RE: [MLUG] ISPs

[Russell Horn <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 11:17 -0600, Spurling, Shannon wrote:

> 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.

it is possible through regulation to open up a very competitive market.

If you look at the UK, it was way behind the US in its initial roll out
of DSL. By the end of next year, however, every local exchange should be
ADSL2 quipped allowing 8mbit connections to >99% of homes - including
all the rural exchanges in Scotland and Wales. 

While you can get DSL from the dominant provider, British Telecom, they
are also regulated and there are hundreds of other suppliers.
Furthermore, BT are required to allow third party access to their copper
so if a firm wants to install its own DSL equipment right at the
exchange they can do so. As a result, competition in large towns and
cities is even fiercer.

Quality and reliability are excellent, price has come down steadily
where you can get 1Mbit for under $30 / month + the cost of your phone
line (about $15/month). 2Mbit is becoming more common as carriers try to
compete on service offerings.

There's never going to be a sensible incentive for other carriers to
provide new runs of copper (though why your cable firms never ran them
at the time they laid cable to the doorstep I don't understand. For a
tiny additional investment they'd a huge income stream today). As a
result you are guaranteed a local monopoly (at least at the copper
level). Breaking up a phone service is unlikely to benefit consumers as
you just create smaller monopolies.  As a result you need sensible - and
powerful regulation to drive down price and expand services.

There's no reason one firm can't provide the copper while another
provides the services running on top of it.

Russell.


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