Supreme Court To Investigate If AT&T Is Violating Antitrust Laws With Wholesale DSL Pricing
from the competition? dept
In most cases, antitrust rules seem fairly bogus. They often are used to try to punish companies for being successful, even if they're not actually abusing any kind of monopoly situation. However, there are some cases where antitrust laws become a lot more interesting, when it comes to governments effectively granting monopoly rights to certain companies. That's what's happened with many telco services, where the government has basically provided monopoly "rights of way" to certain companies to put down infrastructure in places that no other company can. These rights of way were supposed to come with "common carrier" status, that would require the provider to allow equal access, without discrimination, even to companies that might "compete" in some manner or another with the core infrastructure provider. A few years back, however, the FCC made sure to classify broadband services as information services rather than telco services -- even if they were using the same infrastructure. This was great for the telcos, since information services weren't subject to common carrier restrictions like telco services were.Yet, those broadband services still benefited from those rights of way, and they used their new found lack of restrictions to raise wholesale prices to smaller ISPs who offered services on their networks. A series of lawsuits followed, including an appeals court ruling that found that AT&T was abusing monopoly rights to offer prices that were simply out of line with market pricing -- making it effectively impossible for any other provider to compete. AT&T has appealed and now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. This could be very important, as it could force a company like AT&T, which relies on these government granted rights of way, to offer up access to their network to potential competitors who could offer more reasonably priced services. This also could have a major impact on both the overall competitiveness of broadband in the US as well as network neutrality -- since having more competition would make it harder for AT&T and others to violate net neutrality.
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Filed Under: antitrust, common carrier, supreme court, wholesale pricing
Companies: at&t, linkline
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that's too difficult
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Oh the Possibilities
Here's hoping SCOTUS keeps with their majority of decisions, and do the right thing.
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lets see
can you see AT&Ts point here?
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Re: lets see
Say you and I agree that you will give me your Ferrari to use as I please, as long as I drive you to/from work, gratis, every day for the rest of your life. Would you accept the current gas prices as an excuse for me to stop taking you? How about if just want you to buy half the gas, or walk a mile to meet me?
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Re: lets see
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Re: lets see
And what was the government subsidy for then, higher CEO bonuses ?
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Competition...Oh Yeah.
That's why I disagree with Mike on the separate issue of broadband service throughput caps. If caps become common, and there IS competition, what we'll see is lower tiers of service offered, like a "entry level" $10/mo for 1GB of throughput DSL service while the $40/mo service price doesn't go up.
Without zero competition, what you'd see with caps is that the $40/mo (average US cost) would get capped lower and lower, so that it is the entry-level package, and more demanding customers would have to pay more to get the throughput caps they need.
Caps + competition = good
Caps + monopoly = bad
My belief is that in the long-term, the broadband market will tend towards increased competition (through wireless, or other solutions) and that caps will be a plus. They will mean differentiated services for different customers. Since when is the US consumer thrilled with "one size fits all"?
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caps = bad, at all times
Introduce cap, competition introduces cap.
Instead of offering better service the new competition becomes who offers a better cap instead of who offers a better service.
I'd rather they compete on better service than "less restrictive".
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Re: caps = bad, at all times
Cap means less potential profit than no cap, thus fewer parties enter the market. (I am speculating)
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Re: caps = bad, at all times
How is a higher cap, or a better price for the same cap, not a better service?
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lol
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common carrier
The problem is when the connectivity provider is also the service provider, and doesn't want to compete with other service providers who are legally allowed to use/lease the lines for a competing service.
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I'm off-topic, cuz I'm mad (and a few years late)
I want the friggin FCC of my Internet -- Divine Providence bastards. I concede that society demands some Internet regulation, so feel free to set up some other organization, maybe a joint university venture would be nice. No regulation at all was better than the FCC.
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I'm a wholesale DSL provider through AT&T
The crux of the situation here is not IF they let others play, but WHAT THE PRICE IS. You have to realize that their WHOLESALE RATE is only about $3 less than RETAIL after you've factored in all the costs involved (not just the transport).
While the wholesale rate is, indeed, less than the retail rate; it's more of a philosophical "it's not enough less to foster competition". Basically if you don't have 3 million subscribers like AT&T does, you MUST set your prices higher to have enough profit to maintain business operations - and that's just talking break even, not profit.
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Re: I'm a wholesale DSL provider through AT&T
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Re: Re: I'm a wholesale DSL provider through AT&T
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Re: lets see
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Re: Re: lets see
That doesn't seem to jibe with a definition of common carrier:
I am not contradicting you, I'm just surprised that your assertion could be the case.
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caps
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caps2
I for one am damn glad i dont have caps.
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Supreme Court & AT&T
Universal Service monies accounts for up to 75% of some carrier's revenue...that can be as high as $4000 a line. Who pays the USF ... mmmmm let's see, oh ya, its the subscriber. Level playing field - eliminate USF.
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