IP: Re: Who Wants to Be a Monopoly?

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 10:48:30 -0600
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu, ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com
>From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
>Subject: Re: IP: Who Wants to Be a Monopoly?
>
>At 08:03 AM 5/28/2000, Dave Farber wrote:
>
> >>http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000528mag-wordimage.html
> >
> >WORD & IMAGE BY MAX FRANKEL
> >Who Wants to Be a Monopoly?
> >Beware the media moguls who hog both medium and message.
>
>The author of this piece echoes a strategy which I've been advocating
>for several years: separate control of monopoly infrastructure from
>the services and content that "ride" upon it.
>
>For example, if local telphone infrastructure -- the "last mile" --
>were owned by a company whose sole business were renting that last
>mile of wire, it would have a strong incentive to rent that
>infrastructure to all comers rather than hoarding it so as to
>provide vertically integrated services. We'd have friendly --
>in fact, eager -- landlords rather than hostile monopolies seeking
>to prevent competition. Ditto in the cable business: there would
>be no issues regarding open access if the cable plant were open
>to all comers.
>
>The Federal Communications act of 1996 -- which was promoted, in
>fact, by the ILECS -- was flawed in that it created an environement
>in which it was not in the best interest of the most powerful players
>to allow competition. And, alas, in which those players could quash
>competition. It is time to learn from this failure and do the right
>thing.
>
>--Brett Glass