From: bicker@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (The Resource, Poet-Magician of Quality)
Newsgroups: alt.cable-tv.re-regulate
Subject: Re: We need COMPETITION, not Re-regulation
Date: 15 Sep 92 22:32:49 GMT
Reply-To: Brian.C.Kohn@att.com (The Resource, Poet-Magician of Quality)
Followup-To: alt.cable-tv.re-regulate
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Internet

In article <Sep.15.11.24.24.1992.15538@gandalf.rutgers.edu> shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:
>bicker@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (The Resource, Poet-Magician of Quality) writes:
>>But you still have the same LOCAL phone company...just like we have a
>>LOCAL cable company who provides the line to the house...and acts as the
>>agent for dozens of "long distance" cable services (ESPN, HBO, ...)
>>which actually offer cable service.  
>Okay, this is where we differ.  You are saying that the Cable Company
>is like the Local Phone Company - in my area that would be TKR Cable
>and NJ Bell.
>And each channel that TKR Cable brings me is like each service that
>the Phone company brings me.  For example, call waiting = Showtime,
>tone block = HBO, etc.  You are also putting each long distance 
>option in that same category, right?

No.  My analogy goes this way:

NJ Bell                         ==  TKR Cable
Call Waiting, Caller ID, ...    ==  Remote Control, FM Cable Service, ...
AT&T, MCI, Sprint, ...          ==  HBO, ESPN, Bravo, ...

>Okay.  That is not the analogy that I am presenting.  I am not
>referring to the local level of telephone service at all.  Imagine
>it this way:

Your analogy requires the introduction of something that does not exist
now and would cost millions of dollars to put in place, namely a common
carrier cable deliver.  It is not in the public interest to implement
such an expensive scheme when my analogy exists and can be accomplished
with some comparatively cheap legislation.

>NJ Bell                    =           Common Carrier Cable Deliverer
>Provides local service                Does not provide local Service
Why this difference?  ...seems inconsistent
>Provides                              Provides 
>choice of long                        choice of cable company:
>distance companies:
>AT&T                                  TKR Cable
>Sprint                                C-Tec Cable
>MCI                                   Joe-Blow Cable
>Each company offers its own           Each company offers its own
>package of services.  You             package of services.  You can
>can only choose one, but              only choose one, but you can
>you can switch whenever you like.     switch whenever you like.

What do you mean you can only choose one?  I use both AT&T and Sprint 
from my phone, and friends have used MCI and others from my phone at
various times.  

>We are getting tangled up because you are defining HBO as a cable
>service.  It is not a cable service.  A cable service runs a cable
>to your home, leases you equipment, and sells you programming to watch
>on your television.  All over cable.

HBO is a cable service.  TKR Cable is a cable service provider or
"carrier".

:
>>The company that provides the service to the
>>house is, or should be, a public utility.  
>I agree with that.  However, I would take it one step further.  I think
>the company who owns the wires should be required to lease space on those
>wires to competitors, thus taking on a Common Carrier status. 

That's a choice: either make TKR allow other companies lease space on
its wires which are already full or make TKR a utility.  Which plan is
more cost-effective and feasible?

>AT&T owns the wires that come into your house, but they are required to
>lease space to MCI and Sprint. 

AT&T certainly does not own the wires that come into my house. 
New Jersey Bell (Bell Atlantic) does.  And they do NOT lease that space
to AT&T, MCI and Sprint.  I pay for that wire in my monthly charge from
NJ Bell.  The long distance companies pay for a kind of 800 number,
namely "1".  When you dial "1" (or "10xxx") it is like dialing an 800
number provided by NJ Bell (they provide lots of 800 number for
companies that only want to pay for calls from within state.) that
connects you to the long distance phone company.  The cost of the phone
call, just like 800 numbers, is charged to the receiver of the call, in
this case the long distance phone company.  These charges are called
"access charges" kinda like what the Home Shopping Channel pays TKR in
order to be carried.  Then NJ Bell passes along the phone number and
other signalling information to the long distance carrier which picks
things up from there.  The long distance carrier has nothing to do
whatsoever with the wires coming into my house.

-- 
Brian Charles Kohn               using !bicker's account
Poet-Magician of "Quality"       E-MAIL: bicker@hoqax.ATT.COM
    'Hope, not fear, is the most positive advocate of action.' - S.R. Lawhead
                   Stamp Out "SO": "RP" = "Romantic Partner"
Newsgroups: alt.cable-tv.re-regulate