NYT: Phone companies struggle & other Wednesday article links

Phone Giants Fight to Keep Subscribers [New York Times]

Ma Bell is scrambling as landline customers are disconnecting from the phone companies at an ever increasing rate. Where are they headed? Well, many are opting to go with lower rates offered in bundled packages by cable operators. Some are getting connected through other broadband VOIP companies, and some are foregoing landline connections entirely - opting to only have a wireless phone.

This article, from the New York Times, details the travails of the telcos as they continue to churn landline subscribers and at the same time aren't seeing any substantial increases in wireless subscribers.

What kills me is how Wall Street seems to be missing this one fundamental fact -- Cable is taking 7-to-8 phone customers away from incumbent phone companies for every video customer Ma Bell takes from cable.

Now, that by itself is pretty stunning.  But one might argue that phone over cable is simply available more widely than video over phone.  But that just compounds their problem as they still have to spend billions to get to the same level of competition-creating deployment that we are already at.

And one last fact.  The video business, as much as we love it, is not very profitable for distributors.  The cost of programming paid to the networks has soared which has reduced margins in the video business to the lowest levels ever, and far below our other newer businesses.

I like the hand we were dealt.

Comcast sets the record straight [Broadband Politics] Richard Bennett reports that Comcast has filed a letter with the FCC responding to claims made by P2P Defense League members Robb Topolski and Free Press in their ongoing case regarding network management. Comcast's letter boils down to four points:

• First, Comcast’s High-Speed Internet customers can and do access any content, run any application, and use any service that they wish. • Second, our network management practices are similar to those deployed by other Internet service providers in the United States and around the world, and are reasonably designed to enable, not hinder, the high-quality user experience that the Internet Policy Statement contemplates and that competitive marketplace considerations require. • Third, although Free Press and its consultants believe they know and understand Comcast’s network and how it manages that network, they do not, and they have made no legitimate effort to gain such an understanding (as others have recently done). • Fourth, Comcast’s network management practices are not discriminatory and are entirely agnostic as to the content being transmitted, where it is being sent from or to, or the identity of the sender or receiver. • Finally, Comcast’s customer service agreements and policies have long disclosed that broadband capacity is not unlimited, and that the network is managed for the benefit of all customers. Comcast’s disclosures have always been comparable to — and are now far more detailed than — almost any other Internet service provider’s disclosures.

Comcast's letter sets the record straight on the use of responsible network management - management that ensures the use of a particular application (P2P in this case) by a small group of users does not degrade the quality of the broadband experience for other users. If you're into the finer technical points, Comcast refutes point-by-point several claims made by Topolski and Free Press regarding how their network management works. Comcast's letter says that Topolski and Free Press have refused offers by Comcast to learn more about their network managment practices, but they continue to perpetuate inaccurate information about those practices based on their own inferred conclusions. It's unfortunate that advocates of unmanaged networks continue to make false claims and hide behind inaccurate rhetoric. If their stated goal is true - insuring equitable broadband access for consumers - they should take Comcast up on their offer to learn the truth about how their network management systems work. Maybe Topolski and Free Press are just concerned that the truth might expose some of their arguments as hollow.

Cuomo pushes Comcast over Usenet images [CNET News] After last week's groundbreaking announcement of cable operators' agreement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to remove child pornography from their networks and formalize reporting of child porn to the authorities, comes word from New York State that NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wants ISPs in that state to block additional portions of the Usenet discussion groups.  I applaud the agreement, which we were a party to, to reduce the availability of this disgraceful material. Usenet is a pre-WWW system that is notorious for being a pornography repository due to the level of anonymity available to Usenet users. I'm not sure why Comcast was singled out by Cuomo though as they too signed on to this agreement.  In fact, there are plenty of Usenet discussion groups that provide legitimate content and don't harbor pornography, so some Usenet advocates are making First Amendment claims that Cuomo's request is overly broad. This article runs down the arguments on both sides of this issue.

40% Believe Broadband Has Had a Major Impact on Our Lives [ISP Preview] And this word from our friends in Britain - 40% of Brits believe that broadband Internet is the "mother of technological inventions." Broadband beat out cell phones (25%) and GPS navigation (8%). I believe that Americans would hold similar opinions about the revolutionary nature of broadband Internet. Hard to imagine that 15 years ago, broadband Internet in the home was even available to Americans or Brits. Today, it's the "mother of all technological inventions."