nanog mailing list archives
Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
From: Richard A Steenbergen <ras () e-gerbil net>
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 19:48:04 -0600
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 where government regulation of the entities who ARE granted the monopoly status comes into play, to protect consumers against abuses like we're seeing Comcast commit today. Personally I think the right answer is to enforce a legal separation between the layer 1 and layer 3 infrastructure providers, and require that the layer 1 network provide non-discriminatory access to any company who wishes to provide IP to the end user. But that would take a lot of work to implement, and there are billions of dollars at work lobbying against it, so I don't expect it to happen any time soon. :) -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras () e-gerbil net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)
Current thread:
- Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style, (continued)
- Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Steve Schultze (Dec 17)
- Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Jack Bates (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 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)
- Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style Steve Schultze (Dec 17)