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Quoted on MSNBC Site Today

I just saw an article today on MSNBC's site with some quotes from me. Here is the excerpt of the article with clarification:

Telecom industry analyst Rich Tehrani says business rivals may take some advantage of the merger, but it's unclear if any have sufficient financial clout to pose a long-term challenge.

"We need a vibrant CLEC market to provide competition and innovation, but the model has largely failed to this point in our country," he says.

He notes many countries sport faster broadband systems than the United States, which he says is the result of giants such as AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon focusing on mergers instead of innovation.

"Without that CLEC vibrant market, we'll always be behind other countries and we'll continue to lag in innovation," Tehrani says.

The increased scope and political clout of AT&T and BellSouth will inevitably make it a tougher rival for business competitors, says Pat Eudy, president of Charlotte-based American Broadband Inc., which owns several small rural telephone companies. He considers the merger "horrible for consumers" and says former monopoly companies have rarely produced significant innovations.

"SBC has proven to be fiercely anticompetitive and has been the most aggressive of all of its peers in how it deals with its competitors," says Eudy, whose firm buys services from both BellSouth and AT&T. "As tough as BellSouth can be, SBC is the worst of all."

The combined lobbying clout of AT&T and BellSouth at both federal and state levels can't be underestimated, Tehrani agrees.

"The bottom line is that CLECs will survive because they offer different services, but prices will be higher to businesses, and we will see less innovations," says Earl Comstock, president of Comptel, a CLEC trade group.

The first point is correct... The US is lagging in broadband access.

The second point I was trying to make was that the government killed the CLEC market, not the vendors. Vendors don't stop CLEC competition they benefit from increased service provider competition.

I agree we will se less competition as a result of the CLEC market disintegrating and increased telecom mergers.

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Point of no Return

Industry Veteran Carol Wilson writes for Telephony Magazine and did such an amazing job with this article I had to pass it on. Nice job Carol!

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Point of no return
By Carol Wilson


The two-day Freedom to Connect event going on in Washington D.C. this week is no doubt producing hours of impassioned pleas for government action on Net neutrality. There's nothing wrong with that--most of the speakers are bright, well-informed and highly credentialed individuals.

It's not their politics I have problems with, but their passion. The Net neutrality debate gets so out of hand at times that the rhetoric obscures the facts.

That's why I found David Farber's comments on the topic so refreshing. Farber has Internet credentials that rival that of Vinton Cerf, someone often quoted for his support of Net neutrality legislation. His early work on distributed computing and in setting up networks for NASA and others was a precursor to the Internet we know today. A long and distinguished academic career at the University of Pennsylvania included a one-year stint as chief technologist at the FCC.

Farber does see a problem--he believes the Internet is "getting old," and sees the need for new functionality, especially to handle new services such as video. But he sees a bigger problem in inviting government regulation of this complex technological creature and is urging people to step back from the emotionally charged debate that rages today to ponder a more rational approach.

One of my real concerns is that so many people have gone so far in pushing the Net neutrality issue and in championing its cause in Washington that we may be at a point of no return on compromise. That could be bad news for those convinced the Internet faces a looming problem that can only be addressed by further investment.

Those who would do that investment--the telcos and cable companies--are making very calm, rational statements in defense of their resistance to government interference in the Internet. In the absence of the kind of discussion that Farber proposes, the lobbying forces of the service providers could likely derail any effort to impose further Net neutrality requirements.

That would leave an aging Internet right where it is today. And if a man smart enough to have helped invent the original is concerned about its viability now, so am I.

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Thanks Again Readers

Thank you once again for reading this blog. Because of people like you TMCnet is closer than ever to its goal of one-million unique visitors in one month.

In March 2006 we had 960,212 unique visitors who viewed 18,027,811 pages in the month.

Our prior records were 898,219 unique visitors who visited 13,837,740 pages in the month of January 2006.

Thank you also to the loyal sponsors and advertisers of TMCnet that allow us to continue to be the world's top site for communications and technology. As of this writing TMCnet is ranked in the top 1,501 site in the world by Alexa.com.

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Just Bumped into Paris

I am here at the Admiral's Club in the Miami airport and my wife just bumped into Paris Hilton. I am of course too busy typing to be bothered to look up. Yeah right. If I don’t answer e-mails for the next hour or so, you now know why :) .

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