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SBC in state-level takeover of high speed services
From: David Farber <farber () tmail com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 07:20:17 -1000
-----Original Message----- From: David S. Isenberg <isen () isen com> To: dewayne () warpspeed com, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: SBC in state-level takeover of high speed services Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:25:34 -0500 Dave, Dewayne, Below please find two news articles that document a systematic SBC campaign to pass state laws that would exempt it from opening its highspeed network to competitors. SBC slipped its bill through the Oklahoma legislature 90-2 last year while AT&T's lobbyist position was temporarily unstaffed (not that I am any big friend of AT&T). It has similar bills in Missouri and Kansas -- the Kansas bill will be heard next Wednesday,
Jan. 22 at 9AM in the State Capitol Room 526-S, in Topeka. (Is SBC aiming at more states? I do not know.) I had email correspondence with one Kansas State Senator yesterday whothought that the bill would only affect DSL competition. If that was its only effect, it'd be anti-competitive, but relatively benign. The larger danger is that the bill would give SBC a lock on *all* future services.
That is, because fiber carries "DC to daylight" there'd be no economic motivation for a competitor to build a second fiber. Thus, sharing of monopoly-built fiber becomes critical to establishing a robust competitive marketplace. Once built, the fiber even has the potential to supplant existing cable TV service. Here's a plausible scenario: Want to have direct access to your ISP?Sorry, you have to accept the "bundled" SBC ISP. Want to add a wireless access point that your neighbors might use? Sorry, prohibited under SBC
terms of service. Want to host content from your home? Sorry. FixedIP address? It'll cost you. Peer-to-peer file sharing? Fuggedaboudit. 100 megabit connectivity? Gigabit maybe? Sorry, you're using ADSL sucka.
Now, none of these things are, of themselves, necessarily bad -- if they can fly in a competitive marketplace. But without competition, SBC will
restrict service to preserve its vertical value chain. That is, the SBC bills under consideration in Kansas and Missouri, and passed in Oklahoma would ensure SBC's future as a monopoly -- because it would render further competition in underlying connectivityeconomically impractical. And if you don't have a competing fiber, SBC
functions as gatekeeper for all service-level competition. Here are the critical words from the Kansas bill:
New Sec. 2. (a) Notwithstanding any ruling or order to the contrary,the state corporation commission shall not, by entering any order, adoptingany rule or otherwise taking any agency action, impose any regulationupon a provider of high speed internet access service or broadband service in the provider’s provision of such service, regardless of technologyor medium used to provide such service.
The full bill is here: http://www.kslegislature.org/bills/2004/2019.pdf Here's a story about the three-state campaign http://tinyurl.com/4iqg And here's a story about Missouri http://tinyurl.com/4is7 And here's one that captures the CLEC and ISP view http://tinyurl.com/4isb David I ------- *--------------------isen.com----------------------* David S. Isenberg isen () isen com isen.com, inc. 888-isen-com (inside US) http://isen.com/ 203-661-4798 (direct line) *--------------------isen.com----------------------* -- The brains behind The Stupid Network -- *--------------------isen.com----------------------* -- Dave ------------------------------------- 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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- SBC in state-level takeover of high speed services David Farber (Jan 16)