The issue is local to long access, not bundling. It is the old problem that the '96 Act was assembled to address. The problem was that the FCC had no problem with the ATT monopoly for 50 years, but when it was busted up, not for any Sherman anti trust reasons, it left a gerrymandered situation where the FCC drew the lines for fairness. The FCC knew that you can't have a free market unless it's fair and only the FCC knows what is fair. The FCC personnel were trained at the universities, so they know that they have an important Galbraithian tradition to smash the greedy capitalist pigs.
However, you can't make a profit in a fair market because no one will take the extra risk to create innovative products where there is an arbitrary FCC imposed constraint on the profit that may come from the endeavor. The result is stalemate. No one does anything. Isn't that more important of a situation to have, stagnation, than to have some big company actually become profitable? Why, that's against the great American tradition of evolution by failure. We can't have anything that goes against tradition.
The FCC can do NOTHING. Every possible avenue compromises that great tradition. The SBC-Ameritech merger is the key. They won't allow it because the socialists on the Board can't see where it will benefit the consumer. If they can't see it, it can't be done. They can only allow what their great intellects see.
They can see T-TCI, but to directly permit it could be seen to hurt someone. They can't allow anything that might hurt someone. Hurtfulness will not be allowed in their good society unless that which is being hurt is appropriately designated as a bad guy. The RBOC's are bad guys because they refuse to engage in unprofitable ventures. T can no longer be deemed a bad guy for various reasons, but the FCC can't let antiquating copper technologies get hurt even if the merger partner isn't a bad guy.
Therefore, the FCC can do nothing. They're in a box. What will happen is the merger will go through de facto with the FCC continually threatening to do this and do that unless T cooperates in other possibly unconnected ways. It will be a working or silent compromise. That way the FCC doesn't draw the ire of the two sides of public opinion. The FCC is most concerned about their image as protectors of the people, not about a bunch of specious nonsense like Constitutional law and their pledge to uphold it. |
