Supreme Court Does It Again

[bruce_oneal]

check this out: supreme court rules in favor of big media

and limited competition is good? man, we (the little people) are getting 'it' in this country and no one seems to mind.

[RedScare]

It appears that capitalism is good, unless it causes me to compete for business. Then, capitalism is bad.

Read closely who supported the cable companies in their quest to limit competition (phone companies).

[kjb434]

The argument also fell on property rights (which is ironic with there other ruling getting rid of property rights).

The cable companies paid the investment to build these large networks. Cable companies in many locations are forced to install lines without the customers paying for them. They spend all this money for these lines and now they have no rights to them.

Also, cable as been label and informational technology and not a communications technology like phone lines. This argument can be debated on and on though.

And we can't debate that cable companies are giving phone service so they are providing communication. A digital phone from the cable is only digital from the house to the junction which maybe only 1000 ft away. Then the cable line patches into the phone network and your call is like every other call. The cable company is paying like phone companies by paying user fees to tap into the phone lines.

Share cable lines are used when the services are like such as TVMax and Time Warner offering cable in Houston.

If cable companies are forced to share their lines, then they will not longer have to provide new cable lines to customers where cable service isn't currently available. The customer who's first in a neighbor hood will have to pay the hundreds of dollars or more for the new line. This would have happened to me in my neighborhood in the inner loop. No cable line existed in the subdivision (TC Jester immediately north of I-10). Because TimeWarner owns the cable lines in Houston, they are required to provide the lines if a potential customer asks for the service.

Cable companies in a frantic pace to beat DSL internet service are installing cable lines everywhere. Competition is alive and well. Cable is offering phone and internet and phone companies are now offering Satelite as an alternative to Cable. No monopoly really exists.

As technology redifines how we use the existin infrastructure for media and communication, the governance gets blurred. This ruling was one in a slough of many new rulings that will come soon. The may change in the future. The plaintiff in this case couldn't show that competition wasn't being stifled. If you read the various majority opinions and amicus briefs, you would see they went through various competitors to the cable companies. When the plaintiff can show that competition does not exist, this ruling will change.

[editor]

I'm conflicted on this issue, so let me play Devil's Advocate a little bit.

The cable companies spent millions and millions of dollars building their cable systems. Why should they share them with other people? Let other entrepreneurs come along and build their own cable systems. The reason cable companies were originally given exclusive franchises to cover cities or neighborhoods was because of the fear that if multiple cable companies were allowed there would be wires and poles everywhere. That was perfectly logical thinking for the 1970's when these franchises were awarded. But now technology has advanced with fiber optics, wireless, and satellite. You can have ten or 12 cable companies running through a conduit the size of one from the 1970's. You can also have a cable company with no cable at all using microwave technology or satellite delivery or even TV over your telephone or power line. Competition is good, but it's not like the old days when the phone company had to be forced to open its lines to competition because there was no other choice. There are lots of choices these days. They just have to be built out.

I recently moved to a new home. I have dozens of choices for high speed internet service. The building I live in has T1 lines terminating in ethernet jacks in each room of my apartment. If I don't want their service (which would be dumb, because it's fast and free), I can get it from my cable company, or from SBC DSL, or Speakeasy DSL, or six other DSL companies, or I can go satellite for my internet, or I can use Verizon's 1xRTT wireless, or sniff the T-Mobile hot spot in the next building, or any of about 30 other companies offering microwave solutions with antennae ranging in sizes from pizza boxes to a deck of cards. The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet.

Now, let me point out the downside:

Small companies go out of business. I'm sure Verizon's high-speed wireless will be around for a while because they're a huge company. But of the 30 microwave internet companies serving my neighborhood, almost all of them have under 50 employees. Who knows how long they'll be around (although, most have been offering the service for upwards of five years, which is longer than Verizon's been in the market). Further, there is cable competition in this area, and one of the cable companies recently declared bankruptcy. So what happens to all those people who are hooked up to that cable company? It can be very messy. But remembering back to my Altair/TRS-80/Commodore 64 days... when has technology NOT been messy?

[kjb434]

good post.

This issue is clearly not simple.

I'm wondering if the exclusivity of the cable company to a metropolitan (or small town) can be eventually absolved to where competing companies will have to allowed to use the same line.

[editor]

Probably not. If a municipality tried to order a cable company to open their lines to competition, the cable company could complain to the FCC, which would rule that the municipality doesn't have the authority to regulate cable transmissions.

OTOH, if they made eventually opening up the cable lines to other companies a condition of getting the contract in the first place, then the municipality would have a chance.