[muglo] Re: [OT] [OT] Escarpment Telecom as an alternative to the LD companies

Caution - thoroughly off-topic. I tried to ignore Rich's diatribe but could 
not let it slide.

Your political bent noted and ignored (the Progressive Conservatives 
(unfortunately) don't exist anymore (I don't imagine you're a Canadian 
Alliance supporter)... hopefully the "PC"s (Progressive Canadians) will rise 
to challenge the Reform/Canadian Alliance (or whatever their latest 
incarnation is called)). Your diatribe noted and not ignored.

>From: Rich <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: muglo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: MUGLO <muglo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [muglo] Re: [OT] Escarpment Telecom as an alternative to the LD 
>companies
>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 02:37:01 -0400

>You preach so much but know so very little.  Wake up and understand that
>companies like Bell and Rogers have other initiatives that need paying for.
>Like 3G network rollouts.

Uh-huh, and we really need 3G network rollouts, do we? For what, pray tell? 
Because customers are clamouring for this? This has nothing to do with 
serving customers but all about trying to create need to allow them to 
generate profits rather than serving _real_ needs and desires. Since you're 
in business school I'm sure you'll be offered the choice of taking marketing 
courses and (whatever they call the practice) creating artificial needs and 
extending monopolies.

For that matter, if you'd like to explain the phone industry -- why is Bell 
charging for touch tone dialling when it's CHEAPER for them to implement 
touch tone than pulse and you are not _allowed_ to choose pulse?

> > Anyway, for those of you fed up with Sprint and/or Bell, I suggest you 
>check
> > out a not-for-profit joint. You'll be doing four things: 1. supporting
> > conservation of the Niagara Escarpment; 2. saving yourself money 
>(depending
> > on your calling habits);  3. saving money on your taxes (since 20% of 
>your
> > phone bill is a charitable donation); and, 4. (most important to me)
> > sticking it to Bell/Sprint.
>
>...and undermining the companies that actually build the backbones for
>Canada, so that we'll eventually be paying for these large companies to 
>keep
>their backbones competitive, before another foreign company comes in and
>takes them away.  Good job, Eric.  Sheesh.

Undermining those companies that do such a good job of building backbones? 
You seem to forget that they still manage to derive profits from a 
non-profit since someone does in the end have to provide them with access to 
the networks!

What the non-profit shows is that the major networks are _overcharging_ for 
their services, and part of this has to do with a stagnant marketplace where 
it is the phone companies that determine what consumers get and not the 
other way around. 20% of a phone bill can be dedicated to conservation (plus 
a few % for over-head). There's a lot of room for competition but the 
current crop of companies have decided they're going to stick with their own 
customer base and keep prices high rather than going after their 
competitors.

> > And, 20% of your bill goes to conserve the Niagara Escarpment (rather 
>than
> > the typical profit that Sprint and Bell make).
>
>...and profit is the devil's tool.  Heaven forbid anybody make any
>profit...so that they can address future business and bring us up to speed
>with other companies south of the border.

I do understand your diatribe now -- you need to be able to justify your 
chosen 'career path' (seeing as you're in business school right now) so any 
threat to unfettered profit is a threat to your financial future? No, I 
don't think you're that shallow or short-sighted so I suspect you're being 
devil's advocate.

No, profit is not necessarily the devil's tool if it encourages improvement 
in services. If it merely is a day-to-day siphoning off of money then it is 
(to use your words) "the devil's tool" and I am not at all convinced that 
profit is being used for much other than siphoning off.

PS You do realise that competition amongst phone companies is waning -- 
they've locked a lot of customers in and industry-wide the major players 
have now thrown up barriers to switching lines. They're happy with what they 
have but stagnation does nothing for the typical citizen! Number portability 
or anti-trust investigations will be needed to force companies to improve 
conditions. If there is no incentive for companies to invest in expanding 
networks, THEY WON'T. They'd rather pay out dividends or bribe officials 
than serve (new) customers!

>Eric, Apple makes a profit.  Perhaps you should pick a non-profit computer
>company as well.  Perhaps you should get the police involved, solely 
>because
>you started a rant.

Wow, you really are losing your train of thought?

Or, for that matter, sight of the role of police in anti-trust or collusion 
investigations -- business has demonstrated time-and-time-again that, when 
given the chance, it is corrupt. The nature of the "corporation" in the 
United States (rights of a person but no responsibilities to go with those 
rights) has rubbed off on business practices world-wide - Enron, WorldCom, 
Haliburton, Nortel, the Big Five music lables in the US and UK (and 
somewhere else (Germany?) - convicted of price fixing), the largest drug 
manufacturers, Microsoft, de Beers... those are some _big_ names (and they 
were the ones that eventually got caught). If some of the biggest 
corporations in the world are doing this it seems to me there are some 
_huge_ problems with the profit-at-all-cost ethic. These are some pretty 
spectacular and RECENT violations of ethical behaviour. Perhaps you will be 
the one to return the business community to respectability, but that does 
require you to allow your thinking to evolve.

Eric.

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