Re: Should we oppose the Data Superhighway/NII?

["Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>]

Mike Godwin says:
> I agree about the potential for it to be free, but, I gotta tell you, the
> monopolists running the cable systems in this country have no inclination
> to share that nearly free bandwidth with you, even if you're willing to
> pay for access to it.

Wouldn't the solution then be to eliminate the capacity of local
municipalities to grant cable monopolies? Fiber is compact -- five or
even twenty cable companies could coexist happily in New York (where I
live) if the city didn't grant "franchises", which it charges
exhorbitantly for. With large scale competition between cable
companies, monopolies would no longer be a problem.

> In order to get to a world in which free markets can meet our demand for
> high-bandwidth connectivity, we have to dig ourselves out from the 
> market-failure position we're in now.

Isn't the problem in question the result of government granted,
rather than natural, monopolies? Isn't it thus wrong to call it a
"market failure"? Seems more like yet another government failure.

Perry