Re: Should we oppose the

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

To: cypherpunks@toad.com

M >Just so. If you really believe that merely stopping regulation, 
M >*without anything else*, would restore competition to a market that's
M >been dominated by a government-supported monopoly or duopoly, then we 
M >simply must agree to disagree.

You mean to tell me that if the Feds just said -- the Local Loop monopoly 
no longer exists, we'll auction all the frequencies and get out of the 
business of regulating telecoms, no market would spring up.  Right now, 
there are 6 count them 6 possible suppliers for the Local Loop:

1) TPC
2) Cable
3) The Electric Company (yes the Electric Company)
4) Cellular
5) PCS
6) Digital Mobile Radio (you all saw the stories about Nextel?)

There are probably others I haven't heard of.  Looks like tons of 
suppliers to me.

M >Untrue. The cable providers often are putting up obstacles of their 
M >own, as are telco providers. The impossibility of Tim May's X-rated
M >cable channel illustrates this point. The market can't function

It seems to me that many of the alt.sex.whatever subscribers are using the 
PSTN to satisfy their desires.  As long as we have a switched network to 
the home or office, we can switch whatever we like over it.  How can a 
provider stop a porno enterprise network from supplying encrypted signal 
to subscribers.  It won't even be able to tell it's going on.

M >Telling every would-be X-rated cable viewer to build his own cable
M >system is not a solution.

That's just what we do every day on the PSTN or Internet.

DCF

--- WinQwk 2.0b#1165