[Discuss] CLECs

[cra at WPI.EDU (Chuck Anderson)]

On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 04:58:05PM -0400, Seth Gordon wrote:
> The Right Way to run the telecom system, IMHO, would be to ?delaminate? it
> (h/t David Weinberger). Have the ILECs be responsible for maintaining the
> network infrastructure that shuttles bits from place to place, and let them
> rent out that bandwidth to service providers, but forbid them from actually
> providing any of those services themselves. Service providers then rent out
> that bandwidth, build services on top of it (Internet access, Web hosting,
> or what consumers think of as ?the phone company?) and then sell the
> services to consumers.
> 
> Of course, in the current political environment, such a regulatory system
> doesn?t have a snowball?s chance of passing, because nobody wants to be
> holding the bag running a public utility that sells a commodity service,
> and everyone wants the chance to sell high-margin services to consumers and
> then make those margins even higher by taking advantages of monopoly.

I think Geoff Huston's talk at NANOG53 captures pretty well why this
doesn't work, and can even be dangerous:

http://www.nanog.org/meetings/abstract?id=1853

The talk is about IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 transition, but at
timestamps 10:20, 15:40, and 18:20 he talks about the business aspects
of providing last-mile access.