Wednesday, December 08, 2004
The Next U.S. Telecom Act -- Pennsylvania as Ugly Indicator
Network World columnist Scott Bradner sees the recently passed Pennsylvania law, which requires cities to ask permission from telcos before deploying their own networks, as an ugly indicator of things to come in his recent column.
What system of government puts companies ahead of elected officials? Reasoned comments invited.
What system of government puts companies ahead of elected officials? Reasoned comments invited.
Comments:
Not far from Italian Telecom.
Italy signed the Geneva Telecom Act and we would be supposed to be free to use the 2.4 GHz frequency.
But the only allowed frequency is 26 GHz. that doesn't have any use or application.
That is for sure.
Could we really think to be able to infringe the Telecom Monopoly?
But that is not even the fault of the Telecom.
The fault is in those who agree that it is a shame, but do nothing to change it.
We have the World that the majority of us deserves to have...
Patrizia form a World on IP
patrizia@worldonip.com
http://woip.blogspot.com
Italy signed the Geneva Telecom Act and we would be supposed to be free to use the 2.4 GHz frequency.
But the only allowed frequency is 26 GHz. that doesn't have any use or application.
That is for sure.
Could we really think to be able to infringe the Telecom Monopoly?
But that is not even the fault of the Telecom.
The fault is in those who agree that it is a shame, but do nothing to change it.
We have the World that the majority of us deserves to have...
Patrizia form a World on IP
patrizia@worldonip.com
http://woip.blogspot.com
Historically, municipally and state run broadband infrastructure -- whether local cable or special networks (like for universities) -- has equalled or exceeded the performance of comparable private infrastructure, and usually at lower cost.
Commercial telecom providers know they can't compete with publicly owned systems, head to head -- they complain that public systems have certain advantages, like eminent domain, but so what? -- thus the proliferation of anti-public-ownership laws.
In fact, this trend is not new. It's been going on at least since the mid-70s, when the cable industry vociferously fought the emergence of high-capacity, low-cost city- and county-owned cable systems. Those public system that got built are still leading the pack
Unfortunately, a good number of these systems were sold by local governments, lobbied or forced by state legislatures to do so. Folded into commercial networks, over time they've degraded to the same over-priced, middling-quality service.
Why are we not surprised that Pennsylvania, an increasingly shoot-itself-in-the-foot state, is following this trend? Or that the Republican Congress, purposely divvied up among telecom vendors for maximum campaign contributions -- this Congressman for the telcos, that one for the cable ops, that one for the CLECs -- is applauding, behind the scenes?
Welcome to the New Telecommunications Frontier.
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Commercial telecom providers know they can't compete with publicly owned systems, head to head -- they complain that public systems have certain advantages, like eminent domain, but so what? -- thus the proliferation of anti-public-ownership laws.
In fact, this trend is not new. It's been going on at least since the mid-70s, when the cable industry vociferously fought the emergence of high-capacity, low-cost city- and county-owned cable systems. Those public system that got built are still leading the pack
Unfortunately, a good number of these systems were sold by local governments, lobbied or forced by state legislatures to do so. Folded into commercial networks, over time they've degraded to the same over-priced, middling-quality service.
Why are we not surprised that Pennsylvania, an increasingly shoot-itself-in-the-foot state, is following this trend? Or that the Republican Congress, purposely divvied up among telecom vendors for maximum campaign contributions -- this Congressman for the telcos, that one for the cable ops, that one for the CLECs -- is applauding, behind the scenes?
Welcome to the New Telecommunications Frontier.
