[opendtv] Re: Obama’s Net Neutrality Plan - Video - NYTimes.com
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 03 May 2017 10:11:00 -0400
On May 2, 2017, at 9:16 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
The entire concept of natural monopolies is ANTI-COMPETITIVE Bert.
Craig, you have a really strange way of thinking. Meaning, backwards. Natural
monopolies are INEVITABLE, and consequently, they have to be dealt with. The
anti-competitive nature is WHY regulation is required.
GREED is inevitable Bert. Something to do with the human desire to maximize
revenues.
But sometimes humans are willing to pay a premium for things they really want
and value.
Is Apple a monopoly? Why do people pay a supposed premium for their products?
Is someone forcing customers to do this or do customers simply VALUE the
products and services from Apple more than say Samsung?
There was nothing inevitable about natural monopolies. If anything, just the
opposite was true, as the nation was coming to grips with the unnatural
monopolies of major industrialists. Like the railroad industry and the oil
industry.
But the industrialists got together with the politicians and colluded to create
monopolies so that both would benefit.
Please don't bother to argue this; I have already pointed out how many of these
natural monopolies were eventually broken up by the courts, and how
deregulation is opening up competition in telephony, electricity, and hopefully
now with broadband.
Why did the government decide to break up Ma Bell
First point, that's irrelevant. The Baby Bells were still local monopolies.
Not for long. They immediately started to compete in the other territories.
Secondly, have you noticed how Ma Bell has all but resurrected from the ashes?
Not as Ma Bell. There is no national telephone monopoly today BERT.
But there is real competition in the industry that replaced the old monopoly. I
went over this yesterday, but as usual, it went right over your head.
Bell Atlantic slowly became what Ma Bell used to be, and its main
competitors, these days, are the cable companies that reinvented themselves
into telecoms. But locally, what matters to individual households, you still
only have one choice, or sometimes two.
I listed more than a dozen yesterday. Get over it.
So there you have it. Natural monopolies exist because of the laws of
physics, not because of the laws of politicians.
A growing understanding of the laws of physics is what has enabled real
competition Bert. And it is what will unleash real competition in broadband
moving forward.
Perhaps a better way to address this is to ask an important question:
Would innovation in the landline telephone business have increased without the
heavy hand of government regulation for most of the 20th century? Or did
regulation as a natural monopoly slow innovation?
What happened after the break-up of Ma Bell?
- A drastic drop in the cost of telephone handsets, which were leased like
cable STBs;
- Wireless telephone handsets;
- Telephone answering machines;
And where was new investment by the telcos directed?
(Note, this is a multiple choice question with more than one correct answer)
a. More copper wires?
b. A massive investment in fiber optic WANs?
c. Major investments in FTTH overbuilds of cable?
d. A massive investment in cellular telephony?
e. Entry into the wireless broadband business?
Sorry, but natural monopolies are the evil spawn of collusion between
politicians and industrialists who disliked competition.
Within a few years our cellular data services will become competitive
with fixed broadband.
Super. Then, if this does happen, we can revisit the regulation.
Nope.
There were no net neutrality violations; the Title II order was not needed to
control bad behavior by the affected industries, who were subject to legal
anti-trust and anti-competitive review by the FTC.
But there is more than ample evidence to argue that the Title II decision DID
have a negative impact on new investment, and that the FCC was already using
this power to regulate the Internet, choosing winners and losers, and
regulating rates for business services.
In the meantime, if you hand everything on a silver platter to the special
interests, you will simply re-create the MVPD model. ISPs controlling the
Internet, and then you have to pray that your naïve ideas of ample
competition become fact.
The MVPD model has some real issues Bert, but these issues were CAUSED by
regulation, or the inability to enforce legislative mandates:
1. The 1992 cable act was sold on the basis of controlling runaway cost
increases - instead it caused even higher cost increases, most notably through
the growth of garbage rerun networks, and more recently via retrans consent
payments that will reach $20 billion in a few years.
2. The 1995 Telcom act TOLD the FCC to unbundle Set Top Boxes, much like the
Supreme Court decision breaking up Ma Bell. Almost a quarter century later the
FCC has failed spectacularly in this effort; the problem is now becoming
irrelevant.
Did you happen to notice that Verizon lost subscribers in the last
quarter?
Mobile service. I've already explained, on numerous occasions, that actual
competition, for home broadband, would change matters.
It exists Bert, and will arrive sooner, now that we have an FCC that is willing
to get out of the way.
Regards
Craig
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