arstechnica.com — AT&T's U-Verse was meant to bring IPTV to the masses, but an early rollout in Chicago ran into major problems when the suburbs revolted. Ars looks at the problems AT&T faces as it rolls out its new fiber to the node network.
Dec 18, 2006 View in Crawl 4
vapersonDec 18, 2006
AT&T just wants to pay by its own rules. If one company has to provide complete service you can't let another enter the market under totally different rules. AT&T could just cherry pick the best customers and the incumbent, Comcast, would have no incentive to improve its service to the poorer areas that AT&T doesn't cover. Also, if you stop requiring full deployment then what's to stop Comcast from filing suit and getting to play by the same rules? They could decide to stop providing service to areas that don't make money. Do we really want that?The sad thing is that Congress is so deep in the pockets of lobbyists they will probably do another "pre-emption" bill. So much for a Federal system, the states and localities get stepped on when Congress expands its power beyond what it is granted under the Constitution. The more things that get regulated by the federal government, the less say "the people" have and the more say corporations have since they can concentrate their lobbying on just 535 people. Insurance companies are trying to prevent state attorney generals from regulating them, state chartered banks are trying to make it so only a federal agency oversees them, and it just goes on and on...
phillymjsDec 18, 2006
FTFA: "If they allow AT&T to build out a television service without requiring them to abide by the same terms that existing cable companies have to follow, they risk a lawsuit from Comcast for not providing the "level playing field" required by Illinois law."<sarcasm>Oh, yeah, Comcast is all about operating on a level playing field.</sarcasm>Just ask RCN, a small cable company that wanted to bring competition to Philadelphia (Comcast's HQ). Comcast threw up every kind of roadblock they could to keep it from happening, and RCN eventually gave up. Or you could ask the satellite TV providers, to whom Comcast will not offer their sports channel for any price-- thus forcing Philly sports fans to have Comcast cable if they want to see home games on TV.~Philly
pr0t0Dec 18, 2006
@gthiruvaThe reason to add layers of red tape and regulation exists because of what is known as "Home Rule"; originally enacted in the 1800's to protect the interests of municipalities. Suppose it's 1870 and someone wants to run a non-stop railroad right through your little town. Actually, suppose it's now and someone wants to run a high-speed, non-stop maglev through your little town due to geographic constraints. All they would have to do is lobby a few key state officials, who might be happy to say they helped bring high-speed rail to the larger metropolitan areas where many voters reside. Without Home Rule, you and your town wouldn't get anything more than empty public gesture, before homes, businesses and schools were demolished.I'm not totally disagreeing with you though. The franchise system may indeed be antiquated, and I seem to be of the disposition that monopolies are almost always bad for the consumer. That said, AT&T is definitely the big bad here. First, backing a push poll automatically removes all credibility from their argument in my opinion. Secondly claiming that IPTV is neither a cable nor telecommunications service, but a "data service" is just plain moronic. They are ALL data services...video data and audio data respectively. There is no doubt that IPTV is meant to compete with cable, as such, it should follow whatever rules are laid down by the state to govern such services. If you don't like franchising, that's a separate issue.You have to think about what this country was like when it was founded, and why it was founded. Self-determination was obviously a big reason. Government control over the states was limited, and so too state control over the municipalities was limited, and finally a municipality's control over the individual was limited. Even today it's not a bad thing, especially when Wal-Mart wants to bulldoze your house so they can further contribute to urban sprawl. I'm not saying it's always the best way, or even that it's better than other countries methods of dealing with such issues...just that it's part of our culture.
cantscanmoneyDec 19, 2006
Hey!!I Live in the Western Suburbs (Lombard) and I Want my IPTV!!!
hypercube33Dec 20, 2006
These are ugly and not as future-proof as fiber. I'd fight them too.