[olug] Net neutrality wins! (for now, anyway)

[Dan Linder]

I don't get how the jump was made to a "government service provider"?
Title II and the like are already applied to the telephone companies and
there are parallels in the utilities world (electrical service comes to
mind).

Because of the requirements in Title II (updated views/readings in the
early 90's especially), access to the various poles (telephone, power, etc)
are more opened up (
http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/google-fiber-title-ii-reclassification-could-ease-access-utility-poles-righ/2015-01-02)
to the non-incumbent providers (cable tv and phone).

It is my opinion that our current land-line phone services are fairly open
in most markets because of this.  In my area I can choose the local QWest
service provider, or I can bring in Cox, Sprint, or many others.  And
having the ability to decouple local and long-distance was a major boon to
the consumer in the 90's.  In the 80's all those services were bundled
together and highly restrictive as to who you could use as a phone service
based on your area.  Only the highly dense markets had more than a couple
choices, and due to the lack of choice you had no option but to pay the
"low low price of $0.99/minute" long distance rates, (or lower if you
waited till after 7PM).

Sound familiar?

With the updated readings of the regulations came about in the 80's and
90's, the lines leading to the home were further opened up to competition
and allowed for different long-distance carriers.  As the market flooded
with options for consumers, prices began to decrease.  And as prices
decreased, long distance providers ended up looking for ways to service
more consumers with the same equipment.  I'll go out on a limb and guess
that the digital and packet-switched networks our Internet relies on today
was greatly sped up (inadvertently) by these changes and had a large part
in driving the technology forward than if simple competition had been the
only measure.

Just my $0.02 worth - I'll get off my soapbox.

Dan

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 2:18 AM, Aric Aasgaard <aric at omahax.com> wrote:

> I would much rather deal with Verizon and Cox than a federal government
> agency.  For example you cannot call them up and say, I don't really like
> this, I am going to go with a different government service provider.
>
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