[opendtv] Re: CommLawBlog

From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2016 12:34:41 -0400

On Jul 3, 2016, at 3:49 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

NO, Craig. Modems were allowed, but the telephone line was as neutral as
public and telegraph lines have had to be, ever since the Mann-Elkins Act was
signed into LAW, in 1910. The law of the land. Which means, independent
companies that wanted to do "commerce" on these lines had all the authority
they needed to do so.

Sorry Bert, but modems were not allowed until the 1956 Hush-a-Phone decision.
AT&T asked the FCC to ban this passive device, and the agency complied. The
courts overturned this regulation in 1956 paving the way for early 100 and 300
bit acoustic modems, used primarily for early fax machines.

Note that the modem was not attached to the four prong phone instrument
connector, but an acoustic cradle that used the monopoly phone company handset.
It was not until the 1968 Carterphone decision that direct attachment to the
network was permitted.

Deregulation of the Internet aspect of commerce on the telco lines meant that
now, the telcos could build out their ADSL lines (grooming what was already
there, mostly), and retain the ISP service for themselves. PLUS the telco
lines were now on an equal footing with the cable systems' own broadband
service. This gave the telcos the incentive they needed, and like magic, ADSL
became available to many more people, include ng ourselves, I might add.

Close, but not exactly. The FCC rejected requests from the telcos to stop the
use of ISP modems due to the shift in utilization patterns (long sessions),
that they claimed were disrupting network access. It was not until the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 that Congress authorized "line sharing," which
led to an explosion of independent ISPs.

The 1996 Act also authorized the telcos to expand data services (i.e. ISDN and
ADSL) if they resold access to these data networks. But the FCC reversed this
rule in 2003, as we have already discussed as nauseum

This convincingly threw your libertarian rhetoric out the window. With this
partial deregulation, all ISP competition disappeared. (Wow, how is this
possible?) Now, although, yes, we had deregulated cable plus deregulated
telcos for Internet service, the result was still that we went from thousands
of competitors to at most two, at that time, ca. 2001-2002.

No Bert. As I already stated both regulation and deregulation are tool that the
FCC has used to enable regulated oligopolies. Actually Congress opened up the
phone lines to competition - the FCC reversed this.

That's none of the government's business. The telcos have as much incentive
to deploy FTTH as the cablecos have. That's totally irrelevant, Craig. The
telcos had a choice of deploying any of various variants of xDSL, on their
existing lines, or FTTH, just as the cablecos had the choice of retaining
coax or moving to FTTH.

It's the governments business now, but I agree with your position that this is
"none of the government's business.

The issue is whether an investor can expect a reasonable rate of return by
investing in FTTH deployments. History teaches us that regulated oligopolies
tend to discourage competition. By the way, the cable companies have deployed
tons of fiber - but their coax lines are generally adequate for the last hop
from the risers to the house.

Then again, perhaps not. More on this in a new thread I am starting about the
realities of killing analog cable.

PLUS, I also informed you long ago, FTTH is the most expensive improvement.
Very costly, compared with HFC or xDSL. And, sure enough, Verizon QUIT
expanding FiOS.

Not completely; they are still deploying when new neighborhood are developed.
But you are correct, the economics don't add up to overbuild existing
neighborhoods, especially if you are correct that MVPD service is dying.

DUH, Craig! Only because they were forced to share those ADSL lines with
competitive ISPs. Did the cable companies have to? No. And more importantly,
I pointed also this out to you back then, and you still don't get it.

Why do you continue to make fool of yourself?

The trial I described was terminated in 1996, about the same time that Congress
authorized line sharing. The reason that the trial ended interest in using ADSL
to compete for MVPD service is that it was inadequate - i.e. it didn't work
well enough.

The reason DSL was built out was the huge potential market for better ISP
service. This was adequate incentive for the telcos to deploy DSL, even as they
had to allow independent ISP access to these lines. In 1996 cable modems were
still a laboratory curiosity.

The reason that cable did not need to share its lines was that it was
classified as an information service, not a regulated Title II service. The
2003 FCC decision ending line sharing was part and parcel of the decision to
classify telco broadband as an information service, putting the telcos on an
"equal" footing with the cable companies.

There is huge irony in the reclassification of both cable and telco broadband
as a regulated Title II service...

The decision by the FCC to classify broadband as an information
service, was another concession to the telcos,

BS. It was a "concession" that put them on an equal footing with the cable
company competition.

Why is it B.S. when we essentially agree?

I would ask what was different in 2003 that "put the telcos on an equal
footing,"
And the situation today where both will be regulated under Title II?

Clue - it ain't' net neutrality

You simply missed everything that was going on, Craig. The bottom line is
that now that ISP service was tied to who owns the infrastructure, rather
than being a neutral service ON TOP OF that infrastructure, the law of
neutrality, which came in effect as far back as 1910, started to make sense
for services the ISPs carry. At first, no big incentive, ISP service was
neutral anyway. Then, when TV carriage began to compete with the cablecos,
the expected happened.

Just the excuse Bert.

So now, the over 100 year old tradition of network neutrality was made to
apply also on Internet service.

That tradition only existed with respect to interconnection. The telcos fought
the use of their networks for services they could not control, a story that was
repeated with cellular services until Apple convinced AT&T to support the
iPhone and independent apps. Today's net neutrality is just a canard used to
justify re-regulation.

Regards
Craig

References:
- [opendtv] Re: CommLawBlog
  - From: Manfredi, Albert E

[opendtv] Re: CommLawBlog

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