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Telecom Monopoly - Good For What Ails You |
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John B. Judis does a great job in The New Republic (reg. req.) of explaining why the current FCC chair, Michael Powell, has been a disaster for everyone except a handful of major telecommunications companies (Michael Powell v. The Economy). Here is only one excellent paragraph:
If you want an analogy for what Powell is trying to do, you have to look at the Bell system before the breakup of AT&T in 1982 or to the French telecommunication monopoly in the '90s. AT&T was broken up partly because its monopoly was stunting innovation and removing competition. Long-distance prices fell 40 percent in the decade after AT&T's breakup. Similarly, French Telecom once boasted about its Minitel network, which since 1981 provided text-based, monochrome information services. But by the mid-'90s its monopoly held back the introduction of the Internet, a far better medium for conveying information. The U.S. telecom industry could eventually suffer similar obsolescence under Powell's plans for new consolidated regional monopolies.
Slashdot readers comment and point out a few additional reasons why Powell should go back to private industry (Why You Don't Have a Broadband Connection).
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