nanog mailing list archives
Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
From: JC Dill <jcdill.lists () gmail com>
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:12:02 -0800
On 19/12/10 5:48 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 08:20:49PM -0500, Bryan Fields wrote:The government granting a monopoly is the problem, and more lame government regulation is not the solution. Let everyone compete on a level playing field, not by allowing one company to buy a monopoly enforced by men with guns.Running a wire to everyone's house is a natural monopoly. It just doesn't make sense, financially or technically, to try and manage 50 different companies all trying to install 50 different wires into every house just to have competition at the IP layer. It also wouldn't make sense to have 5 different competing water companies trying to service your house, etc.
This is the argument the government uses to keep first class mail service as an exclusive monopoly service for the USPS, claiming you wouldn't want 50 different mail carriers marching up and down your walk every day. Yet we aren't seeing a big problem with package delivery. Currently you have 3 choices, USPS, UPS, and FedEx. The market can't support more than 3 or 4 package delivery services (e.g. we had 4 with DHL, which didn't survive the financial melt down). Why not open up the market for telco wiring and just see what happens? There might be 5 or perhaps even 10 players who try to enter the market, but there won't be 50 - it simply won't make financial sense for additional players to try to enter the market after a certain number of players are already in. And there certainly won't be 50 all trying to service the same neighborhood.
And if a competing water service thought they could do better than the incumbent, why not let them put in a competing water project? If they think they can make money after the cost of the infrastructure, then they may be onto something. We don't have to worry that too many would join in, the laws of diminishing returns would make it unprofitable for the nth company to build out the infrastructure to enter the market.
jc
Current thread:
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style, (continued)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Dave Temkin (Dec 17)
- RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style George Bonser (Dec 17)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Dave Temkin (Dec 17)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style William Allen Simpson (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Phil Bedard (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Leo Bicknell (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Bryan Fields (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Richard A Steenbergen (Dec 19)
- RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style George Bonser (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Owen DeLong (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style JC Dill (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style David Conrad (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Richard A Steenbergen (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style JC Dill (Dec 19)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style David Sparro (Dec 20)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style JC Dill (Dec 20)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Steven Bellovin (Dec 20)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style William Allen Simpson (Dec 21)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style David Sparro (Dec 21)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Leo Bicknell (Dec 21)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Seth Mattinen (Dec 19)