Broadband Blindside
The FCC a preface: I'd comment more on what I see the FCC get up to,
because they are a significant influence on the marketplace of ideas in
this society, and because I think they have their heads tightly and
firmly wedged up their collective posterier cavities. But my sister
works there as an anti trust lawyer, so out of deference to the good
standing of the family name, I mute my opinions down to a malcontented
mutter.
Last Friday the short handed FCC made a major decision. The FCC is currently down to four members
A Look at Current FCC Members,
that's bad for a committee, even number - can't break ties. What they
decided was that phone companies would be no longer required to lease
their lines to companies that offer DSL services - which were generally
in direct competition with the telcoms own DSL offerings
FCC Eases High-Speed Internet Rules.
(there is another much longer article that ran in the Wa Post Saturday
but I can't find it now). It was a 4-0 vote. The Commission was simply
balancing out a previous decision last June that excluded Cable
providers from having to provide signal space to any other concern. The
phone companies who were under such an obligation claimed this placed
them at a competitive disadvantage and asked for their own exemption
FCC grants phone companies Internet relief.
All this involves what are known as common carrier issues as it
applies to Cable, DSL the "last mile" and the private future of the
internet. In general the term
Common carrier - Wikipedia
is invoked to describe services involving the movement of goods or
people. Phone lines (and electric and gas lines) were considered common
carriers because there was thought to be a limit on how many you could
stuff into a house and also because the cost of the initial
infrastructure installment was not trivial. Then the television
industry went on and installed coaxial cables into just about every
building in America, the FCC got confused and decided the rules had
changed. Of course the cable companies didn't always install the
coax themselves, or where they did, they received long term monopolies
in return. "Just so", the telcomms argue, nobody gets that last mile
solution unless we know we can cash in.
The "wi" in wifi stands for wireless, which seems to nail that last
mile problem down. The University of Maryland College Park, essentially a
small city, is one big hot spot. You'd expect the telcomms shouldn't
care. The reality is they believe they've got barriers to entry in
place and they don't like seeing solutions they don't control coming in
over the top. To consider recent examples: Massport's Logan Airport
(having granted a exclusive pay wifi contract) banned Continental
Airline's presidents club offering free wifi
Massport criticized for WiFi shutdowns.
The FCC's inroad to regulation is signal interference. As long as
all 802.11 signals remain separate they shouldn't get involved, but if Continental
gets the ban overturned in the courts expect that they will. The Boston Globe
reports the FCC is currently taking public comments on
this. There is also the Austin Wireless City Project.
Which I recall led a Texas congressman to crawl out of somebody's
pocket to introduce a bill that would outlaw all such municipal or
neighborhood cooperative networks.
The attitude of the industries apologists is, the (multiple)
medium is the (competitive) message. As a practical matter as long as
information is proceeding along electromagnetic wave propagation from a
source to a receiver, the existing set of telcomms will demand all
competition be handed to them with their heads on platters, or they
will threaten to stifle innovation. This is nothing more than Free
Market rhetoric yoked to an oligopic guild mentality. At that; the more
I see books like this Markets Don't Fail! the more I wonder whether the "free market" is ever anything beyond that.
11:04:21 PM  ;;
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