On 12/20/2010 12:05 AM, JC Dill wrote:
On 19/12/10 6:25 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
The laws of diminishing returns have already set the bar for the point at which it's not profitable for a new company to enter the market and try to compete. Right now the number is roughly 2, cable and dsl, give or take a few outliers. I do believe the point would be to encourage a little more competition than that. :)
In other words; it's an economic problem. Not Technical or regulation.
This is true but ONLY in the current climate where the incumbents have a monopoly on the ability to put in cabling for the last mile to homes.
I live in an area where there are 2 ILECs (AT&T, Verizon) in nearby proximity. Both are putting in fiber to some homes in their respective areas. Imagine what would happen if they could both put in fiber in the other areas. Then they would be *competitors* for those customers. Right now, they don't compete - they each have a territory and in their territory they are the predominant telco player (competing with the cable incumbent - usually Comcast).
There is no monopoly. They've already experimented with that and (apparently) decided that it wasn't worth it. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/ptech/stories/DN-verizon_17b... My theory is that everybody is just waiting around for things like 'network neutrality', 'broadband stimulus', and 'USF reform' to finally get decided before the Big Guys start to spend any money on upgrades. -- Dave