Deregulation

Why does this term sound so good? De-regulation. Unregulate. Stop regulating. Was it effective for California Energy? Remember the black-outs? Enron? How about airlines? The US deregulated the airlines and have since fed that industry 100s of billions of bail-out dollars and still the industry is a mess - backruptcies everywhere. Yes, the fares have remained the low, but at what expense? The low-cost airlines are now feeling the bite (as ATA hit bankruptcy and JetBlue has to start paying for its planes sometime). How about cable? It was deregulated in 1996. Since then rates have increased 56%! Maybe we get more channels, but 'analysis by Federal Communications Commission staff - - released Friday -- found the average cable household watches about 17 channels, including over-the-air broadcast stations.' So basically we are paying for stuff we don't want. If Broadband is deregulated, what will that mean for the internet? With only two avenues for broadband - cable and the ILEC: Will we have access to VOD websites like iFilm? Will we have undisrupted VOIP from non-ILECs like Lingo? (One cableco has already closed port 62 due to "security". Port 62 is used for TFTP access. Cisco VOIP phones use this port.) Do large companies provide innovation to the marketplace? Not since the 1970s, PARC, Bell Labs, DARPA, et al. We only have Mass market ADSL today because cable started to roll out internet and the DLECs started attacking the lucrative ILEC T1 markets. (DLECs were Northpoint, Rhythms, DSL.net and Covad). VOIP could have been how ILECs attacked cable. But that kind of thinking doesn't happen in those companies. It's this same thinking that pushes the BOCs to wish for monopoly again, instead of accepting the wholesale market as a better revenue stream, as well as wholesale customers - yes CLECs and ISPs are customers - help the ILECs against cable. BTW, the Bells are running into municipalities that want them to pay franchise rates to offer TV and it must be offered to all. The Bells say no to the fees and only want to cherry pick neighborhoods. Hmmm. Sounds like Bells want what CLECs are supposed to be getting per TA96. Please comment on the current dockets before the FCC: http://www.rad-info.net/fcc.htm