roundtable: Re: ISSUE LISTNAMEHEREgt; commodity pricing

roundtable: Re: ISSUE > commodity pricing

Re: ISSUE > commodity pricing

Fred G Athearn (fga@world.std.com)
Thu, 9 Mar 1995 09:08:31 -0500 

Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 09:08:31 -0500
From: fga@world.std.com (Fred G Athearn)
Message-Id: <199503091408.AA23231@world.std.com>
To: fga@world.std.com, roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: ISSUE > commodity pricing


     I have big problems with this "issue" because the question
seems to assume that the market we are talking about will be
something that is not a competitive markek, but one whose
providers are no longer regulated by price tariffs.
 
     In place of tariffs we are called on design a few simple
anti-trust or anti-price discrimination rules.
 
     Given the fact that whatever Newt may want, the position of
the present administration (last time I heard) was still that
regulation will stay until competition exists, it seems like bad
leadership for us to now try to map out a system where
unregulated monopolies would be somewhat controlled by a few
rules about pricing methods.
 
     If we are just talking here about some future time when
there is a true free market for telecommunications then we can
expect, almost by definition, to have commodity pricing.  Only
a monopolist or a gangster is in a position to demand a piece of
the action (aka value pricing).
 
     Is there something I'm not seeing here?

Fred Athearn
<fga@world.std.com>

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