RE: [Nolug] BellSouth Wants to Rig the Internet

Hi Jeremy.

I agree with you. I won't lose lots of customers - just some. But when I've
already lost 20% or so even a few % more hurts.

I also think that it's a neat idea. Hey, I have a Verizon data card so I can
connect while on the road. :-)

No, I don't believe that BellSouth gets any tax subsidies except for rural and
USCF stuff. I might be wrong, however. On the other hand, I don't think that
they pay the city for use of their right-of-ways, like Cox has to.

John

    John Souvestre - Southern Star - (504) 888-3348 - www.sstar.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nolug@nolug.org [mailto:owner-nolug@nolug.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy
(mailing list account)
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 1:47 PM
To: nolug@nolug.org
Subject: Re: [Nolug] BellSouth Wants to Rig the Internet

John Souvestre wrote:
> Hi Brett.
>
> I don't agree. :-) The City decided to position themselves as a competitor
> to BellSouth and other ISP's (me included). I don't see anything fair about
a
> tax subsidized monopoly as a competitor.
>
> John
>

The thing, however, is that most people aren't going to be jumping ship
from traditional providers like you, Cox, Bellsouth and others in
droves. I've been arguing this point in the Bellsouth forum on a
certain website with the Bellsouth employees.

San Francisco has a nearly city-wide WIFI network provided by BARWN and
IA that offers access for free and has a nice, fat, 10-100Mbps pipe for
said WIFI network. Very few people jumped ship and went with their
network, and those that did, were not even remotely close to being an
average Jow user. The predictions that Cox, Bellsouth and others are
going to loose lots of customers are, based on what I've seen in other
cities, crying about the sky falling...

Honestly, for me, this is freakin' cool. Now if I am in the city and
get lost or need to access the internet to get a phone number, all I
have to do is pull over, fire up the laptop and boom, I get what I need.
   There really aren't any data packages for mobile users like me that
aren't priced at a reasonable point. I mean, there's Verizon, but I
don't wouldn't use it enough to justify the expense.

BTW, isn't Bellsouth a tax subsidized monopoly on the last mile telco
infrastructure? ;)

Jeremy

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Received on 12/05/05