[kwlug-disc] Hitting Bell / Rogers where it hurts?

[unsolicited at swiz.ca]

On Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:53:20 -0500, John Johnson <jvj at golden.net> wrote:
> On 2011-02-03 08:26, Insurance Squared Inc. wrote:
>> Internet infrastructure is [ edit ] like hydro and water and the roads.
> 
> Roads? The 407 is the hands of private enterprise. So are the railways 
> for that matter. The tracks that run through KW have been leased to the 
> Goderich-Exteter Railway by CN. I believe that GEXR owns outright other 
> sections of its tracks in the area. GEXR is a subsidiary of RailAmerica,

> a US based railway operator. IMO: The name GEXR has a 'nice' local touch

> and is used to mask the foreign ownership.
> 
> My point. Europe is moving away from the public PTT (Post Telephone 
> Telegraph) model towards a private model. Canada's prairie provinces, 
> too, moved (or are moving) away from their versions of the public PTT 
> model. AGT (Alberta Government Telephone) morphed into Telus and the 
> Manitoba Telephone System (MTS) was privatized into MTS Allstream. I do 
> not know what is happening with SaskTel w.r.t privatization. Nor do I 
> know what is happening in the Maritimes. Telcoms in BC has been 
> privately held for a few decades. (Contrary to popular belief, Bell 
> Canada is not a national monopoly as it is not the major carrier in all 
> parts of Canada.)
> 
> IMO: We will not see nationalization of the internet infrastructure in 
> whole or it part anytime soon.

I take your point (but I also note the 407 is but one, and probably not
the last, such example).

I expect that despite such privatizations of the railway, a fair bit of
regulatory oversight is still in place. Which must be true for the
electrical grid, as well.

Be it such, or nat. gas (lines going into the home blowing up would be
bad, so there's likely a fair bit of regulations surrounding them), water,
roads, what's the difference here? Other agencies have been doing a
'better' job than the CRTC?


Let's remember, too, that railways in the U.S., and Europe I'm guessing,
evolved quite differently there than in Canada. There, a multitude of small
players served relatively small, local, areas - with consolidation
occurring over many, many, years. If an area couldn't support a facility,
profitably, the facility ceased to exist. (Whereas there's a certain sense
of entitlement to universality, in Canada.)

In Canada, a concerted push was made for a complete sea to sea railway, a
process that expedited the resolution of issues such as rights of way. I'm
guessing that model was then used as the basis for telephone, at least. So
much baggage, carried around in so many ways, due to precedent.

Big changes have occurred in rail over the decades. As a passenger
service, it isn't even a shadow of what it once was. Significant sector
changes and evolution. Rail gave way to roads and airlines, I assume. Look
at the airlines - where the issue is overcapacity.


I suspect the only resolution to the problem will be to render the value
of these rights of way towards zero. Which is to say, wireless, avoiding
such trenching costs as John mentions. However, I suspect that the
technology does not yet exist that would satisfy the bandwidth levels
desired. Let alone any political will to foot the cost of a wireless
repeater (or whatever the appropriate terms are) on every lamp post.


Is it any wonder that Bell looks to leverage it's infrastructure value and
invest into higher profit margin areas, such as content. Another area of
CRTC involvement.