DSL subscribers may be forced to switch DSL services

[Matthew Gillen]

Mark J. Dulcey wrote:
> This is one of the most important technology policy issues to come along
> for many years. If we want to preserve the Internet that we love, if we
> want to preserve the dream of an Internet for everybody, we must use
> government to protect it; the forces of capitalism will by their very
> nature try to take it away. (Sorry to disillusion the libertarians on
> the list; sometimes the free market doesn't work.) 

To be little pedantic, it doesn't make too much sense to criticize the failure
of the free market in this case, since the telephone (and cable) companies
have a government-granted monopoly, so there isn't any semblance of a free
market in this area to begin with (and they, as always, are trying to get the
gov't to strengthen that monopoly).

We might be able to create a free market by having towns own and maintain "the
last mile" to residences (ie the line going into your house), and having
something like a city-wide switching station where the various backbone
providers could hook up.  /That/ would lead to real competition, and I bet in
that environment you would see a plethora of Speakeasy-like services (ie
customer-friendly)

Matt

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.