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more on FCC Plans to Erase Key Rule On Local Phone Competition
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 07:16:28 -1000
------ Forwarded Message From: jordan pollack <pollack () cs brandeis edu> Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 11:35:43 -0500 To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] FCC Plans to Erase Key Rule On Local Phone Competition First, I don't see how telecommunications could be hurting so badly. When it was just Ma Bell, I was only paying a total of $60 a month. Yesterday I paid my Telecommunications bills: $70 Verizon Local $70 Sprint Long Distance $50 ATT Broadband $75 Sprint Wireless $40 Nextel Wireless $45 RCN Blackberry wireless ----- $350 Not to mention $2 in stamps:) Second, maybe there IS something to a natural monopoly granted in exchange for social responsibility. As Dave's photos from Pittsburgh showed -
I took these pictures right next to the Verizon building in downtown Pittsburgh. The plaque was on a seedy dirty abandoned set of stores next to the Verizon Building.
- ATT was almost a civil service. Bell labs was the envy of all nations. Now, ATT Labs laid off 40% last year, including everyone I knew in AI, and Bell labs is part of dying Lucent. Meanwhile the RBOC's have the teeth and tollbooth of the former natural monopoly, with absolutely zero social responsibility. I'm sure Verizon is a great company and I don't mean to pick on them or insult many employees who are friends of mine. But Verizon's formerly great GTE labs doesn't seem to do any published research anymore, just service development. And Verizon seems to be bullying states with conscientious public utility regulators by selectively withholding and depressing its capital expenditures. (Bob Frankston and I were next to each other at Ivan Seidenberg's talk to the Mass Software Council where he said our state's share of the $14B capex budget dropped from $900M to $500M in 02, and would likely go down further. He also said its important for the software industry to lean on the state regulators let Verizon have its DSL monopoly.) If FCC kills Une-P, they should cancel RBOC's entry into long distance. And phone companies should, like bank's fined for redlining, be required to document how they put money back into the communities they collect their tolls from. The unintended side-effects of deregulation make me want my Ma Bell back! Jordan ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on FCC Plans to Erase Key Rule On Local Phone Competition Dave Farber (Jan 06)