OT> "I challenge anyone to do a 100-mile sprint with a piano on your back," Charters said. "That's what the FCC is." Digital upstarts blame telcos for telecom holdups.
By Sandra Gittlen
Network World Fusion, 10/1/98
San Francisco - Thank goodness there was no
mud. Otherwise participants in today's ComNet
'98 session "Digital warriors want the Baby Bells'
blood" would have been wrestling in it.
"The digital warriors have gotten the blood of the
Baby Bells," said Bert Halprin, chairman of
YourTel, Inc. in McLean, Va. "But they've turned
into junky beggars ... and are asking for special
treatment."
Halprin was one of six panelists lambasting each
other for today's telecom holdups. Cable
proponent Milo Medin, chief technology officer at
@Home Network in Redwood City, Calif.,
slammed the regional Bell operating companies
for getting bogged down in regulatory and
standards debates. He said the new entrants into
the market such as competitive local exchange
carriers and cable companies have a Silicon
Valley mindset that avoids slowdowns and sparks
quick turnaround times.
U.S. West executive John Charters tried to tout
his company's quick time to market with DSL
services, but was promptly shot down. "Our
installers would get big hugs from customers," said
Charters, senior vice president of Internet
Services and Application Development at the
Denver-based company.
"It's taken customers six weeks to get DSL
service, that's why you're getting hugs," Medin
said.
Qwest President Lewis Wilks backed Medin up,
adding the only thing flawless in U.S. West's
service was its billing.
"We went to market with a product that was
early," Charters said. "We were the first RBOC
to aggressively deploy DSL; we didn't wait for
standards."
But Medin said there are ways around the
beleaguered standards process. He said when the
cable industry needed a standard and the IEEE
was taking too long, the cable companies got
together and created the data over cable
standard.
BellSouth Vice President Bill Smith said it is not
only the standards process that constrains the
RBOCs - there's also the Federal
Communications Commission.
"I challenge anyone to do a 100-mile sprint with a
piano on your back," Charters said. "That's what
the FCC is."
Medin contended that regulatory oversight is
necessary because the telcos would do
"unconscionable things." He added that at some
point, when competition is greater, the
marketplace will be able to monitor the industry.
The telcos refuted charges that new services will
ruin their existing services. "We'll deploy new
services even if they cannibalize other services,"
Smith said. "Just because ADSL is available
doesn't mean that people are going to ditch their
T-1s." |
