--On November 14, 2005 11:04:46 AM -0500 Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
On Mon, 14 Nov 2005, Blaine Christian wrote:
We are talking about an infrastructure that does not lend itself very well to market forces. In many places FFTH and/or DSL from a single carrier are becoming the only options. I would not count a 500ms satellite hop as an option <grin>.
The cable industry claims 97% of the households passed in the US. Why don't you consider it an option?
Many would argue that ICP+ILEC == Aforementioned duopoly. IOW, if the only choices are the local ILEC and the local Franchise Cable Operator (Incumbant Cable Provider) then you still have a very limited set of market forces that can be brought to bear. True competition requires the ability for multiple providers to enter into the market, including the creation of new providers to seize opportunities being ignored by the existing ones. If two companies can act as gatekeeper for the entire market in a given area, that is not an environment where market forces carry much meaning. Owen -- If this message was not signed with gpg key 0FE2AA3D, it's probably a forgery.