To: cypherpunks@toad.com M >First, I wasn't talking about the local-loop competition. I was M >talking about cable. I don't doubt that in *some* monopoly situations, M >mere reduction or elimination of regulation can allow markets to spring M >up. I just don't think this is true with regard to telcos and cable. Hasn't it occurred to everyone that the local loop is cable and cable is the local loop. There's no difference. Any way of squishing gobs of zeros and ones down a channel to you is the Local Loop and the Trunk and the Cable and everything. M >Secondly, and as I mentioned, there are non-market tactics that a M >supplier can use to prevent competition from arising. For example, why M >should a local telco decide on its own to be interoperable with, say, M >the Electric Company? In this Age of Open Systems? Anyway if they won't connect each other, I will with my own switch just like International Discount Telecommunications and the other companies are smashing the ITU monopoly pricing of international phone calls. M >It's always a mistake to confuse technical feasibility for M >competition. What's to prevent the dominant one or two providers (TPC M >and Cellular, let's say) from closing out the others by refusing to be M >interoperable? M >--Mike Sweden approved 5 national cellular franchises by far the most of any country. Sweden has the most market penetration of cellular by any country. No coincidence. Duncan Frissell --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165