I am still waiting for a response from Molly to have the opportunity to do a guest column on CNET or have a podcast debate... but they don't seem to have the same jounalistic standard of fair play that NPR and most other news organizations do. Equal Time held hostage day 14.
Ah my friend Chris, you too are being literalist. You worked for FCC Chairman Mike Powell at the FCC and know that Reed Hundt crafted UNE-P out of statutory language that did not allow it. It took a decade of court challenges to clean up that mess!
Reed Hundt's UNE-P hyper-regulation was not in the law but poorly drafted legislation like Snowe-Dorgan allowed it to happen. You know that there is huge room for interpretation and mischief in even a few inartfully worded sentences. Remember 251c3 of the Telecom Act?
Chris you know better than most that this is not about what the language literally says as drafted, it is how it is implemented and interpreted by regulators and the courts, and who is doing the interpreting.
Frankly the problem is what a Reed Hundt-minded person, like Commissioner Michael Copps would do with this language if he were FCC Chairman.
The paying twice argument is spurious as well. The value chain means that people technically pay for many things twice or even more than that. Rhetorical gibberish.
In talking about the 95% duopoly number, why are you not completely open and tell people what the market used to be like? It used to be a dial-up monopoly! Then competition policy encouraged cable modem competition and then that encouraged cut-priced DSL at lower than dial-up rates. It is also encouraging satellite broadband used by over a quarter of million americans, wireless broadband, WiFi used by miilions, WiMax, BPL -- the list of emerging competitive broadband alternatives is exploding -- fueled by Moore's law advances which lowers the cost of competitive entry.
Be more informative when you throw around the 95% duopoly charge. You know that is static analysis that would get you thrown out of the FCC, DOJ or FTC for being simplistic and not accurately dynamic. You know all experts look at the direction of competition not a static misleading snapshot. Do consumers have more broadband choice than they did in the past you bet! Are they going to have more choices in the near future? you bet!
You have been around too many cable bashers in your new NN crowd. Many of them think free markets and competition are bad words.
