Subject: Re: APT Funding
Robert Cannon (cannon@dc.net)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 21:53:25 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 21:53:25 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199806070153.VAA00579@malady.cais.net> To: roundtable@cni.org From: Robert Cannon <cannon@dc.net> Subject: Re: APT Funding
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 21:53:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Savage <csavage@CRBLAW.COM>
FWIW, while I think that disclosure of major funding sources (if any) is
a good thing, I guess I also think that policy-oriented people in DC are
generally astute enough to reverse engineer hidden biases (if any).
The official (well, semi-official) public policy of the country for
several decades was in effect a nanny-state telecom system. Let there
be one big monopoly, restrain its worst abuses of consumers, and
encourage/direct it to do good things to take care of us all. This
policy obviously was in a certain tension with rugged American
individualism, not to mention our cultural support for open competition.
Combined with technology (microwaves, satellites, integrated circuits,
optical fiber, and digital signal processing), our ideals of
individualism and competition have created a new dominant telecom
policy: more or less, "let the games begin."
The reason that (IMHO) APT's view of Section 706 relief is wrong is not
because APT is funded by RBOCs. APT's view of Section 706 relief is
wrong because it leaps to the conclusion that the way to solve the
high-speed access "problem" is to encourage the big players in POTS to
become the big players in xDSL. The underlying assumption -- "Just tell
the big rich guys to take care of us" -- to my mind arises from a
worldview that still (perhaps unconsciously) assumes that a government
command/monopoly model works. Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall and
the Republican take-over of the House, it does not exactly shock me that
there are people who are not yet fully with the open, competitive,
techno-optimist program that many (most?) "net partisans" like me share.
It's a big country. Lots of people have lots of different views.
So if I were an RBOC looking for support for a plan that would hand this
new, potentially huge market to me (and which, if I don't get it, could
reduce my traditional monopoly to rubble a lot faster than is built into
my business plan), I would cast about for people whose views lead to
that result. And I would give them money. In other words, IMHO, APT is
not wrong because it is funded by the RBOCs. APT is funded by the RBOCs
because it is wrong, and, in particular, wrong in a way that benefits
the RBOCs.
My point being, I do not assume that in some secret smoke-filled room
(I guess nobody does smoke-filled rooms any more), APT and the RBOCs sat
down and created the master plan to ensure RBOC dominance of the xDSL
world. To the contrary, I assume that APT folks sincerely (although in
my view, erroneously) believe that a world where the big guys get
maximum encouragement to provide the best in technological goodies *to
everyone* (no redlining, no ugly market-based distributional problems)
is better than one where the goodies roll out on the basis of
entrepreneurship and technical innovation.
So, while I think that APT's views lend aid and comfort to entrenched
monopolists, my expectation is that APT sincerely holds them. And I
bet the more thoughtful among APT have either privately (or maybe
publicly at some point) stared at the implicit deal with the devil
they are making and concluded that it is a better deal than
betting/hoping/assuming that the wonders of marketplace competition will
make it all work out, particularly for the poor, the uneducated, and the
technically unsophisticated. Again, I disagree with that view, but
holding it does not (IMHO) make one naive, venal, or nuts. It only
makes one wrong.
So, in the "oil on troubled waters" department, I would invite the APT
folks (on the list, right? If not, Bob, please forward) to address the
following substantive (non ad hominem) questions:
1. Is it correct that you believe that marketplace competition in the
high-speed access world will not result in a fair and rapid deployment
of such capabilities to all, but, instead, primarily to the affluent
and sophisticated? On what do you base that view?
2. Do you agree that creating signinficant incentives to entrenched
monopolists to dominate this area will likely slow down the process of
technological innnovation and (ultimately maybe more important) price
reductions for the key technologies needed? If not, please explain
why. (My point here being, I think that the poor and technologically
unsophisticated will actually get spiffier services more quickly, net,
via robust competition, as opposed to RBOC "incentives.")
3. Looking at the RBOC's post-divestiture record in delivering on their
various promises to wire the country with fiber, provide a viable ISDN
service everywhere, etc., etc., what basis do you have for believing
that merely giving the RBOCs an "incentive" to provide ubiquitous xDSL
(instead of a direct, mandatory order) will actually produce decent
results for the people you are trying to help. (My point here being,
while the RBOCs are in some sense the inheritors of the true "universal
service" ethic, I think they are a bit more sophisticated and
self-interested type of beast than the old "Bell System" was.) And if
getting a direct, mandatory order is not in the cards politically (which
it probably isn't), what leads you to conclude that mere "incentives"
and "encouragement" *for them* is the next-best solution *for the people
you are trying to help?*
Any answers, thoughts, counter-arguments, or explanations of where I
have totally missed crucial facts and/or policy viewpoints would be much
appreciated.
Chris S.
Forwarded by:
Robert Cannon
<cannon@dc.net>
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