[SATLUG] RoadRunner Rubbish

[Travis H.]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 05:41:44PM -0600, R. Tyler Ballance wrote:
> there is absolutely no  
> reason why I think there shouldn't be cut throat competition for ISPs.

The first thing they cut is tech support.  Back in the dial up heyday,
ISPs would make you wait on hold for 20 minutes whether they were busy
or not, simply to discourage people from calling in.  There just isn't
any money in providing tech support.

> Yet, somehow when I moved into my apartment (northwest san antonio,  
> around Churchill HS), my options were AT&T DSL (1.5/128 up) or Time  
> Warner cable. Some effin' competition that is eh?
> 
> Wasn't the whole free market thing supposed to give us options?  

No.  The totally free market, left unchecked, yields monopolies.
See Microsoft.  Also, there is a board game that is supposed to
teach that, it's called monopoly, and only one person can win.

But the real problem is that the FCC was busy busting Ma Bell
when it should have been thinking about cable (as well).

The real barrier to entry is the ROW for the last mile.
-- 
"Cryptography is nothing more than a mathematical framework for
discussing various paranoid delusions." -- Don Alvarez
<URL:http://www.subspacefield.org/~travis/> -><-