[opendtv] Re: Broadband backwater

At 6:55 PM -0400 6/26/05, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
>Uncommonly good article on this topic.
>
>"So where is the broadband Valhalla we were promised in
>1996?"
>
>About where one would expect, without govt subsidies,
>is my answer.

Bert is close to having the right take on this, but government 
subsidies are not the only way to drive widespread broadband 
deployment.

I would suggest that it is government regulation of our 
telecommunications industries that is the problem.

Given the regulatory environment and the almost total failure of the 
the 1996 re-write of the Televommunications Act to promote 
competition, we have gotten what one would expect...

Picking of the low hanging fruit.

Instead of broadband for $20/mo. nearly half of U.S. homes are paying 
$40/mo. or more for their broadband service, not to mention the 
obscene rates we pay for cable or DBS. This is being done using 
existing plants for the most part, to serve the people most likely to 
pay double what the service should really cost. There is no incentive 
for any of the competitors to push their nets deeper into less 
profitable territory.

The best way to achieve the goal that both Bert and I seem to desire 
would be real competition in telecommunications across all digital 
media. But the regulatory environment has not been conducive to this. 
The telcos are running into local walls that make it nearly 
impossible to deploy the services that are described in the article 
that Bert posted. Given the current requirement that a telco must 
negotiate a franchise for each market where it wants to compete with 
cable, it could take a decade or longer for the telcos to become a 
competitive factor in TV services. The intent of the 1996 Telecom Act 
to open up facilities to competitors have been totally thwarted by 
the courts; Both the telcos and the cable MSOs have prevailed in 
keeping their systems closed.

The government does not need to subsidize broadband to bring prices 
down and availability up. They just need to get out of the way, and 
stop protecting the incumbents.

Regards
Craig
 
 
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