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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (1722)	1/13/2001 7:36:16 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

re:"Los Angeles City Council members and mayoral candidates are swimming in a sea of cash from cable companies. City Atty. James Hahn, whose deputy drafted the contract that has now been indefinitely delayed, got at least $14,000 from cable giants AT&T and other cable lobbyists. So has Padilla, whose MIT background has helped him understand the issue but may have blinded him to the economic realities of the cable marketplace. " What can even be said. It's less than pathetic. The people that aren't able to get so-called broadband right now because of "incumbent neglect" may turn out to be in the best position for real broadband since this kind of trash won't be an issue. Living in a big city may be a broadband curse. Fortunately it's not true for every large city. A related turn of events happened in San Jose: a snip from: www4.nationalacademies.org "The story of Interfiber [] clearly illustrates the impact of [local] government regulatory actions. Interfiber proposed to provide fiber to the home for houses in a new housing development in San Jose, to be installed at the time of construction when the public right-of-way was still owned by the developer. However, the city council felt compelled to regulate this development (by requiring universal access, free community programming and such) to the point that the network project was abandoned. The city was compelled by the exposure to lawsuits from the incumbent operators (that had agreed to the previous concessions) because it was not otherwise imposing the same burden on the new player. This would be in violation of the “fair access” provision of telecommunication deregulation. Surely, no one intended this provision to give incentive to incumbent operators to agree to expensive concessions to local governments as a way to preclude new competitors, but this has been the effect. If a “greenfield” new housing development cannot be built with broadband last mile fiber even when the right-of-way land belongs to the developer and the developer is paying for the cost of this network, there is clearly something wrong. The “something” is the “fair access” provision and the dynamic it engenders. [end snip] Interfiber: interfiber.com