[IP] more on INTERESTING ARGUMENTS DJF The Myth of Scarcity, or Verizon-MCI is Doomed

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: vijay gill <vgill@vijaygill.com>
Date: May 3, 2005 5:55:24 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Cc: Ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on INTERESTING ARGUMENTS DJF The Myth of  
Scarcity, or Verizon-MCI is Doomed


Dr. Farber,
  I thought I'd clarify my position some more after talking with Dana
  futher.

What I was trying to get across was not that there is scarcity in
the backbone side. I stand as living proof that any idiot can build one.
The point was that just building a backbone is not enough. You must be
able to get customers on-net and in our current environment, building
new "pipes" to the end user is harder than it appears when
whiteboarding, for the reasons stated earlier.

The ilecs/cablecos have the pipes to the end user, and thus can and
will dominate _in the current regulatory environment_.  Having tried to
go down the route of using telco unbundled loops to provide service in
previous jobs, it was simply not going to happen. The ilecs had  
absolutely
no incentive to play fair, up to and including union people cutting  
fibers.

What I am saying is that _unless_ the last mile so to speak is freely
accessible to _everyone_, all the fiber in the world is not going to
help you. The issue is getting people on net, not building the net. And
with the current regulatory environment, the people who build into the
last mile will end up the winners. I am currently seeing this happen
from the wrong side of the battle (i.e, my company is being squeezed by
the very same people (ilec/cablecos)).

By the same token, building into the last mile is not easy at all, as I
mentioned in my original post. It needs a lot of money and effort. Just
saying that there is a lot of fiber in the ground means that there is no
scarcity is oversimplifying the argument a little too much.


/vijay



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