Re: Another Point Of View (Round 2)

[Bill Frezza <frezza@interramp.com>]

  At 3:52 PM -0500 11/30/96, James Love wrote:
  >Bill, I have changed your postpone status, so you should be receiving
  >messages.  If you read the older posts, which are archived at
  >http://www.essential.org/listproc/isdn/
  
  How kind of you. Yes, I've been poking into the archives, that's how I've
  kept up with your campaign.
  
  <snip>
  
  >   Writing this all off as some type of socialist plot seems a stretch to
  >me. The LECs are monopolies, and they are still fighting rules to
  >encourage competitive entry (most of which will occur if rules require
  >unbundling of services).  The forces which are fighting the LECs includes a
  >broad coaltion of computer, software, IXCs and consumer groups.   This
  >what practical people do in the world we live in.  Utopian visions are
  >fun, I have plenty of my own.... but we also try to focus on the world as
  >it is.
  
  Hmm. Let me ask a question to determine the extent to which we are arguing
  over means rather than ends. Your answer may also help other people on this
  list get a true picture of what the CPT is up to.
  
  I foresee a day when the entire telecommunications industry is completely
  deregulated, much like the PC industry. When this happens, any company will
  be able to sell (or not sell) any service it chooses to any customer it
  chooses at any price the market will bear. The state PUCs will be out of
  business, the FCC will be shrunk down to being a registrar of deeds to
  spectrum and an enforcer of property rights, and lobbyists like yourself
  will no doubt be off aggravating someone else. The justice department will
  be solely concerned with chasing companies that engage in force or fraud
  and congressmen will lose their ability to solicit millions in
  contributions from the companies they are regulating. Any forms of
  telecommunications welfare the voters are foolish enough to support will be
  explicitly labeled as such and will be distributed to the so-called
  "have-nots" directly on a means-tested basis, rather than cycled through
  fat corporations sucking up to the public trough.
  
  The sooner this happens, the sooner the bloated, protected, unionized
  incumbent Local Exchange Carriers will have to fend for themselves rather
  than run to the regulators to guarantee their profits, doing a little
  "please don't throw me in the briar patch" dance with the retinue of
  symbiotic lobbyists like yourself that are helping to perpetuate monopoly
  in the name of ending it.
  
  Any comments?
  
  Bill Frezza