Re: [MLUG] ISPs

[Nathan Odle <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Normally I'm all for privatization, but this is one place where I wonder 
if the city shouldn't own the physical plant, like they do with the 
water and electric utilities.  In this way, you could maintain a 
competitive situation but avoid the "why should I allow competitors 
access to my lines" argument. 

Also related to this argument is the fact that the City of Columbia owns 
a beautiful fiber loop that nobody can use but them and the university 
due to that bullshit CenturyTel lawsuit...

-N

Spurling, Shannon wrote:
> The following is my own personal observations. The following does not
> reflect the opinion of my employer or any thing associated with them.
> This is based on my own personal observation of the market.
>
> Problem with ADSL and cable modems is that there really isn't any
> competition. All competition in those areas is mostly a false market
> supported by regulatory laws (which have been overturned recently)
> forcing ILEC's to wholesale their local infrastructure at cost to
> competition (i.e. put a DSLAM in the local phone hut. For T1's and
> better you are talking a completely different animal). Once those laws
> are removed, you have a utility that provides an ISP service that has no
> motivation to wholesale access to the premises to other competing ISP's.
> The competition idea fails.
>
> Even if you were willing to give right of way to 2 or 3 different
> companies, how would it be cost effective for them to drag copper or
> fiber to your home unless you were willing for them to use your service?
> And would the average person be willing to have them put in the poles or
> dig up their yard?
>
> Wireless is about the only truly competitive access system for access to
> the home because no one owns the access. And that has proven to be a
> problem because of overlapping signals and non-regulation in urban
> areas. It was never meant as a large scale distribution method, and it
> ends up with people stepping on each others toes because there are only
> so many channels in the first place.
>
> So the problem is, who owns the copper or fiber to your house and do
> they have a motivation to allow others to access it to provide you the
> quality of service that you want at a good price? You don't get a choice
> in most cases, so in essence, local service is a utility. How do you
> prevent collusion between your non-regulated ISP business and your
> regulated utility service?
> And if you don't like how your local phone or cable company is behaving,
> how do you get to vote with your dollars? 
>   
>
> Shannon Spurling
>
>  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: EMAIL:PROTECTED
> [mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jonathan King
> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 10:03 AM
> To: MLUG Members
> Subject: Re: [MLUG] ISPs
>
> On 12/12/05, Spurling, Shannon <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
>   
> > I used to live over in Sunrise Estates, and they had both AT&EMAIL:PROTECTED
> >     
> and
>   
> > Capital Cable. I went ahead with AT&T because they were the bigger
> >     
> player. I
>   
> > got good throughput and it was fairly stable. I moved right before
> >     
> they got
>   
> > really terrible. I could kind of tell they were getting bad. This was
> >     
> right
>   
> > before they became Mediacom.
> >     
>
> And all I think this shows is that your experience with any of these
> outfits may depend on where you live and where their stuff is.  I
> remember the Mediacom switchover, and when they first throttled back
> bandwidth.  I also remember surprisingly decent service since then,
> until some glitches recently (which appear to have cleared up).  As
> far as I can tell, most of the people offering these services have
> begun to get pretty good at it (competition is good!) unless you're in
> a spot where the DSL really doesn't go or  where they've
> over-provisioned their bandwidth.  What I don't think we have seen
> much of in Columbia compared to other markets is price drops.  I'm
> guessing that this will happen, but who knows when?
>
> jking
>
> _______________________________________________
> members mailing list
> EMAIL:PROTECTED
> http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/members
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> members mailing list
> EMAIL:PROTECTED
> http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/members
>   



_______________________________________________
members mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/members