Curtis, first I want to say thank you for finally making your initial appearance here. In the past, while I was still on the fence on certain philosophical issues, from a networking perspective, that is --perhaps this would have happened anyway, most likely it would have, but I don't know that it would have happened as quickly-- you forced my hand during some light hearted banter to re-examine a number of precepts. I've been the better for it, ever since.
There's nothing quite so smarting as placing a stake in the ground when debating in public, and then having to defend it even if the position was only arbitrarily correct, and then getting turned around on the matter afterwards, when the light shined on some other, yet related, topic.
And such is one of the benefits of dialog'ing on the 'net.
------
Re: the stoginess amongst the club players, I would be a fool to disagree. However, we are beginning to see some movement by the postal telegraph organizations (PTOs) now, which suggest that some of them are starting to open up a bit, even if ever so slightly. While at the same time, granted, many of them are clamping themselves up, more than ever. But many of these are in still-developing countries, or in situations where freedoms do not reign.
But even those who are seeing the light are not doing so nary enough to cause even the slightest movement on the Richter. Due to the combined influences of the WTO mandates of two years ago concerning international accounting rates (after some arm twisting from the FCC and the US Commerce Dept.), and the effects of dereg and technological advancements (they are really terrified of VoIP, btw), we're hearing a slightly different tune from those old boys now, than we did as recently as a year ago.
You may recall at the time of the original O2 announcements there were similar discussions concerning the merits of consortia-based subsea undertakings versus wholly owned carrier undertakings here in SI and in the press. That argument is now being put to rest, IMO.
Regards, Frank Coluccio
|
