re: @Home, it appears that there is a crisis taking place for about four million Internet users, as I type. Has anyone here had their service pulled yet (assuming you could reply here through dialup, of course)? How about you, rob v? btw, that was some last licks you got in there! ;)
Someone on another board asked, Doesn't anyone care that four million users are about to be cut off?" I replied with something that resembles the following:
Well, the courts should care, but apparently they don't. It's obscene what's happening here. Here's why. There is still a great divide in public policy thinking between the "public conveniences and necessities" assigned to the public telephone network (as provided by the local telco) and the services provided by ISPs and alternative carriers.
Now, one could argue that "the cable operator itself (juxtaposed with the telco as they usually are) wasn't cut off, it was the ISP that rides over their facilities who was cut off!" Right.
Here, again, it's a matter of perception, and the consequences that await you if popular perceptions are not on your side. Say, for example, that Home was providing a VoIP exchange service that users depended on. Take it one step further. Say that a user was using a voice service through the facility of Home in lieu of subscribing to their telco, and they were obtaining this voice service through a CASP (communications application service provider via IP) even though Home didn't support the service directly. Does this change things?
With convergence coming at us like a MAC Truck (really, folks... it is) one would think that the courts would reconsider its earlier regard for ISPs, in general, and look to assign a custodian who would stay on through a transition.
Lest we forget, some folks are now doing voice over the Internet (VoIP) and this will only increase with time. And many folks are abandoning their land lines in favor of their wireless services. And very soon even these wirelss services will be supported by VoIP, an Internet Protocol technology.
And let's not forget this one, the darling mantra of the regulators: Lifeline service.
Well, very soon lifeline services will be (some already aare for those who choose to be) dependent on Internet protocol-based service providers, just as they did on copper-based services in the past.
Someone coming in to assume a custodial role doesn't happen by magic, and @Home (or whomever finds themselves in this position) staff would still be required to stay on board in order to provide continuity of maintenance of their infrastructure until a graceful transition to someone else could occur. This, as opposed to someone coming in a la the National Guard and presuming to be able to do this for them like it was a no-brainer.
The present debacle that @Home users are bracing themselves for could not happen to ILEC users, but the courts have no problems allowing it to happen to an internet firm. An Internet firm, by the way, that should have succeeded, if only they were not born of dysfunctional parents.
FAC |
