whiteyonenh
join:2004-08-09
Keene, NH
clubs:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| said by nasadude  :don't get too happy, I doubt they did it in the interests of consumers. more like what JSRoman said. While I agree with you, it is somewhat more pro-consumer/pro-competition than if they got rid of the line-sharing requirement altogether. I believe it has already been said below, but if they were to get rid of the line-sharing agreement many companies would go out of business, as it is damn near impossible to get the rights-of-way to lay new infrastructure. The telephone companies, and the cable companies all pretty much have a monopoly on infrastructure, and even if the FCC said that the telephone companies no longer had to share lines with other companies, it would still be very unlikely that you would see new infrastructure built.
My question to everyone is if they were to get rid of the line-sharing, what would happen to all the small ISP's that don't have the money to invest in the infrastructure?
Telephone companies are just using this as an excuse to either eliminate line-sharing, or to be able to set their rates for line-sharing themselves so that they can raise the rates to levels that will not be profitable to the competition. It is very likely that if that were to happen the phone companies would put the little guys out of business.
Many local municipalities oppose the installation of new infrastructure, this is seen most often with cell phone towers, but could be applied to new infrastructure in general. Like what has been said below, would you rather they each have their infrastructure on separate lines, as that would be what would have to be done to succeed. Imagine 20-30x the amount of wires on telephone poles or underground, that would be a logistical nightmare to complete.
I think that the Utopia idea in Utah is actually a nice idea, put some sort of non-profit in charge of it, or some other entity that is not government controlled, and go wild. |
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