is
to inhibit the very outcome which it seeks to promote. I can see absolutely no
justification for any form of regulation which attempts to control which
services someone must or must not offer, what grade of service quality they can
or must provide, how big they can get, what prices they can charge, and so on.
Any regulation of this form is simply going to prevent the provision of some
classes of useful services which people want.
Consider Adam's effort for example:
>* Requires information transport providers to interconnect their networks
>for seamless transmission of voice, video, or data, at compensatory rates.
As an information transport provider, why should I have to interconnect my
network to *anything*? What if I am offering a special purpose service that
only requires a point-to-point link and gets some cost advantage from not being
more widely interconnected? Is this going to become a crime? What if I am
inventing a new communications protocol that I think will save the universe but
is incompatible with current standards? Am I to be forbidden from selling a
service which uses this?
>* Requires open access at Commercial Points Of Presence (CPOPs) where
>interconnections between local and interlocal networks are made.
Why? What if I want to provide services to network somebody else's company
together? Am I going to be required by law to make this network a public
environment?
>* Requires network interconnection specifications to be published by the
>Commission in cooperation with information transport providers.
Why? Proprietary protocols are now to be banned by law? Is this even
constitutional?
>* Specifies the process for the location of CPOPs in accordance with the
>Growth Management Act (GMA).
I don't know what the Growth Management Act is, but I presume it is a
Washington state thing. I'll guess that it's some kind of growth inhibition
law of the form that seem to be getting more popular here in California too.
Setting aside for a moment any quarrels I might have with such a thing in
general, what can it possibly have to do with telecommunications? In
particular, why should I have to get anyone's permission to open a POP? Why
should I have to go through a regulatory approval process that could take weeks
or months instead of just issuing a purchase order for my equipment and going
into business? Why should I have to subject my business to a regulatory
process in which my more established competitors can file objections and
attempt to throw other legal roadblocks in the way of my competing with them
(which is how such things always tend to end up working)? What will regulatory
inhibitions on my opening a new POP do to the currently astromical growth rate
such things are now seeing? I can't imagine it's going to speed things up.
>* Specifies co-location of voice, video, and data network interconnections
>in a single community CPOP.
Again, why should I have to associate my business and services with others'?
It might be a good idea, in which case I'll do it anyway, but if it's not, why
should I be compelled to do so?
>* Specifies that the community served by each CPOP be 10,000 users or less.
If my equipment only makes economic sense with 100,000 users, am I not allowed
to use it? What if I want to provide a dedicated service for a company with,
say, 20,000 employees? And why 10,000? Why not 5,000 or 15,000? This kind of
arbitrary restriction benefits almost nobody.
If you want to do something constructive in the regulatory environment to
promote competition, how about removing government sanctions for various kinds
of monopoly? Like, abolish the power of local municipalities to grant cable TV
"franchises", or the state guaranteed monopoly of local telephone companies in
their service areas, or any number of other anti-competitive situations which
exist solely as a consequence of regulation.
Like I said, I'm not posting to flame at Adam. I'm trying to get people to ask
hard questions about the realistic consequences of this lust for regulation
that seems to now be sweeping some circles of our cyberspace world like a
fever.
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| Electric Communities | wearing a pair of rented |
| 3339 Kipling, Palo Alto, CA 94306 | bowling shoes on your face." |
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