It's just CFR -- Copper Fiber and Radios vs Telecom?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: January 29, 2007 12:14:00 AM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: It's just CFR -- Copper Fiber and Radios vs Telecom?

I just posted http://www.frankston.com/?Name=OurCFR to ask why we  
have to pay a service for the fixed assets in our neighborhoods.



Yes, I’m oversimplifying and am working on longer pieces that drill  
down on the details but for now we need a strong dose of simple truth  
rather than wallowing in endless debates about who should own our  
basic arteries and how much they should charge us to use them.



Back in the old days we’d just run our own wires to connect phones  
and terminals and later we used coax and radios to do our own  
networking. The ESS was just another computer that happened to be  
designed to run a telephony app. We seem to have forgotten all we  
knew and accept the idea that we have to pay someone for each bit.  
The more I think about it the stranger it is. Imagine if you tried to  
charge LAN users for each bit.



Having Verizon tell me I have to use their router to get their TV  
service and watching them run RG-6 to get IP to my Set Top Boxes  
brought this all home – literally.



By framing it in terms of CFR I hope to make things very simple and  
avoid getting lost in side issues. It reminds of me the first ATT  
divestiture and the warnings that we’d never be able to make a  
telephone call again.



CFR is simple and removes the mystery. We can then wonder why a small  
number of incumbent service providers (we shouldn’t call them  
carriers) own our fixed assets and then charge us to use them for  
local bits let alone to connect to the rest of the world.



Looking at it this way the whole debate over network neutrality and  
broadband seems very confused and this confusion service to protect  
the incumbents from serious scrutiny.



Ownership doesn’t mean we climb up the poles ourselves (unless we  
want to) – it means we can hire companies to install and maintain and  
we don't to pay a monthly fee for what we already own. It also means  
we can share and immediately get complete wireless coverage without  
treating muni-WiFi as another expensive adventure (http:// 
www.frankston.com/?name=WiFiEdge).







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