isen.blog

A pretty good article by Leslie Cauley in USA Today today (hear here) outlines some of the reasons why the U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world in broadband. She covers the Philadelphia story and the heroic struggle of Lafayette, Louisiana against BellSouth and Cox to build municipal fiber. She writes:

Just a few years ago, the Bells had pledged to run fiber straight to homes. In return, they wanted the FCC to rule that they didn't have to lease their fiber to rivals who could then turn around and use it to deliver competing services.

Their request went to the heart of U.S. telecom policy. That policy has long been based on the notion that the Bells were obliged to share their networks with all comers.

The rationale owed to the history of the Bells. Their networks were built over the course of a century using monopoly ratepayer money. Like the U.S. highways, the Bell networks have been regarded as a unique infrastructure that had to be open to others on terms that were fair.

But in 2004, in a nod to the changing nature of telecom, the FCC granted the Bells' request. That concession paved the way for the Bells to deploy fiber to homes.

That's when the foot-dragging began.

Instead of taking fiber to the home, BellSouth asked if it was OK to just take fiber to the neighborhood, relying on its existing copper for the final run from the curb to the house. But it still wanted to be free of the sharing obligation.

The FCC said OK. The agency noted that the Bells didn't need to let rivals use any line that wasn't set up for traditional phone service.

That led SBC to up the ante. Its argument: If it was OK to take fiber just to the neighborhood and not share it, then surely it was OK to take it just to the "node" and not share.

The article is marred by some unnecessarily erroneous descriptions of technology. "The node," for example is described as, "the stretch of copper between a central switching office and a home or business." But it is a pretty good summary of the recent action -- and its historical context.

Meanwhile, I wonder how long it will take people to notice China's IPv6 leadership. Korea, Hong Kong, Canada -- fuggedaboudit! China's ahead now.