On 19/12/10 6:25 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
And if a competing water service thought they could do better than the incumbent, why not let them put in a competing water project? If they think they can make money after the cost of the infrastructure, then they may be onto something. We don't have to worry that too many would join in, the laws of diminishing returns would make it unprofitable for the nth company to build out the infrastructure to enter the market. 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
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 06:12:02PM -0800, JC Dill wrote: 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. :)
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). jc