[ppml] hegemony, was Re: IPv6 assignment - proposal ...

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: wherrin at gmail.com [mailto:wherrin at gmail.com]On Behalf Of William
>Herrin
>Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 4:02 PM
>To: Ted Mittelstaedt
>Cc: ppml at arin.net
>Subject: Re: [ppml] hegemony, was Re: IPv6 assignment - proposal ...
>
>
>On 10/24/07, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net> wrote:
>> >Folks in our industry should never forget that the early deployments
>> >of 300 baud modems had to be shoved down the 800 lb gorilla's throat.
>>
>> I don't.  Did you even ever OWN a 300 baud modem, Bill?  I'll bet
>> you didn't.
>
>What's your forfeit Ted? You just lost that bet. I know, how about you
>send me a USR Courier Dual Standard. I always wanted a modem that
>could do both HST and v.32 but even with the sysop discount the dang
>things were expensive.
>

:-)  I have 2 of the things here - you will have to replace the power
regulator caps inside them otherwise they work.

Actually, laugh, but I just had a guy tell me yesterday that he got
2 of them off craigslist for $5.

>My first modem was a cheap 300 baud pulse dial job that came "free"
>with my subscription to "Quantum Link," the precursor to AOL. They
>were a tiny company back then, Quantum Computer Services based out of
>Vienna VA.
>
>Built themselves quite an empire over the following decade. AOL and
>the formerly little guys like them enabled the largest economic boom
>this country has seen in a century.

No, they didn't.  We had a sitting President that actually knew how to
balance the budget and not go into debt to the tune of $200 billion a
year.

Notice how the economy booms during times the government is curtailing
deficits, at least it has been for the last nearly 2 decades.  When you have
a national debt that overshadows the federal budget that kind of thing
tends to happen.

Of course, it was too good to be true.  How can you have a good government
based on a party and candidate that gets in office by stealing the election?

>All because some judge somewhere
>had the good policy sense to tell Ma Bell to stuff it and let the
>little guys compete.
>
>And when did the bubble burst? Was it before or after PI addresses
>became difficult to get?

I think it was after the FCC told the cable companies that they wern't
actually delivering television and voice over real wires, and thus wern't
considered wire providers or telephone companies and subject to the open
network access laws that the real telephone companies are subject to.

>As I recall it was roughly one business cycle
>after. Coincidence? Eh, probably.
>

It has nothing to do with that, really.  Up until year 2000 the FCC was
a big help to the small ISP.  But after the 2000 election they knew which
side of their bread was buttered and started toeing the line when Bush
decided to pay back all his cronies, and commenced instituting policies that
helped the large ISPs to cheat against the small ISPs.  Hell the entire
decade has been one long economic train wreck.  We went from a booming
economy with very low unemployment, government surpluses, rising wages,
to a contracting economy with giant government deficits, high real
unemployment, stagnant wages, dying home starts, falling home prices
most places, and finally now the Dow is in freefall and
even the rich who spent the first part of the decade plundering the
economy are running scared.

It isn't the existence or non-existence of monopolies and hegemony.
It is the abrogation of any real governance or leadership by the
current political party in power and the current administration.
That's why they got their butts whupped during the midterms and thats
why they won't be around after next year.  You can have monopolies and
hegemony as long as the government regulates effectively.  In fact
in many cases, they are needed.  The small ISPs like your Quantum
Link would never have existed without the existence of Ma Bell.  But
they also wouldn't have existed without the interference of the
government - as you pointed out.  I think though that your missing the
fact that it took BOTH of those factors for them to exist.  Far from
being bad, the Bell monopoly was a necessary component - its not the
monopoly itsef that is bad, it's the government that is out of wack.

Ted