Amen to that… I remember when it was illegal to connect your own equipment to Phone Company wires, and telephones were hard-wired by Phone Company technicians.
The obvious flaw in the current situation, of course, is the regional monopolies—slowly being undercut by competition from VoIP, but still: as it is, if I want wired phone service in this area, I have to deal with Verizon, and Verizon is evil.
This suggests to me that a little more regulation might be helpful—but you seem to be suggesting that the lack of competition in the local phone market is actually due to some vestiges of government regulation of the industry—or am I misunderstanding?
(No rush; I shouldn’t be spending so much time on this either… but I think it’s important to pursue these lines of thought to some kind of conclusion.)
A little follow-up… it looks like the major deregulatory change was the Telecommunications Act of 1996; the “freeing of the phone jack” took place in the early 1980s or late 1970s, and modular connectors (RJ11) were widespread by 1985, so either that was a result of earlier, less sweeping deregulation or else it was simply an industry response to advances in technology.
This suggests to me that a little more regulation might be helpful—but you seem to be suggesting that the lack of competition in the local phone market is actually due to some vestiges of government regulation of the industry—or am I misunderstanding?
An example of the type of special-interest driven regulation presented as consumer protection that I’m talking about is the established phone companies trying to use the E911 regulations to hamper VOIP companies that threaten their monopolies. This type of regulatory capture is very common.
Amen to that… I remember when it was illegal to connect your own equipment to Phone Company wires, and telephones were hard-wired by Phone Company technicians.
The obvious flaw in the current situation, of course, is the regional monopolies—slowly being undercut by competition from VoIP, but still: as it is, if I want wired phone service in this area, I have to deal with Verizon, and Verizon is evil.
This suggests to me that a little more regulation might be helpful—but you seem to be suggesting that the lack of competition in the local phone market is actually due to some vestiges of government regulation of the industry—or am I misunderstanding?
(No rush; I shouldn’t be spending so much time on this either… but I think it’s important to pursue these lines of thought to some kind of conclusion.)
A little follow-up… it looks like the major deregulatory change was the Telecommunications Act of 1996; the “freeing of the phone jack” took place in the early 1980s or late 1970s, and modular connectors (RJ11) were widespread by 1985, so either that was a result of earlier, less sweeping deregulation or else it was simply an industry response to advances in technology.
An example of the type of special-interest driven regulation presented as consumer protection that I’m talking about is the established phone companies trying to use the E911 regulations to hamper VOIP companies that threaten their monopolies. This type of regulatory capture is very common.