If you believe there are inaccuracies in the information, feel free to share your opinion. I’m more than happy to discuss them. If you’d rather e-mail me directly, my direct e-mail is on the contributor page.

Wyatt -

Good to be back in the swing, thanks. Had a couple of projects that kept me from writing as much as I would like.

As for common carriage, I really don’t think that’s a good solution.

Common carriage stifles innovation and investment in network infrastructure because nobody wants to put a hundred billion dollars into a network that they then must give to competitors at bargain basement prices. That’s part of the reason DSL took so long to come to market while cable flourished. We did not have to live with common carriage regulation the way the telcos did.

Cable internet was considered a data service not a telecommunications service by the FCC. That classification was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Brand X decision in 2005. Cable Internet was not subject to those restrictions and cable companies invested heavily in infrastructure.

That’s why the argument that common carriage was the law of the land for the Internet until recently is simply not true. If you look at the market share of high speed lines, more than half of them were never covered by common carriage.

And now the telcos are investing heavily to compete with cable because freeing the market to spur investment and innovation does more for competition than common carriage.

I was going to say some rather unkind things here (e.g., it being a good thing that medical professionals are not held to the same ethical standards public relations professionals are), but I thought better of it.

I will only say that I don’t expect to post comments to this blog often–it hardly seems worth the effort to point out the glaring inaccuracies and distortions in such an apparently and fundamentally disengenuous endeavor–but I promise to come back from time to time for a good chuckle.

The competition is a troubling aspect of cable companies. Why not allow different companies common carriage on networks? Similar to, but hopefully not as messy as, the telephone system. Seeking your initial thoughts…

Cheers,
Wyatt

The internet service is fair, but not great. I’ve seen FIOS in action and it’s top notch. There isn’t throttling of protocols, there isn’t slowdown during peak usage hours and no overselling of nodes in a neighborhood. It’s also a little misleading to state you can provide up to 50 Mbs when it’s only available to a select few. In able to get the service I believe I deserved I have to pay more for a small business account.

I don’t have phone service because of the price, other options are cheaper and I can call overseas for free.

To be clear, CableLabs establishes standards for cable equipment and invests in research in much the same way Bell Labs does for the phone companies.

When you move from city to city or state to state, you want to be sure the equipment you have purchased will work with your new provider. The whole idea behind the standards based system is to allow you to move from a city served by Comcast or Cox to one served by Charter or Time Warner with the comfort of knowing your TV or set-top will work on any of those networks. Just as you can with cable modems today.

I can’t imagine taking issue with an organization that exists to create standards or invent new products or services for your enjoyment.

Will different cable systems provide different applications over their networks? Probably. In exactly the same way they negotiate for the channels they carry, they will negitiate contracts to provide applications for their customers. Just as not every cable network carries all the same channels, there will likely be a variance in the applications they provide.

Julio - I think you’ll find the cable industry has a long history of opening things up. The DOCSIS cable modem standard was opened and allowed the proliferation of a wide range of choices for connecting via cable broadband. You suggest we open cable boxes, but that suggestion is a bit late. Tru2Way (formerly known as the Open Cable Application Protocol) has been in development for several years and a number of applications for accessing it have been on display at past Cable Shows. The industry has even held developer conferences around our annual show for the purpose of working with the development community to build applications for the open platform.

I’m also a fan of having one box for everything with built in wi-fi. I talked with a couple of the set-top manufacturers at CES this year and asked if that’s in development. They all indicated it could be done, but may be cost prohibitive for a lot of consumers. As the set-top box market develops new tru2way products, you might see something like that, though.

Greg - It’s a blog hosted and developed by the cable industry to discuss developments in and around the telecom space. Why would you expect that it would not include efforts to tell our industry’s side of the story? It clearly indicates its an industry property. We have nothing to hide.

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