From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 15:24:12 MST
Reminds me of the power situation in CA :-) Hope you guys don't get regulated
out of existence. Actually I don't think it would affect me at all directly
if my local phone company went bankrupt... even my T1 local loop is via the
local cable company. Of course it would seriously disrupt the services and
businesses of the city I live in.
Brian D Williams wrote:
>
> From: Brian Atkins <brian@posthuman.com>
>
> >Ok then look at this:
>
> >http://lw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Artic
> >les&SubSection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=87762&VERSION_NUM=1
>
> >It's an article on how fiber to the home is happening today, with
> >a 100mbit ethernet link into the house.
>
> <Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, I do not speak for
> SBC/Ameritech>
>
> We're on the same wavelength Brian, I was reading that same article
> yesterday when I visited the site. ;)
>
> Our problem isn't technological, its political.
>
> 10 years ago I was part of a very ambitious project who's mission
> statement was to have fiber installed at every Ameritech site by
> the year 2000. As I said, then the long distance companies,
> interaccess carriers, cable companies, state and federal regulators
> got involved, regulated the crap out of us and killed the deal. And
> they've been bitching at us ever since, wanting to know when we're
> going to build it.
>
> Here's my personal brief synopsis of the result of these regulatory
> efforts.
>
> If we were to build a fiber network:
>
> 1) We can't charge the ratepayers for doing so, the expense would
> have to come out of our profits.
>
> COMMENTARY: This alone wasn't the deal killer, we were still
> willing to do this, but they weren't done yet.
>
> 2) 80% of the bandwidth was reserved for competitors.
>
> COMMENTARY: Not only was 80% of the bandwidth reserved for
> competitors, but under the pricing plan, they could get access for
> less than we charged ourselves.
>
> 3) The RBOC's are prevented from entering any new business
>
> COMMENTARY: We currently are restricted to local service only, if
> you want to call another customer 50 miles away, by law it has to
> go via either an interaccess carrier, or a long distance carrier,
> we cannot by law complete that call ourselves.
>
> Not only are we still barred from long distance, but effectively
> barred from any other value added business that might actually be
> worth getting into the fiber business for.
>
> 4) The "competitors" have a say-so in the deployment.
>
> COMMENTARY: Yep, not only are we subsidizing our so-called
> competition, but THEY get to decide when and where we are going to
> be allowed to deploy it.
>
> So now you have my personal opinion as to why we're not living in
> a fiber-optic wonderland.
>
> We're standing here with our hands cuffed behind our backs, gagged,
> blindfolded, with corks in our ears, a hood over our heads, wrapped
> head to toe in chains, our feet cast in concrete, suspended from a
> crane over lake Michigan..... and people want to know "Why haven't
> they built a fiber network yet? Don't they get it?"
>
> Brian
-- Brian Atkins Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/
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