[nycbug-talk] Cogent and Sprint - a signal of things getting Oldschool?

[Marc Spitzer]

On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org> wrote:
> Hi Alex,
>
> On Oct 31, 2008, at 3:15 PM, Alex Pilosov wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 31 Oct 2008, Isaac Levy wrote:
>>> I would argue that to continue to compete and grow internationally,
>>> American businesses desperately need increased bandwidth all around-
>>> especially at the datacenter.  I argue that carriers need to be
>>> supported in, as well as held accountable for, planning upgrade
>>> cycles.
>> We all held them accountable, with our wallets. It's called 'free
>> market'.
>
> I'm no economist, but didn't the raw free market, and Freedman-style
> economics, just wholly collapse?

not even close, check out the Weirmar republic or whatever they are
calling Rhodisa now for economic collapse.

>>> The myriad of other businesses the 'big backbone telcos' are running,
>>> (the wireleess phone mafia, ringtones, media/content distribution
>>> [think
>>> Viacom], CDN's, software/application/web development, etc...) This
>>> is as
>>> repressive as a world where Wall Mart was in charge of the roads and
>>> streets- what if Wall Mart built roads in place of the US
>>> Department of
>>> Transportation?
>> Er, I dunno. I think the roads would be better maintained, honestly.
>> This
>> is somewhat a different subject. (As you might now, many toll roads
>> are
>> now built and operated by commercial enterprises).
>
> Er, argueable, and I wholly (respectfully) disagree.
>
> For examples, I-75 and I-95 in Florida, both toll roads, blow chunks.

Interstats are federal roads, built during the cold war to help us
kill the heathen commies by letting us move troops and such around
after WWIII

They were modeled after the autobonn but built cheaper.  Now having
been on parts of the autobonn they are some nice roads.  The way they
are build is the german gov puts out a RFP for building a road from A
to B that is so big.  Only Large firms are allowed to bid on it, ones
that will be there during the life of the road.  The company that wins
the bid builds the road and is then stuck maintaining it for 20-30
years at a low fixed cost, so build cheap and you will loose huge
amounts of money over the life of the road.

>
> Private (toll) highways in southern California don't solve traffic
> congestion problems, they simply create land use monopolies.

It also depends on how you structure the tolls and it also depends on
the contract they have with the local gov, city-journal.org had some
interesting articles on the subject 6-12 months ago.

>
> And even the (proposed and actual) tolls for NYC-Metro roads are run
> by Port Authority, a quasi-government agency subject to *heavy* city/
> state regulation.

the port authority is a government agency, it is just structured in
such a way as to not be responsible to the citizens and it has the
added advantage of allowing the state to hide massive debt that it is
responsible for but "no on the books".  And lets not forget the
patronage jobs.

>
>>
>>
>>> Seriously- I feel this may be a critical moment to be thinking the
>>> notion of US Government regulation or involvement in internet
>>> infrastructure.  Fundamental concepts and principles, not just
>>> technical
>>> implementation details.
>> I hope not.
>
> Well, at least the Obama campaign seems serious about getting
> government more involved...

this is a good thing????  EVER?????

>
> So like it or not, (and from my post, I'm terribly uneasy about either
> Obama or McCain taking this on), it will be on the table in some way
> soon enough.
>
>>
>>
>>> "If Obama Appoints a Tech Czar . . ." By Garrett M. Graff
>>> http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/people/capitalcomment/8378.html
>>> "Names kicking around Silicon Valley and the tech community as CTO
>>> candidates include Google's Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the
>>> Internet, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, eBay
>>> founder
>>> Pierre Omidyar, and Lotus pioneer Mitch Kapor."
>> Wankers. Except for Kapor.
>
> Perhaps- but I don't even think Kapor is really in a position to serve
> as a public servant in this way.

looking back on the drug Czar, it will raise my taxes and make my life
more difficult.  Gov likes problems, fixing them could shut down whole
branches of the fed and/or local gov.  Why would a career bureaucrat
cut his own throat like that, and why would the people next to him let
him cut theirs as well?

marc
-- 
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
Albert Camus