FCC Kills Build-out Requirements for Telecoms 325
Frankencelery writes "In a 3-2 vote, the FCC has altered cable franchising laws in the U.S. to the advantage of AT&T and Verizon. 'The FCC order imposes a 90-day limit on local communities' franchising decisions, but, more importantly, does away with build-out requirements. Those requirements generally insist that companies offer service to all the residents in the town, rather than cherry-picking the profitable areas.' Good news for the telecoms, but bad for cities who want a say in the fiber deployments."
This is not for AT&T (Score:4, Insightful)
There are cases where even "evil monopolists" should be left to do certain aspects of their business without regulators messing in it.
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
Except the people who, thanks to this decision, can't get any service whatsoever.
Anything that's vital for the proper functioning of society, and has a tendency towards a natural monopoly - water, electricity, telecommunications, transportation - should be controlled by the society and not by "market forces".
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:3, Insightful)
I knew people will bend it like this, but there's the deal: you have a certain acceptable price range to offer to your customers, say ~100 ID/mo (imaginary dollars
If you need to sustain certain profitability with regulations that force you to do business where you don't want to, you have two options: neglecting reinvestment, support, quality, but keeping prices in the desired range, OR increasing prices.
It's as simple as that. Your logic makes sense only if they make their investments few times back in profit so they could afford to fix prices to whatever they want and not affected by their expenditures.
In reality however, the profit margin is much thinner, so no such perfect conditions exist.
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
>
> Which is bad how, exactly?
At the expense of equal access, public infrastructure, and realistic phone rates to go along with those benefits.
Or, was there an upside to corruption that we weren't aware of? Enlighten us how buying off greedy politicians is so great.
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:3, Insightful)
Well said (Score:2, Insightful)
This way, the electric companies would not have to serve you and your parents most likely would have never survived to spawn you as they would have died of exposure.
Or, more likely, they would never have learned about the world beyond their tiny little farm, and would never have Beverly Hillbillied their way out to whatever sub/urban place you live now that has electricity.
We in the Blue States proudly endorse the FCC's move - in the hopes that more rural neo cons will be denied high speed internet access, thus hindering the spread of the plague that is your corporate statist "let them eat cake" line of thinking.
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:3, Insightful)
At least, that's how the US Government helped Bell Labs with Ma Bell and we all benefited greater than all the libertarian marketscapes in third world countries combined.
Pick a better example next time you spout your neoliberal ideology around here.
Why is the FCC making policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just yet another example; it is rediculous. Where is the mass outrage? Shouldn't Republicans be outraged by our government wiping its ass with the Constitution - limited government and separation of powers? Shouldn't Democrats be outraged as the government continues to redistribute our hard earned money into the pockets of its corporate sponsors?
I mean ordinary people. I'd like to think I'm an ordinary person, but polls say otherwise. Why aren't ordinary people outraged when they see these abuses and corruptions?
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
My phone bill after the Ma Bell breakup didn't reflect this.
All my bills following the deployment of broadband intraweb thingy didn't reflect this.
In fact, all my (tech) bills are rising faster than inflation and I have only experience more dropped calls, lower data rates, and poorer (image) quality television.
They may make in investment in infrastructure, but that doesn't mean a realized benefit to the customers in every case.
Re:still so naive... (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you rather nobody be allowed to burrow on public property to build out the infrastructure for the Internet? That's what we'd have if the city were not allowed to make such bargains. Unless, of course, you want the city paying for all its own infrastructure, and owning it directly. You'd like that, wouldn't you?
I'd take either, but you can't pick and choose who wins in such a bargain unless you want to be thought of as interfering in a business negotiation.
How many other ways can I deduce your philosophy into a contradiction? Shall I continue?
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
In exchange for having their monopoly and rights-of-way protected by the government, it's only fair that utility companies would be required to give something back to the community, especially since there's such a huge public benefit at stake. If a utility company is considering moving into a hence-unserviced market, they can take into account servicing that market's outlying areas when they make that decision.
Re:still so naive... (Score:2, Insightful)
I challenged your general rule. If it's not applicable, and if it's not your philosophy then something doesn't connect.
If you think this case is an exception to other philosophies regarding monopolies, then you have yet to give a basis. Build-out requirements are one of the fundamental bargains telcos make to become a franchise operator.
This is big government interfering with the market-based decisions of a local government. How you sided with big government in this case is beyond me. I'm still searching for why.
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
With your Christmas lights shop you aren't digging up miles of public property to create the means for selling your lights. If you ever do start to do that, it becomes the public's business to say under what conditions you can dig up their property. People in a town may not want to deal with road closings and jackhammer noises and other disruptions if their block isn't going to be able to make use of the infrastructure buildout that is causing that disruption.
"If you want my service, move to a place where I offer it, or use someone else's service. Simple as that."
If you want to disrupt my days to build out something for your service in my town, you better make it available to me, or go to another town. Simple as that.
Re:This is not for AT&T (Score:3, Insightful)
> > Which is bad how, exactly?
> At the expense of equal access, public infrastructure, and realistic phone rates to go along with those
> benefits.
You need to think into the future.
If in a given field, a company is making excessive profits, the fact that that field is so profitable naturally leads it to draw in other companies. These new companies then undercut - just a little - the existing companies, to steal their customers. This is the beginning of the virtuous (for the customer) cycle of price cutting until companies cannot reduce prices any more.
Markets are not static entities - they are dynamic. They self-correct, in the absence of State regulation, which permanently distorts markets and either increase prices or restrict supply. (New York renting laws, for example).
Franchise laws *need* to be repealed (Score:1, Insightful)
That said I hate Verizon and AT&T as much as the next guy. In fact my phone service comes from a Skype phone, and a cell, so I can choose my provider.
I see the FCC decision as encouraging competition.
Re:Well said (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's stupid.
I'm so old and grew up in so rural an area, I realized very young that I profited from rural electrification. My mother still displays an "antique" kerosene lamp. Didn't purchase it. Family possession.
Sure, people complained that rural electrification was unprofitable. We could probably find some blowhard who complained at the time that it destroyed the opportunity for rich people to experience a Deliverance Weekend amongst the simple people who still played banjo on the porch in the evening. But can't most of us agree that _some_ national infrastructure standards are good for everybody? The libertarian miserliness screaming that somebody else is getting a few of their projected pennies of savings makes a mockery of the idea that there is an "American People" and that we are a "society" that share anything at all.
Re:That's alot of power / control (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This IS NOT A Good Thing!! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're talking about marginal profits and not aggregate profit. The local government is making a deal which guarantees that the provider has a monopoly on the market. What's wrong with them negotiating a part of the contract which mandates a rollout plan to all citizens?
So, they have the right to say "NO" but they don't have the power to negotiate if they say "YES"?
Your "other business" comparison is generally ridiculous. Although you could probably come up with some parallels, these would be the exception. What other business has a barrier to entry like the cable and telecom industry? A more appropriate parallel would be giving a convenience store exclusive rights to the market in a particular town, and allowing them to refuse to sell to anyone that isn't within 20 miles of the town center.
Local control is best. We don't need the draconian FCC enforcing the will of the empire on every town and city in the U.S.
You are assuming (Score:5, Insightful)
The fair thing to do would be for localities/states/feds to divest the various companies of their physical networks, much as was done with electricity deregulation, which at least levels the playing field for everyone. After all, they were paid for with taxpayer dollars, so it only seems fair that the taxpayer owns them. That'd be us, btw.
required buildout is good (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, forget about the slums. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rural communities already went through this with cable tv -- cable companies wouldn't put down the cable because it was too far away, and then when some communities tried to go with satellite TV instead the cable companies got a COURT ORDER forbidding them to do so because the cable companies had exclusive agreements with the states.
Profit is made off of these services because the companies that sell them want the services to be *indespensible*. Trying to market a service as indespensible while refusing to provide it to certain segments of society does not make for a healthy society.
So in answer to the question:
When a company decides to claim a monopoly on a service (and when you purchase a franchise from a community or state government you generally wind up having a monopoly in that area) then they have a responsibility to make that service available to all citizens. A monopoly is a different beast from standard business practices, because there are no other choices to make.
No; Good for cities that want a say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's alot of power / control (Score:2, Insightful)
Good thing we live in America (which barely makes the top 20), land of the free. I can't imagine how horrible and repressive life would be with socialized medicine and $20/mo 10 megabit (up/down) broadband in my home.
-Isaac
Required buildout NOT so good (Score:5, Insightful)
Living in rural areas with our current lifestyle incurrs a lot of societal costs in terms of pollution and infrastucture expenses. Rural development uses more land. Rural areas create more transportation costs, most indirect causes of which are born disproportunately by urbanitees. I could go on. In short, EVERYONE pays for those expenses, NOT just the folks living out in rural areas. It is not only unfair to ask urban dwellers to finance these inequities, it also creates an artificial incentive to develop rural areas and encroach on natural preserves.
It's bad policy. For phone and electric, I'm willing to hold keep my peace and underwrite expensive outlays to rural areas-- these are necessities, and I'm willing to take a hit so that other people can have those necessities. But to incurr those costs for entertainment seems a bit much-- particularly since for broadband and TV, viable alternatives do, in fact, exist. Sure, there aren't as many choices, but that applies to everything out in the country, from everything from stores to restuarants to places of worship.
Why should broadband/TV access be any different?
Welcome to Rural America (Score:3, Insightful)
There are certain necessities in life, staples if you will, that are the building blocks of society and everyday life. Without regulation many utility companies would ignore the majority of the US and focus solely on the areas with the highest concentration of people, primarily the seaboards. Without regulation costs of delivery services to these areas would be levied solely on the shoulders of those in rural America. Why should my fuel cost me $10/gallon when your's only costs you $2/gallon? Regulations spread the load out evenly across all members of our society. Without regulation the country couldn't maintain a balance between producers and consumers. Without balance you consumers die. It's a simple as that.
Before anyone goes off on a rant about me being a Republican or a Bush ass-kisser let me kick that in the nuts right now and say I am a Liberal.
Cherries (Score:3, Insightful)
So why should I, the consumer, suffer?