[Info-vax] US Broadband

[Scott Dorsey]

Stephen Hoffman  <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>On 2015-03-04 14:08:35 +0000, Scott Dorsey said:
>
>> Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>> 	kludge at panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:
>>>> 
>>>> And THAT is a problem that you can bring up with the PUC.
>>> 
>>> Time to leave that alternate reality and come back to the real world.  
>>> The PUC is there to rubber stamp rate increases and couldn't care less 
>>> about the customers.
>> 
>> I have had very good luck getting the PUC involved here in Virginia.  
>> Your state may be different.  A letter to your governor can do wonders.
>
>Telco copper circuits and free copper pair shenanigans aside, the 
>Virginia SCC (PUC) has no jurisdiction over Internet communications.  

Right.  The PUC has jurisdiction over the T-1 circuit that goes from you to
your ISP, only.  Negotiating the internet service is between you and the ISP.

><http://www.scc.virginia.gov/puc/index.aspx> 
><http://www.scc.virginia.gov/puc/resources.aspx>.   Other than on 
>copper connections, AFAIK there's presently also no competition with 
>optical or other not-copper links; there's no wholesale access 
>requirement. 
><http://www.fcclawblog.com/2015/01/articles/fcc/headin-down-the-copperhead-road-the-fcc-proposes-new-rules-for-legacy-infrastructure/> 

Correct.  We are talking about copper connections.  Mr. Gunshannon has stated
that he cannot obtain a T-1 where he is living.

And there IS a wholesale access requirement on T-1 circuits.  They are not
like internet service.

>As for referencing state-level PUCs as a solution, the US has 
>federalized broadband and internet access regulations, and the FCC has 
>seemingly only just started to ponder whether broadband should be 
>considered a utility and should be ubiquitous; the modern equivalent to 
>the rural electrification and rural telephone efforts of an earlier 
>century.  The FCC "common carrier" transition — once we can read and 
>can litigate the details of that decision, and can learn where the FCC 
>thinks things are now headed — may be a start.   Extending broadband is 
>going to be a hugely expensive and multi-decade project, and resolving 
>what's currently a patchwork of incompatible hardware and incompatible 
>"last mile" equipment designs and placating the competing "last mile" 
>carriers won't happen quickly, if at all.

We aren't talking about consumer broadband, we are specifically talking about
leased-line point to point circuits in Mr. Gunshannon's neighborhood.

>In short, the US FCC hasn't yet gotten to the point of selecting a 
>standard track gauge for the Internet railroad, and we're probably 
>going to get to go through the whole CDMA and GSM to LTE mess yet again.

Everything you say, sadly, is true.  But it is not relevant to Mr. Gunshannon's
statement.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."