Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ima!johnl From: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: Re: Pending FCC ruling threat to modem users Message-ID: <379@ima.UUCP> Date: Wed, 17-Dec-86 10:18:18 EST Article-I.D.: ima.379 Posted: Wed Dec 17 10:18:18 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Dec-86 02:38:50 EST References: <1575@brl-adm.ARPA> Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) Followup-To: comp.dcom.modems Organization: Javelin Software Corporation Lines: 36 Summary: monopoly means monopoly Xref: mnetor comp.sys.misc:133 comp.dcom.modems:67 In article <1575@brl-adm.ARPA> OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa (OCONNOR DENNIS MICHAEL) writes: >Second: the goverment does not "mandate" a "pernicous" monopoly, it >simply allows it. You or I can go out, get right-of-way on the >utility poles like the cable companies, and start our very own >telephone system. ... Sorry, but that's just not true. Your local phone company has a monopoly franchise to run phone wires down the street. As a case in point, a few years ago at Yale, we wanted to run an Ethernet cable from one building on the campus to another, running down the street for a block. We could not legally do it -- it fell into the phone company's franchise. Eventually we ended up getting a microwave link because the phone company had no reasonable service to offer. (High speed? You mean 56KB? No, we mean 10MB. Uhh...) The cable company has a separate franchise to run cable TV. Some cable companies want to use their spare capacity for switched data, but that's legally interesting at best. Some comanies have private internal phone nets but that's legally quite different from being a public phone company. I suspect the real wave of the future is in things like ConnNet, which is a packet switched network run in Connecticut by SNET, the local telephone company. You can gateway from ConnNet to other networks. The same logic which says that local voice service is a natural monopoly would suggest that local data service is similarly a natural monopoly and services like Telenet are more analogous to MCI or Sprint than to and end-to-end phone company. The local monopoly on data service also addresses the issue that data calls are more expensive than voice calls. AT&T, for example, has a 1PSS packet switch exchange designed to sit next to the voice exchange and to pull the data calls off the voice circuits as close to the user as possible, to avoid tying up voice circuits with data. The standard rate review process is supposed to ensure that the rates charged for such service are reasonably related to the costs. We'll see. -- John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.EDU Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him?