roundtable: Re: Telcos providing their own video

roundtable: Re: Telcos providing their own video

Re: Telcos providing their own video

Jonathan Prince (aa078@seorf.ohiou.edu)
Fri, 20 Jan 1995 02:47:11 -0500 (EST) 

From: Jonathan Prince <aa078@seorf.ohiou.edu>
Message-Id: <199501200747.CAA24701@ra.cs.ohiou.edu>
Subject: Re: Telcos providing their own video
To: roundtable@cni.org
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 02:47:11 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <950119211503_71161.1722_EHB219-1@CompuServe.COM> from "Matt York" at Jan 19, 95 09:55:35 pm


> Similar regulations are already in place for cable companies, yet they 
> are essentially meaningless. Section 612 of the cable act compels cable 
> operators to set aside not 50%, but a mere 10% of their system for 
> non-discriminatory access. Less than minute fraction of this capacity 
> is in use across the nation. Why would the telephone companies be more 
> diligent at providing nondiscriminatory access? 
> 
> What is it about video that justifies the evasion of common carrier 
> status? If the railroad industry developed a new method of transporting 
> heavy cargo would they be able to then transport their own content? 


     If America still had a viable railroad system this sounds like a
great idea, IMHO.  Imagine what a 'nondiscriminatory access' provision
could have meant to a developing western United States many years ago. 
Imagine what it could have meant for public transport and perhaps 
America wouldn't have it's current automobile fetish?  Imagine being 
able to breathe fresher air in our cities.  AMTRAK would have been 
deveopede ons ago!

     Add to that, imagine a 10% 'nondiscriminatory access' to the
telegraph that evolved with the railroads!  Wow!

     After all, just like the railroads, the Internet could not have
developed without a whole lot of guidence, direction, funding,
encouragements, out-right 'land' give-aways at the taxpayer's expense. 
Seems only only logical that the taxpayer get something in return.


	Jonathan

-- 
._____________________________________________________.
|"The suddenness of the leap from hardware to software|  Jonathan Prince
|cannot but produce a period of anarchy and collapse, |  Rural Action - VISTA
|especially in the developed countries."  - McLuhan   |  SEORF
'-----------------------------------------------------'  aa078@seorf.ohiou.edu
 URL: gopher://seorf.ohiou.edu:2001/hGET/seorf.stuff/Com/xx004/.com-man.html

[CNI Home Page]