John, you tempt me to make a political dissertation. Yes, a regulated market with the FCC demanding price plans be approved by them could well be a show-stopper. With the new world of deregulation being spread around the world in telecommunications, the failure of FCC C-block mucking about with the market and a general tenor of government rollback world wide and the associated acknowledgement that supply and demand is the actual arbiter of prices whether governments or anyone likes it or not, I wouldn't bet that the FCC would stand in the way of a pricing plan which gives consumers really cheap prices.
They would be in breach of the anti-trust laws which prevent pricing collusion, which are intended to protect consumer interests, [I just made that up, but I guess some can tell!] The reason for the requirement for pricing plan approvals might not totally be to maintain salaries in the FCC, but have an actual purpose to pretend to protect consumer interests. What could be more deregulated than consumers setting their own pricing? The mathematics which gets fed into the basestation could be submitted as the pricing plan.
I have to admit that you raised a very scary idea which is indeed a showstopper around the world. Government edict. I've seen how poor India is thanks to the government's alleged protection of Indians from wicked foreigners and the evil British in particular. But even there, they are making modest moves towards getting off people's backs.
If the government DOES say "no way" to a subscriber priced system, I guess I would have to pay you the US$100. But it doesn't seem a foregone conclusion. Even with the FCC. The decision by the FCC majority over NextWave and the C-block was a pretty hard-nosed "they bid, make them pay!" They might grow to love markets. The current Chairman is going [gone?] so the laws of future auctions to be set by FCC remains a question, be they subscriber or frequency bidders.
I bet on a more free market approach.
Good point though and one I hadn't thought of. Isn't the USA the land of freemarkets, free trade, individualism, private enterprise, capitalism, freedom and all that stuff we hear about? Isn't it the Japanese who restrict trade? Heck, the USA sounds positively Stalinist.
Mqurice |
