Government has ruined virtually everything it has meddled in and now come the politicians to save us from the mess they created in the first place.
Supply-and-demand economics just doesn't stand a chance in the good ol' U.S(ocialist).S.A. anymore.
Sen Hollings is a moron. I work for a certain Bell company in Louisiana. We of course offer DSL over our phone networks. We can get DSL just anywhere if we wanted to get it anywhere. It's just a simple matter of inserting into the POTS loop a DSLAM or a miniRAM. Not to mention they have developed a DSLAM that can give DSL to people 11 miles out.
The key here is cost. To install this equipment costs a good bit of money not to mention the tax that the Feds put on our equipment and the area that they tax on our internet availability. So you have a DSLAM which requires 2 T1s to operate at full capacity chock full of channel units that cost about 150-200$ a pop not to mention the money it costs to install and maintain.
So Bell will put these places only where they can be guaranteed a return within so many months of initial use. So the places where only half a dozen or so people would use it would never see it. While the place where 1.5-2 dozen people want it may see it if BellSouth sees potential growth.
Holling doesn't understand the nature of Telco's. They install and spend thousands of dollars to give service under the assumption that they'll make it back eventually. When you introduce competition you make profitability more elusive and force fewer expenditures in additional plant.
Back when there was a phone monopoly Bell could just pour money down the drain on some expenditures that were not guaranteed to ever be profitable because they could take the money from guaranteed sources of cash. That's why local service was cheap but long distance was expensive.
No matter how you cut it some company owns the copper. They have to maintain it. If you make every CLEC and Bell company pay the same rate for access after cleaving the copper from Bell then you're guaranteed most CLECS will go belly up since they operate with minimal capital to begin with. Hollins needs to understand that Telco's operate best under a monopoly. Expect your service to get worse if Fritz gewts his way.
And that's another thing. "Lack of competition" can't dissuade Verizon from giving service to rural Pennsylvania because they have to install the equipment first which will be used equally by it's competitors. If Verizon installs DSL out there then they have to sell access to it's equipment at 75-80% of their normal rate. The simple fact is competition dissuades the installation of additional phone equipment. This senator needs to shut up about things she don't understand.
I can understand why there can't be two Channel 4 TV stations in one market-but if you want some guy to run cable to your house, or to buy a satellite receiver to tune signals out of the air, what does that have to do with Congress?
Don't tell me it's the bribes from over-the air networks. That would be illegal.