Comments on: Net neutrality: Now, more than ever

Lawrence Spiwak says the FCC's sabotaging new competition and that an anticompetitive agenda will affect more than long-distance carriers.

2 choices is better than 1

Right now, U.S. consumers essentially have only two choices for broadband: the local cable company or the local Bell phone company.
Before 1996 the consumer had only one choice.
The telecom act of 1996 gave the consumer many more choices because the new CLEC's decided to piggy back on the Bell infrastructure. The Cable Co's instead decided to upgrade and they are now in a position to offer an alternative to PSTN with VOIP.

[LANjackal]

Easy with the regulation

First of all, telecom and cable networks are expensive to build. Expecting the companies that built them to open them fairly (even if required by law to do so) is ridiculous. The network's owner always has an incentive to degrade the service of a competitor using its network.

A better model is one based on the current deregulated electricity distribution network in Texas. Have a local company own the physical network, but bar them from providing service directly. Rather, they must lease network capacity to different providers.

That way, all providers are on equal footing, and the network owner has no incentive to degrade the service of any of its leasees - it actually has a disincentive to do so.

Op-Ed by Lawrence Spiwak

There is lots of empirical evidence that wireless is a competitive alternative to wireline services. USA Today, for example, did a survey over a year ago in which more than 1 out of 5 people considered their wireless phone their primary phone. More than half of all the long distance calls today in the U. S. are made over the wireless network. As to ownership of the cell companies, the question is not who owns them but do prices, features and choices available to consumers demonstrate that competition in wireless and between wireless and wireline is real and benefiting consumers. Unquestionably yes.

With liberty and access for all....

First, two choices are not better than one. It's much too easy for duopolic markets to signal each other -- causing legal collusion: even three competitors is iffy.

I do like the idea of forcing an entity to own the network. In essence, break down the network so that the first vertical industry is, in essence, the physical layer of the network. Let the value added be the higher layers -- with open access for all.

Although, in the article I think there is some confusion. I don't see the "Chicago school" as the crux of the problem. I see quite the opposite. The Chicago school would say open up the markets and let em' duke it out. We clearly don't have that now. We have central planning from a handful of companies (within a 10 trillion dollar economy). That's not competition. Let's free the country of these monopolies... yeah, they're not state run -- nevertheless the current system has produced Goliaths that are bullies.