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The Telephone company (in any market) has no copper competition and so owns all pre-existing last-mile in the country. Then there is the Cable company,
which is again a monopoly in any given market. Meanwhile, the airwaves are dominated by the endless advertising done by these companies. These companies
make a show of introducing new services, but the fact is that they have no incentive to compete in a genuine way, because they continue to reap large profits
without having to do so.
The FCC under Michael Powell had no problem allowing the telephone companies to stop having to discount services to competitors. But the unbundling rules
were in effect in order to enable competition in the market, and when the FCC gave the telcos their wish, the telco monopolies ended up putting an enormous
number of small ISPs out of business, very undeservedly. We small ISPs were why you could in fact get T1 service cheaper than the phone company would give it
to you. We were willing to share, and they were not.
All the "telco" works for is its own enlargement: for example, SBC bought Pacific Bell and then bought AT&T, and changed its name. Now all profits
go to Southwest Bell under the name "the new AT&T", yet while gigabit service is available to residential users in Slovenia, AT&T is still peddling
6-megabit service for high rates years after it was introduced. That is neither competitive nor just.
Optical Fiber is the only credible way to transport large amounts of data not only at incredible speeds, but reliably and cheaply, and the cost of fiber
has dropped to the point of general affordability now. It is not Dirt Cheap; but it is Cheap Enough. The price per residence to bring Fiber To The Home has
dropped beneath $700 and continues to decline. Despite this, the telcos and cablecos are not much interested in developing fiber, as it will cost money and
their profit margins will decline! Meanwhile, gigabit fiber to the home (FTTH) is available in Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and even Slovenia,
but not in the United States.
Quite simply, we intend to build the network that the telcos refuse to build.
We're going to build a "gigabit Internet" from the inside out.
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