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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (5799)	6/8/2004 11:50:08 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Hi Dan, George and I don't always agree on some basic issues w.r.t. competition in the loop. Oddly, from my perspective, anyway, he's aligned himself with the RBOCs from what I can tell, staunchly aligned with the administration in Washington, trusting that if the RBOCs are ^not^ forced to open up their copper plant and optical distribution to competitors, then they would be more likely to innovate and expand the reach of their broadband services far more quickly than otherwise. Two things: First, Innovation and the spreading broadband services is what they should be doing in -ANY- event, no? Instead, we see them saying, "This is my ball and if you don't play my way, we don't play at all." What needs to be answered here, and it's a subjective call at best, is, Does sharing facilities satisfy the public good? Or is it just a means to foist private assets from a monopoly, whose monopoly powers are actually contingent on them meeting criteria to satisfy the public good! And so does the circle go. And secondly, at some point it becomes more efficient for the incumbents to actually use new technologies of their own choosing, capitalizing on newer topologies, and disseminating new services for their own benefit as well as the customers', and it's cheaper and more profitable for them over the long run to use said new capabilities than to continually replace the old. I view this as a tacit, sometimes egregiously blatant, form of extortion. This, irrespective of competition, and because their aging copper plant will require refurbishment or replacement at some point anyway, even in the absence of competition. I'll post to George on his GTF board and see if he'll join us here to defend his position in what could be an interesting discussion. FAC frank@fttx.org