NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: ATT tells FCC it wants to ditch land-line services -- let's assist them!
RB
2) Indeed, to make sure that government actions down the line
don't result in that copper being used by a possible
competitor He didn't seem concerned about the maintenance costs of the copper
plant, even when I asked him about them. "What isn't there, can't
be used," were pretty much the words he used as I recall. This was
over a year ago. -- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]Take as in accept.
Verizon is a simpler case -- if they say it's a liability how much is it worth? And so what if it's "only" 10Mbps per pair?
-----Original Message----- From: George Ou [mailto:george_ou@lanarchitect.net] Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 21:08 To: 'Bob Frankston'; 'Dewayne Hendricks' Cc: nnsquad@nnsquad.org; 'OIA List'; 'Richard Bennett' Subject: RE: [ NNSquad ] ATT tells FCC it wants to ditch land-line services -- let's assist them!
Couple of issues.
First of all, when you say "take" that copper plant, you probably mean steal or pay less for the infrastructure than market rate by forcing the sale. That should offend any reasonable person as much as the government taking over individual homes for a public works project of some sort.
Second, copper will probably get to 100 Mbps (64 Mbps is the realistic speed with channel bonding) as signal processing technology gets better, but that assumes you're going to spend money building out Fiber to the Node (FTTN) cabinets to within 1000 meters of each home. But it's not realistic to expect that you'll just light it up to 100 Mbps today even with the cabinets in place.
George Ou
-----Original Message----- From: nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org] On Behalf Of Bob Frankston Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 3:53 PM To: 'Dewayne Hendricks' Cc: nnsquad@nnsquad.org; 'OIA List' Subject: [ NNSquad ] ATT tells FCC it wants to ditch land-line services -- let's assist them!
ATT is completely correct - they shouldn't be saddled with the cost of supporting two networks. In fact supporting even one network is a burden for a company that makes its money selling services. We have done them as great disservice by requiring they support an infrastructure so that others like Vonage can simply use the bits without ATT getting the a cut of the service revenue they need to fund the infrastructure based a business model that dates back to 19th century telegraph.
I say we heed their plea and immediately offer them assistance along with forgiveness for past failures. If they are so foolishness as to want to hang on to their fiber then let them.
We should immediately take all that copper off their hands and hand it over to the communities. The communities are then free to use modern electronics to "light" those wires up to 10 to 100Mbps at retail modem prices (<$100/line). That was part of my original plan for home networking and we have over 20 years of Moore's law improvement to catch up on. And since we're dealing with bits and not billing we can be very creative in what we do and we can ignore the artificial distinction between wired and wireless bits. Or, for that matter between fiber and copper bits.
The problem is that ATT is right - we don't need redundant infrastructures and the paid-for copper trumps debt-creating fiber. They have tied their fate to the latter. How long can they kite debt?
So lets' take ATT up on its offer. Sure it's assisted suicide but then sacrificing companies for the greater good is the very essence of capitalism and the idea of limited liability. Anyway ATT already died - we're just talking about the ghost of ATT's past.
[ Bob, somehow I suspect that the U-verse folks won't be enthusiastic about your proposal, especially after planting all those VRADs and dragging fiber out to them to "remonetize" that (often monopoly-era) copper and other handy physical plant goodies. Of course if AT&T hadn't had such largely Ma Bell-era facilities already in place, the cost of deploying U-verse, particularly in areas that would have involved digging up untold thousands of streets and yards, would have been monumentally higher than it has been.
Telecom Monopoly Status: The Gift From the Government that Keeps on Giving, Even When You're Not Officially a Monopoly Any More!
-- Lauren Weinstein NNSquad Moderator ]
-----Original Message----- From: dewayne-net [mailto:dewayne-net@warpspeed.com] On Behalf Of Dewayne Hendricks Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 15:26 To: Dewayne-Net Technology List Subject: [Dewayne-Net] ATT tells FCC it wants to ditch land-line services
ATT tells FCC it wants to ditch land-line services
eweek.com
By Michelle Maisto
AT&T tells the FCC that in order to meet Congress' goal of extending broadband access to 100 percent of Americans, it needs to heave the old land-line business off its shoulders so it can focus funds on broadband and IP-based communications.
AT&T has told the Federal Communications Commission that in order to meet Congress' goal of extending broadband access to 100 percent of Americans, it needs to ditch its land-line business in favor of focusing on broadband and IP-based communications.
<http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/ATandT-Tells-FCC-It-Wants-to-D itch-LandLine-Services/>RSS Feed:<http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>
-- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC