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Comment by smutticus | Hacker News Reader

The argument of this article seems to be, "We can't fix how the FCC regulates IP services so we must force AT&T to stay in the dark ages."

You can't simultaneously decry America's networking innovation and complain that AT&T is moving to IP. Everything is moving to IP. Circuit switching is dead. They're even putting TDM over IP nowadays(ITU Y.1588v2 and SyncE).

If you really want to improve the situation don't act all Luddite. Start the conversation on overhauling common carrier legislation. Bring Judge Greene back from the dead and break these carriers into thousands of competing tiny operators.

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Retaining any optimism when it comes to ATT and the FCC is a difficult task. Every FCC hearing involving ATT seems to be the same old song and dance. So yes, having a conversation would be nice, but it won't be allowed. Not a real conversation or even small talk about the weather.

Genachowski (and whoever his replacement happens to be) will smile and do what Randall Stephenson tells him to do. McDowell will threaten to sue himself and the FCC, saying the FCC has no right to do anything, under any circumstances and any action is a socialist affront to God and Country. Clyburn will do her "what does this do for the black community" bit and if we miss the saving throw a few red necks will get pissed off, further derailing things. Unsure of Rosenworcel and Pai, hopefully one of them will say something useful, but that is only praying for Judy and Punch.

Meanwhile both representatives standing in front of the chair persons will really be lobbyists for ATT. One will say that any action suggested will never be enough and the other will say that any action will be too much. Blah, blah, blah, some things never change.

I'd genuinely love to see a conversation (on anything), but that conversation will never really happen.

I don't get it. How can anyone look at the subsequent explosion of IP and mobile services and conclude that telecom deregulation in 1996 wasn't a smashing success? I'm sure there's room for improvement, but I'm not sold on a radical restructuring.

Because the measurement of success is different. In '96, we paid for a nationwide fiber network, and the big telcos decided they could deliver 10mbps symmetrical over last mile copper. Today a 10mbps symmetrical copper circuit is delivered via Ethernet-Over-Copper and costs ~$1000/month in downtown SF. Every home in America was supposed to have a 10mbit symmetrical fiber connection by mid 2000's.

What you see today is a pale reflection of what might've been. You're happy you have connectivity, and that's great, but your connectivity sucks and you shouldn't be happy about it because you paid for a better network and didn't get it.

Does that make sense? AT&T and the other big telcos stole the dream of ubiquitous fast Internet by mortgaging our future for continued copper obsolescence. And we wonder why there's no money for metro fiber networks...

In my state, SBC (now AT&T) received... approximately $700 million, IIRC, in tax breaks and incentives to roll out broadband statewide and provide some degree of "universal access".

The first thing they did, afterward, was to have their lobbyists pressure the state legislature to let them out of their half of the deal (pass laws to that effect) -- while keeping the tax breaks and incentives, of course.

Personally, I had DSL through them, and it is the worst... "utility" service I've ever had. Three appointments before the installer showed up, who was an independent subcontractor who left bare wires twisted together on the building exterior.

Their network was a nightmare, requiring 10+ hops all over the place just to exit onto a trunk. And it would die every week or two. One service call handler who was at her wits end admitted she was subcontracted and could only file tickets. She couldn't even look at a filed ticket to see its status. Zero feedback to the customer.

And... it took on average 30 minutes to reach a service rep. By contrast, call up to order service, and your call was answered within 30 seconds. The only part of their service they appeared to spend money on: Revenue intake.

They only started getting better, and upgrading their offers, when Comcast started rolling in the same territory and eating their lunch. (Not that I'm overly lauding Comcast, these days.)

If you (grandparent comment) think the big telco's are doing you any favors... well, I disagree.

>How can anyone look at the subsequent explosion of IP and mobile services and conclude that telecom deregulation in 1996 wasn't a smashing success?

By comparing to the results in other countries that didn't deregulate common carriers, which have the same innovations at lower prices and with fewer restrictions on what you can do with your devices.

One argument could be that the "subsequent explosion of IP and mobile services" occurred in spite of telecom deregulation, and not because of it. That's probably false, but there's also likely a sliver of truth there. Imagine how much more innovation we might have, were the telecoms not de facto monopolies.

Also, I'm not sure many folks are arguing for total regulation -- instead, like smutticus, I think most people would like to see a more competitive market than the one we have now.

>Bring Judge Greene back from the dead and break these carriers into thousands of competing tiny operators.

That would be one option. A more pragmatic option might be to just have the FCC classify last mile IP telecommunications service as a telecommunications service that would be subject to mild regulation instead of an information service that doesn't even have to meet common carrier requirements.

If you split AT&T land lines up, how would they be competing with each other? They'd just be 1,000 separate local monopolies. There is no monopoly on internet access at a national level. Go to any carrier hotel in the nearest major city an you'll have 10-200 options. The issue is government granted monopolies on the last mile.

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