[DB]

No one should be forced by law to provide their privately owned resources to competitors against their will regardless of the "greater good".

[leprechaun9]

How about the 'eminent domain' taking of the U.S. Supreme Court?

[AHWilde]

"No one should be forced by law to provide their privately owned resources to competitors against their will regardless of the "greater good".

Your absolutely right. Why would anyone invest in DSL lines when you have to turn around and sell access at a cut rate to a competitor who invested in nothing. That kind of thinking is what has led to our power grids being in the shape they are in.

[johncatl]

There's very little "private" about the phone companies or the cable companies. Both operate under a franchise awarded by a government entity, many of the 'regulations" are in fact anti-competitive and I'm not so sure that they don't have a "gentleman's agreement" between them. You don't see cable selling VOIP to business thus protecting the lucrative T1 business while the phone companies don't push multimedia down their broadband pipe into homes.

Calling this move "deregulation" is an oxymoron. Here's some more insight from Dvorak.http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1836829,00.asp

and another that's relevant. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1812887,00.asp

[Mad Mammoth]

No one should be forced by law to provide their privately owned resources to competitors against their will regardless of the "greater good".

Exactly. That is the stuff of socialism, and in fact it was Senator Hildabeast who made that crack about "we're going to take things away from you for the common good" or some claptrap like that, was it not?

As a former DSL user (now on cable), I would never go back to DSL unless the alternative was (argh) dial-up. I'm on a private cable fed by a T4 line and I am never shortchanged on bandwidth, no complaints at all.

But when laser-based ISPs begin to appear, I'm THERE!!! ;)

http://www.isp-planet.com/equipment/tellaire_laser.html

[Smartaleck]

"No one should be forced by law to provide their privately owned resources to competitors against their will regardless of the "greater good"."

So it's ok for the electric company to cut your electricy off and not allow you access to a competing company who doesn't own the wire going into your home?

[MarkL]

No one should be forced by law to provide their privately owned resources to competitors against their will regardless of the "greater good".

You're absolutely right. And the municipalities should then remove the monopolies, by allowing the competition to "set up shop."

Here in Lee's Summit, MO, Time Warner Cable has a monopoly on cable service. No other cable provider is allowed to enter the market. In the case of the land line telephones, the monopoly belongs to SBC. If Verison, Everest, or Comcast were to offer to run a fiber line to my house, I'd jump on that in a heartbeat. But I can't, due to the government imposed monopoly.

If they don't want to be forced to allow competitors to use their hardware, they should be willing to give up their monopoly.

Mark

[jpsb]

"No one should be forced by law to provide their privately owned resources to competitors against their will regardless of the "greater good"."

Bump. Telcoms are not really private thought, they were for a long time public utilities with the power of government to build on right of ways etc. I think something could be worked out if not then government should build a highspeed "public" network.