Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!bu.edu!telecom-request From: 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Cable TV Companies Enter the Telephone Business Message-ID: Date: 4 Mar 91 02:31:00 GMT Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 45 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 177, Message 4 of 9 In article , Stephen Bulick posts: > I read in the Business Section of the {New York Times} for 3/1/91 that > the FCC is allowing cable television companies to test what seems to > be a microcellular telephone system as a prelude for entry into the > local exchange carrier business. ... I wondered whether this meant that > telcos would now be able to argue more effectively for an entry into > the cable TV business. > This seems like an issue for discussion in this forum. For my $0.02 worth, it's been a topic of discussion here for a while now. I expect the Baby Bells will howl, loud and long, but to little avail, blowing more of the $27 million they spend a year lobbying away in Washington. (Yes, it's been documented they spent $27 on their registered lobbyists in Washington.) The simple reason: Dating to the 1/1/84 execution of Ma Bell and before, it's been a stated policy of the FCC to break up the local telephone monopoly as well as the long distance one. Since then we've seen the FCC get deeper and deeper into regulatory business that once was the province of the state regulators, reducing the state roles as handmaidens of local Telcos more and more. Observers of the technology can now obviously see that the 1913 notion of a "natural monopoly" by reason of a huge capital need is no longer valid. Can anyone on here raise any other argument to maintain the "natural monopoly" other than the obsolete view of tons of copper plowed into the ground or radio too complex and unstable to deploy in the neighborhood? That's the gauntlet. Who can post a reason _why_ the Telcos should now be permitted to maintain a monopoly, in other than vague, undefined language? (Are we now supposed to be paying them for decades of loyal and constantly profitable business?) Make no mistake. I brook no favor for the cable TV people. We all know how they have proved themselves to be hacks of the business for decades. They've had the capability to step into competition with the Telco for years; now the Feds have handed them an opportunity on a silver platter. I rather expect the cable interests to look this gift horse all the way down to its gullet. Let's see if they can blow the opportunity in the process.