Mike - 'Ford builds cars. Chevrolet builds cars. Chyrsler builds cars. No young competitors demands access to their factories. If someone did, we think they would be nutty. And just think because of this competition between them, they can build a car in something like 20 man-hours. Pretty amazing how affordable a car has become with no government intervention.'
Exactly. Agreed. And to take your analogy a step further, one can view those cars as transport mechanisms. Cable, wireless, DSL, eventually FTTH will be different cars, produced by competitive forces: different forms of transmission.
But for reliable access, they have to go through the incumbents (or parallel/duplicate their infrastructure). That is a question of the highway, not the car. And at the end of that highway, for the vast majority of cars, is the incumbent.
I shouldn't have got into the question of rates, because that's a red herring.
The real issue is that the incumbents control the process of locating, with great reliability, any customer in the world.
If that is true, then they still have a monopoly. And they can still control who wins (including themselves).
That is all I'm saying. The claim that deregulation has broken the monopolies is a myth.
I cannot imagine what will break that monopoly: well, I can, but it would require measures so extreme as to make it unlikely.
So, the monopoly remains. If it is used unscrupulously (and many say it is) it will stifle innovation, and progress, that does not line the pockets of the incumbents. They can, if they wish, delay and impede others, while claiming progressively higher rates, as their business erodes. There is no need, or obligation for them to exercise the keen business sense and competitive outlook offered by their would-be competitors.
Regards,
Jim |
