Some random topic, always changing [ was comcast does it again Port 25 ]

[Ben Scott]

On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 2:47 AM, Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:
>> Which government has granted the monopoly?
>
>  It's usually ... state for Telco.

  Oh, it's worse than that.  You forgot the whole ILEC vs CLEC
quagmire, where the company owning the COs and outside plant is
nominally supposed to open up their infrastructure to their
competition, thereby insuring a free market.  (Pause for laughter.)
Strangely enough, it seems that the ILECs don't have much incentive to
help their competition.

> Yeah, it's interesting to talk about what defines an "Internet"
> connection.

  The number of types of Internet connections probably approaches the
number of subscribers.

>> Plus it's your local, as in very local, government. Call up your
>> franchise agreement board.
>
>  Local is good.  10 year contracts not so much.

  I've noticed that whenever a party is requesting government
intervention, they always mean the government should intervene to give
them what *they* want.  Any time the government got involved to yield
some other end, it was clearly being subverted by nefarious forces, or
else simply being run by idiots.  See also "the wrong version"[1].

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Version

  Author's note: If the above comes across as being overly
laissez-faire, that's not intentional.  I don't believe the government
should never get involved.  I just think the government is just as bad
as the rest of the human race.

-- Ben