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.
Is that the copper that the Bell company runs through my yard on the way to the neighbors' houses down the street? When is the Bell company going to start paying rent for using my property?
Oh wait - the Bell companies only want a law the exempts them from having to share their property - not mine.
If they won't compensate me for their use of my property, the least they could do is improve their crappy service. But they refuse to do so.
Personally, I think SBC should be busted up into state units, the 100-year-old voice grade standard should be phased out quickly, and high-speed digital standards mandated.
How so? What kind of xfer rates?
I live in a whole neighborhood that would like a DSL alternative to the local cableco, but Verizon won't move because I'm just upwards of 20000 feet from the CO.
Yeah, but it's only a measly 128kbps up/down and costs $120/month, right?
Fortunately, we are seeing the very first rollouts of voice and data services that will obsolete the need to use the telco's last mile (or any of their infrastructure for that matter), and delivering way better performance for the money. The telcos will either change the way they do business and write-off their old infrastructure or die a slow death. They cannot compete cost-wise with some of the smart and viable alternatives that are just now emerging, and they are way too slow and top-heavy to make the necesary changes to their networks in a cost effective manner. Good riddance I say.
When you introduce competition, prices go down and availability goes up!
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.
Back then you could not buy a phone for your house and you could rent any color as long as it was black. The phone company continuously "rang" your line to verify that you were paying for EACH phone.
Heh heh... thank goodness for Anconym Finder.
Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer