Hi Bogey, good to see you again. Too bad we can't get more people involved in this debate.
First of all, the feds did not mandate competition. What they did was accept the ILEC's (Bell's) entry plan for Long Distance. Lest everyone forget, the Telecom Act of 1996 was a creation of the ILECs. In it they promised to unbundle their networks in exchange for the right to sell long distance. This right has now been granted as the ILECs have been deemed (rightly or wrongly) to have sufficiently opened their networks to competition.
Now that this is done, the ILECs are now engaged in a strategy of usurping State Commission authority and working at the federal level to kill their competition. Complaints about rates are utterly bogus, as the ILEC rates were established and agreed to in every State PUC. ILECs, for the most part, got almost exactly the rates they negotiated.
Does it make sense to anyone that for consumers to have a choice of provider that each and every provider must have a wire into their home or business? Imagine the scenario. I have chosen a competitor for my service. That competitior runs a wire to my home or business. My contract expires with that competitor and now I wish to choose someone else as my provider, now that competitor runs a wire to my home or business. 15 years from now, every home or business in the US would have 5 or 6 entrance facilities running to thier premise. Does this make sense? The wire is there now. ILECs promised to make that wire available in order to gain LD entry. ILECs negotiated favorable rates for that wire. Competitors PAY those costs.
To insinuate that BellSouth is going to become a penny stock because of competition is utterly ridiculous. I've seen your balance sheet. Any company with nearly 6 billion dollars in revenues gets no sympathy from me, and is most assuredly not in danger of becoming a penny stock. BellSouth's financials can be seen here:
http://www.bellsouth.com/investor/
ILEC carping about intermodal competition is another red herring. For instance, BellSouth complains about losing share to wireless. Does BellSouth think that everyone doesn't know that Cingular is run by BellSouth. So BellSouth is complaining about losing share (in part) to BellSouth. Cute, huh?
BellSouth is really being killed by those cable guys too, right? WRONG! Fact of the matter is, BellSouth (to its credit) is selling its broadband product (FastAccess) at a phenomenal clip. In my state of South Carolina BellSouth has (since 4Q01) increased its DSL subscribership from 621,000 to 1,021,000 subsribers. That's a 65% increase. Gee, those cable guys are really putting the hurt on BellSouth.
The truth is, BellSouth is not competing with Cable and Wireless for the most part. Who they are competing with are CLECs. And that is who they are now targeting with their anti-competitive lobbying effort. Trust me, I fight this battle every day and they are doing this at every level. Small companies like mine just do not have the resources to fight all of these battles. It's death by a thousand cuts. The ILECs have long engaged in this strategy and it continues today.
The monopoly has deep pockets friends. Their warchests have been built on the backs of ratepayers for over 100 years. Now that they face competition they are squealing like a scalded pig. Many competitors have failed . . . quite remarkable when you consider that according to the ILEC they were purchasing their product below cost. Many competitors fight on. We provide value to our customers and have introduced them to services heretofore unavailable to them through the ILEC and at rates never before offered. With competition the ILECs and CLECs are in price wars benefiting consumers.
Six years is not a long time to deregulate a 100 year old monopoly. Investors will come back, but only if the regulatory environment stabilizes and competitors are not daily threatened with being regulated out of existence. This is what is underway right now. This is what must be resisted, for the benefit of all consumers.
And you still never told me how China and Japan are able to give fast reliable hi tech service without gov't mandated competition. I don't think it's a good idea for the Bells to follow the ChiCom or Japan, Inc. economic models. Why don't they try good old fashioned American free market competition? It works for everyone else.
Only in upside down world of the Bell monopoly cartel do we hear that Bork, Fein, Glassman, the American Conservative Union and those evil states rights advocates are all wild-eyed flaming liberals - and William Daley is a righteous conservative.