Broadband is not a new fire truck, and if Tell City passes a 30-year bond to build a network that is obsolete in five years, it will be stuck paying for an outmoded system. Private investment doesn't usually get stuck like that, as AT&T has a duty to its stockholders to stay competitive.

I'm a pretty conservative guy, but the waters get muddied very quickly when you start delving into the ugly monopolistic backroom politics of telecom. I'm very dubious of your statement above, for two reaons.

First of all, just because AT&T has a responsibility to its stockholders doesn't mean it has a responsibility to Tell City. AT&T would leave every two-bit cow town languishing in the tumbleweeds of telecom past if it weren't for some form of government intervention. How could it possibly be profitable to run a cable/fiber/microwave network to a random burg with 5 farmers so they can surf the 'net?

This is always the issue that telecom has had to grapple with, as all monopolistic utilities. How do you garuntee universal service and run a business at the same time? My answer is, probably not well in either case.

My only point is that mortgaging Tell City's future on visions of bags with dollar signs on the side is a very serious endeavour. In exactly the same way that people can complain about how land is allocated, the rights for building networks ought to be questioned.

AT&T, verizon and friends are all out to make a profit, and the first step to secure that is to make all the little guys roll over to their visions of the future.

It certainly seems to me that it is very much in the citizen's best interest to run thier own physical plant and trade for good access at the entry point. This seperates the profit interest from running the local plant from the inter-network connectivity. It might be difficult to run efficiently, but it would be interesting to see someone give it a shot before they sell out to Big Telecom.

By the way my second point from the first paragraph above was a question about AT&T's ability to run a network in the first place.

Is it not the case that the telecom companies have all been pretty much riding on the backs of those who installed the current infrastructre in place for awhile? Aside from Verizon fiber roll-outs in some places, the phone company hasn't exactly been a place of innovation (aside from the old Bell Labs days, days long gone and never to be back again).

I just wish the end-user could choose between many different companies without having them each run a line to his house. Some situations could be almost as good, like if some (relatively) trusted 3rd party ran the lines and provided plant service, while the end-user traded between major access companies.

Just want to remind everyone that AT&T was just bought out by SBC Communications (formerly Pacific Bell, one of the "baby bells"). Just to make it confusing, however, SBC then changed its name to "AT&T".

AT&T is probably the more marketable name.

grrr. the website didn't post my response to Anon. I'll summarize:

multiple companies CAN bring their products to the user without overbuilding. the 1996 telecom act requires reasonable leasing of existing infrastructure. Cable companies usually don't do it, though, which is one of the ills this bill seeks to remedy. The Fort Wayne mayor said something like "if we get a duopoly instead of Comcast's monopoly, the bill will have done its job."

Local governments have tried to build their own networks, with a significant failure rate, for the reason that they can't keep up. This isn't a water treatment plant that just needs basic upkeep every year; high-tech infrastructure is too high-maintenance for local governments to be trusted with it, unless the big boys can't or won't enter the market, in which case Tell City has no choice. In this instance, they'd still be able to make their own network under the bill. I agree that it's a tight question, and some local governments may be able to do it even with the passage of this bill, but the hope is that private investment will come so quickly as to make public high-speed unnecessary.

Since I work for a telecom company, take my comments with the apporpriate grains (or lick) of salt.

"Is it not the case that the telecom companies have all been pretty much riding on the backs of those who installed the current infrastructre in place for awhile?"

Yes and no. While POTS has not changed much in the last mile to consumers, there have been massive upgrades to the systems one step back from the last mile to offer DSL and other services. That being said cable companies haven't changed anything about their last mile, but their backend systems have been upgraded to offer high speed internet and interactive cable services.

Neither group has much interest in rolling out fiber or upgraded networks because current regulations force them to sublease their networks at rates they do not directly control, thus making them the 3rd party referenced above.

Verizon is taking a gamble in rolling out its all-fiber network thinking the laws will change before their network is out of the beta stage. SBC/AT&T has plans to roll fiber out to the node (the boxes in your back yards) first and then all fiber as the market demands (like current DSL penetration)

"current regulations force them to sublease their networks at rates they do not directly control, thus making them the 3rd party referenced above."

Yeah, I realize this is the current situation, and no one likes it. It is really a bad idea in every way, but there is not a reasonable alterative out there right now.

From rumblings in the Congress it sounds like "telecom act of 2006" is fomenting discord already. We will see if it significantly changes anything. Given the Republicans authored the 96 act, I'm not crossing my fingers too tightly.

This Verizon (and others) fiber roll-out should have started 10 years ago, and the next act of Congress will determine its fate. Hopefully the US won't fall behind other major nations in the distribution of major telecom infrastructure.

I wish there was more of the same attitude towards broadband as there is towards education. "Throw money at the problem, don't look at the results".

The current attitude towards all things telecom is "how can Big Telecom profit without screwing the little guy too much?"