Open letter to the FCC

Dangger

[q]A Letter to Federal Commission for Communications Chairman Michael Powell: [/q]

Perhaps *A little* off topic but interesting. Rings a few bells.

From slashdot...
[q]"An open letter to FCC chairman Michael Powell signed by internet and tech industry pioneers explains why the US government shouldn't prop up the ailing telecom behemoths. Telecom companies bought expensive network technology with long bonds. That technology has been made obsolete by gear getting faster and cheaper all the time by Moore's law and Metcalfe's law. The telecom companies are asking for the equivalent of a bailout for their investments in sailing ships after the advent of steam. The way to speed the deployment of broadband to homes isn't to prop up businesses based on old technology, but to let uncompetitive businesses 'fail fast', and let new competitors play." [/q]


Full letter here.

Xian

Originally posted by Dangger
Perhaps *A little* off topic but interesting.

Heady stuff:

CLEC, IXC and ILEC bonds used to purchase now-obsolete infrastructure assets have become (or inexorably are becoming) bad debt. Weak last-mile competition prevents the most powerful technological advances from reaching all but a few customers; this is the largest cause of long-haul over-capacity.

... and very much on topic considering the immenent decision by the Regulator, her last before the inauguration of the Commision, on the lifting of retail price caps (supported by both Eircom and EsatBT). The Turbine ran a piece on it last Sunday:

The retention of price controls will represent a serious negative for Eircom's new owners, led by Providence Equity and Soros Capital. When Providence and friends purchased Eircom, the telecom company was debt free. The €2bn debt on its balance sheet comes from the mortgaging of the company's own assets to pay off the unfortunate Eircom shareholders.

At the time of the highly leveraged takeover, it was consistently argued that Eircom would be starved of cash for future investment. The current threats of scaled back capital expenditure reinforce those arguments and lay Eircom open to criticism that consumers are being asked to help fund a leveraged buyout.

You don't follow the trajectory of homeowner to tenant without some serious errors of judgement along the way. That is where we are now - paying rent, money down the drain. The question has to be asked of Seamas Public and Ireland Inc how much money they want to pay for what will never be theirs - overpriced shares when they were floated, forcibly reposessed equity, per-minute charging for what should be capacity based (i.e. cost-oriented) charging (and with internet access accounting for 40% of PSTN traffic, the people IO represents are paying the lions share), and funding the vulture capitalists buyout to boot. Recently there is talk of the 'generous' Irish - are they comfortable with the fact that some of the recipients aren't exactly in need? You only pay rent for so long before you decide that the money you pay should go towards something you will eventually own. This is not particularly about competing networks, either. It's about the long-term communications needs of a community. Read some of the recommendations:

* Discourage attempts by incumbent telephone companies to thwart municipal, publicly-owned and other communications initiatives that don't fit the telephone company business model.
* Accelerate [ODTR] exploration of innovative spectrum use and aggressively expand unlicensed spectrum allocation.

In the immediate term, this is a chance for Doyle to prove herself: it is the first time she actually has power over the incumbent, something they need from her. She has an opportunity to use this to bargain for tenant's rights, namely flat rate wholesale interconnect. Prove us all wrong, Etain. Do the right thing.