HR 1542 [OT, anti-BS attempt, US]

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1

> BTW, if you spend much time with regulators and lawyers, you will be
> aware that there is a major difference between the cable network and
> the PSTN. After the mid-1930's, the PSTN was built by a company which
> was guaranteed a specific, profitable rate of return. The cable
> network was built by many small entrepreneurs who were not guaranteed
> a profit nor even solvency. For that reason, the PSTN is more
> arguably a public resource.

Except that most of today's cable systems were built while municipalities
could, and did, grant exclusive franchises. Overbuilding an incumbant
cable operator is as expensive and risky as becoming a CLEC - probably the
reason that neither CLECs nor cable overbuilders are showing much
commercial success.

If you can't tell the legal difference between the above cases, I
recommend you stay out of this discussion.

As to "small entrepreneurs" - that may have once been true, but I wouldn't
call AT&T/MediaOne/TCI, AOL/Time Warner, Adelphia, or Charter "small
entrepreneurs." These guys engage in monopoly tactics that rank right up
there with those of the ILECs.

1) You quoted me out of context. 2) Do you have a point? Obviously the
above are not small entrepreneurs. But then, I never said they were.

good luck,
fletcher

2

> > BTW, if you spend much time with regulators and lawyers, you will be
> > aware that there is a major difference between the cable network and
> > the PSTN. After the mid-1930's, the PSTN was built by a company which
> > was guaranteed a specific, profitable rate of return. The cable
> > network was built by many small entrepreneurs who were not guaranteed
> > a profit nor even solvency. For that reason, the PSTN is more
> > arguably a public resource.
>
> Except that most of today's cable systems were built while municipalities
> could, and did, grant exclusive franchises. Overbuilding an incumbant
> cable operator is as expensive and risky as becoming a CLEC - probably the
> reason that neither CLECs nor cable overbuilders are showing much
> commercial success.

If you can't tell the legal difference between the above cases, I
recommend you stay out of this discussion.

The legal differences quite clear - very different regulatory regimes
enforced by different levels of government.

The ethical differences are less clear - both ILECs and cable companies
grew under monopoly regimes, making use of public rights-of-way. The
current, "de-regulatory" environment gives both ILECs and incumbent cable
carriers a very unfair advantage over new entrants.

> call AT&T/MediaOne/TCI, AOL/Time Warner, Adelphia, or Charter "small
> entrepreneurs." These guys engage in monopoly tactics that rank right up
> there with those of the ILECs.

1) You quoted me out of context. 2) Do you have a point? Obviously the
above are not small entrepreneurs. But then, I never said they were.

A very simple one: we are not seeing much in the way of serious
competition, and HR1542 will simply make things worse.

3

Also sprach Fletcher E Kittredge

If you can't tell the legal difference between the above cases, I
recommend you stay out of this discussion.

The legal arguement comes down to. The cablecos are a monopoly, period.
They are abusing their monopoly position to leverage their way into a
new market (as an ISP), period. That's a clear violation of
Clayton/Shermen, period. The only way that the legal differences apply
is if there is regulatory oversight, then the regulations are supposed
to prevent these abuses. Without the regulatory oversight (which most
of us agree are weak or non-existent), it becomes a clear
Clayton/Shermen violation.

Regardless...this has little or nothing to do with H.R. 1542, which is
still a crappy bill and needs to be smacked back down the Bayou where it
can get eaten by a croc (not that I'd wish that on the croc!).
Fortunately, Reps. Cannon and Conyers seem to have a clue. Support
them!

4

In parts of the Boston suburbs, RCN has built a parallel cable
TV system (with DOCSIS cable modem service also) serving houses
that were already (and still are) servicable from Media-One
(now part of AT&T Broadband).

RCN are actively overbuilding a number of Comcast markets
(e.g. Montgomery County MD, Washington DC) and some AT&T/TCI
markets (e.g. San Francisco CA) and are working towards an
overbuild in several additional markets (e.g. Cox Cable's
Fairfax County VA market).

Seems to me that it isn't a monopoly if one has more than
one CATV company to choose from, which is the case in at least
the markets above. Also seems to me that we ought to encourage
more companies to follow RCN's lead as competition is a fine thing.

Now there might be different markets (probably more of them)
where there is currently only 1 CATV company, but even there
one has data choices (sometimes DSL, usually always DirecPC)
and video choices (DirecTV, DISH).

Ran
rja@inet.org

5

I live in Newton, MA, and serve on the local cable board - and have first
hand experience with so-called competition in the cable arena. We are
served by ATT/MediaOne, RCN, and Verizon.

RCN is a well managed company and has built a system here that seems to
work at least as well as ATT's. And RCN is a lot easier to deal with (ATT
sends government affairs flunkys to cable meetings, RCN sends senior
operations managers who can make decisions.

But.... ATT has started with the lion's share of the market and a profitable
position, while RCN is having trouble picking up market share and is in
financial difficulty.

And, more fundamentally, our overall telecom situation is not very good:

- Verizon purports to offer DSL, but just try to order it

- ATT offers cable modem service, but they have about the worst technical
and operational support I've ever seen:

-- as far as I can tell, their network monitoring system consists of
waiting for customers to call and complain about outages (actually, the
folks in "the noc" can see outages, but the data isn't available to
front-line customer support)

-- customer support people from voice, data, video are in different
organizations - and have to request support from the folks who roll trucks
via a web form

-- as just one example of how bad it is: last week, two newly installed
ATT wires serving my house fell off the pole, onto a busy road - the
Mayor's office called Verizon, ATT, and RCN - only Verizon rolled a truck,
and all they did was cut the wires - ATT took until the next day to get
someone on site

- the poles in town are now full, all with obsolete technology (DSL and
HFC) - none of the current carriers are going to upgrade anytime soon, and
there's no polespace left for a new entrant to deploy something more
powerful (like gigabit ethernet)

Meanwhile, in my professional role of advising cities and towns on
telecom. policy, I get to watch other communities - where the environment
isn't as attractive to "competitive carriers" - obtain far better service
than in our highly desirable "competitive" market. To cite two examples:

Harlan, Iowa: poulation 5000 (city) 13,000 (county-wide):
- Farmers' Coop Telco (user-owned coop): provides telephone in
city/county, cable in county
- Harlan Municipal Utilities (city dept., operates only within city
limits): provides water, sewer, electricity, cable tv, cable modems (2mbps
and 10mbps offerings, serves businesses as well as residences)
- jointly operated ATM backbone serving high bandwidth users

Grant County, WA Public Utility District: county-owned electric utility,
that's begun to deploy gigabit ethernet, and plans county-wide deployment
over about 3 years

Miles Fidelman

6

Also sprach RJ Atkinson

The legal arguement comes down to. The cablecos are a monopoly,
period.

In parts of the Boston suburbs, RCN has built a parallel cable TV
system (with DOCSIS cable modem service also) serving houses that were
already (and still are) servicable from Media-One (now part of AT&T
Broadband).

While I applaud those areas then, and I think that's a wonderful thing
in general, and eventually I suspect good will come out of it, though it
might take a while. Situations like that are very few and far between.
In Louisville, we have had one or two competing cablecos wanting to come
in and build out competing networks. It looks like its not going to
happen though as TKR^WIntermedia^WInsight has tied up the city and the
newcomers in court over the terms of the franchises and how they relate
to Insight's franchise.

The cable companies, in most places, are a monopoly, and they act like
them.

Again though, the RBOCs are trying to use this to say that two wrongs
make a right.

The current issue before the House is H.R. 1542, and it needs to be
defeated. Then (although there need not be the distinction of time that
"then" implies...it could happen concurrently, but they aren't the same
discussion), the issue of open access on cable networks can be dealt
with, and I'll be first in line in whatever forum I can find to say that
cable networks need to be effectively opened up.