 boober321
join:2003-07-15
Milwaukee, WI
 ·ViaTalk
 ·Earthlink Cable Mo..
| Not just a republican issue As a Wisconsin resident, I have been appalled at the lack of consumer protection this new bill offers. I contact6ed my representative (a democrat) and was dismayed to learn she too had absolutely no concern for the customers rights, as did the originator of this bill. Looks like AT&T has no problem buying votes from both sides of the aisle. | |
|  | TheGhost
Premium
join:2003-01-03
Lake Forest, IL
clubs:
| Re: Not just a republican issue said by boober321  :As a Wisconsin resident, I have been appalled at the lack of consumer protection this new bill offers. I contact6ed my representative (a democrat) and was dismayed to learn she too had absolutely no concern for the customers rights, as did the originator of this bill. Looks like AT&T has no problem buying votes from both sides of the aisle. Another person realizes that it doesn't matter if they dress in red or blue, they are still crooks and easily bought. | |
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batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
Premium
join:2003-01-25
Batavia, IL | Re: Not just a republican issue Seeing as how not a single rep in either house in Illinois voted against the Illinois legislation, I'd have to agree.
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»www.tricitybroadband.com | |
| | | | boober321
join:2003-07-15
Milwaukee, WI
·ViaTalk
·Earthlink Cable Mo..
| Re: Not just a republican issue At least your legislation is seen as as consumer friendly as they get. Ours is modeled on Texas, which has proven completely anti-consumer. Just like NCLB, which was already proven to be a failure and full fraud before it hit the national scene, here comes their lousy version of anti-consumer franchising regulations. Seems nothing good comes from Texas... No Child Left Behind, Bush, now this... | |
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batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
Premium
join:2003-01-25
Batavia, IL
| Re: Not just a republican issue except there's no good reason for any statewide franchising.
all the so called "consumer protections" were already for the most part in place with local franchises.
illinois really got nothing it didn't already have.
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»www.tricitybroadband.com | |
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John T
@btcentralplus.com
| "Consumer friendly"-- which consumers? Of course, build-out requirements are friendly for some consumers but less so for others. Fewer build-out requirements are generally better for the (generally wealthier and/or urban) consumers who live in areas that are actually profitable to serve. Build-out requirements generally do a lot to make the profitable consumers subsidize the less-profitable (especially those in rural areas), rather than just the company doing the subsidizing.
In more extreme cases, companies may choose to just not build a network that will be unprofitable if they have to build it everywhere. That same network might be profitable if the company is allowed to cherry-pick. I'm not sure that NO ONE getting a fast network is better than only a few, but for some the "digital divide" is very important.
Verizon doesn't make enormous profits from FIOS, which only exists in wealthy neighborhoods now because it's not profitable anywhere else and still isn't profitable there for many years yet. They DO make tremendous profits from their legacy phone network (and DSL), which was built with all sorts of build-out requirements and monopoly franchising and regulation.
Consumer-friendly regulation would focus on forcing Verizon, AT&T, and Qwest to allow cheap resale of their phone networks for DSL. The phone network is the one that was subsidized and regulated all these years with build-out requirements, and the capital spending has all been paid for. Focusing on build-out requirements for a not-even-profitable-yet network is by contrast quite strange to me.
Incumbents, like Verizon in phones (and DSL) and the cablecos in TV, should be regulated, especially since monopoly franchises helped pay for their networks. Competitive upstarts should have a freer hand, even when it's a company that is an incumbent in another area, like cable cos doing phones and telcos doing TV, particularly when the competition involves building tremendous new infrastructure at massively unprofitable expense. | |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: "Consumer friendly"-- which consumers? Build-out requirements apply only to video, not to broadband internet.
Also, build-out requirements do not apply for competitive overbuilds nor unprofitable overbuilds. What build-out requirements do, is require service for marginally profitable non-competitive areas. | |
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fanboy
@comcast.net | the truth teletruth.com and newnetworks.com | |
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TelcoTV Bills Not Created Equal
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