The definition of the word "monopoly" is the problem: < Such organizations in europe also happen to be pretty much against ALL monopolies - government and private sector "virtual" monopolies alike.>
Any transaction can be defined as a monopoly with a tight enough definition. If "the market" is defined tightly enough, no targeted victim can escape the definition.
The government is, by definition a monopoly and Neelie wields monopoly power because there can't be two laws. So, whatever her previous claims to be against monopoly, she is happy to wield the power of the government monopoly and forcibly extract monopoly rent from Intel and Microsoft and Qualcomm. Hypocrisy is a good word to describe that behaviour.
The primary aspect of a market is that people can charge what the market will bear and extract as much rent as they can from the buyers. Having Neelie and her government department setting prices isn't "a market". That's how the USSR operated - the Kremlin set prices and decided what to produce.
Microsoft has never had a monopoly. There have always been competing software makers, and pen and paper never went away, so there were alternatives to writing on keyboards. Even if we narrow "the market" to exclude pen and paper, and just consider "software" as "the market", Microsoft never had more than a tiny share of that market. Even if we narrow "the market" to "software that runs on computers which weigh less than 20 kg", Microsoft has never had more than a tiny share of the market. Keep tightening the definition and sure enough, Microsoft has a half-baked monopoly if we define "the market" to be "software which runs on particular Intel ASICs".
Pro-market means leaving people to make as much money as they can, with the sky the limit. It is not a market when a government department takes over the company and defines prices, quality, production and so on.
See what I mean about "defining the market tightly enough to define a "monopoly"". Here you are listing things which are clearly competitors to fibre because I am in fact using them as a competitive alternative to fibre:
<just some of the alternative technologies you cited - imho, they are no replacement for FTTH - why ?
1) WiFi doesn't give you a guaranteed connection. WiFi Links are subject to signal impairment (think of rain, fog etc.)
2) Calling DSL a substitute for FTTH is a generous overstatement. I'm in Austria (Europe) and yes, I have TWO DSL lines here into my flat. But I'm still limited to aggregate bandwidth of around 20M/2M (down/uplink). If I were in HongKong, I would enjoy 100Mbit SYMMETRIC FTTH access for the same fee I shell out for my two DSL lines plus get IPTV on no charge. >
My Wi-Fi is working fine as are hundreds of them around NZ. DSL works fine too. It's not as quick as fibre, but it's competitive, obviously, because so many people are using it instead of fibre and they won't pay enough to make fibre a very attractive technology urgently rolled out by companies.
Vector could easily roll out fibre, but because the government won't let them make sufficient profit [being against so-called monopolies], Vector doesn't do it. So, the government decides to do it themselves in one of those so-called PPPs. They'll just waste a fortune and do no better than Vector or one of the others already involved with fibre all over the place. No doubt the government's fibre will go to the houses of their friends and other uneconomic places.
The government should just fire the Commerce Commission which stopped Vector investing, and let the market decide what is wanted where and how much it should be. The city councils which own the land can collect pretty good monopoly rents because fibre providers will have to get their permission to put the fibre over or under the ground unless there are existing contracts which will allow Vector or Telecom or Watercare [sewerage] to piggy-back fibre on their other services.
When we bought this house a decade ago, good ADSL was a number one requirement. The next move will require fibre [most likely]. Moving house is competition for dial up, ADSL, satellite, WiMAX, lasers, LTE and other wireless, and fibre, though most people don't think it is.
In Auckland, the government is part way through making an even bigger monopoly by combining the various cities in Auckland into one biggie, so one area won't be able to do something sensible with fibre. The government appointed Auckland monopoly will decide it all. People will have to move away from Auckland if they want to escape the Auckland City Council's predatory clutches.
Mqurice |
