[Wylug-discuss] Re: Linux-friendly POTS-to-VOIP-to-POTS

[John Hodrien]

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Dave Fisher wrote:

> I suspect, that like a lot of other people, I was assuming that having
> different providers' kit at the other end of 'the last mile' meant that
> BT could be relieved of control of those 1760 yards of copper.
>
> Your comments, and those of others, now lead me to believe that (as
> usual) we are simply being offered a new range of services (e.g. wizzily
> fast ADSL) on top of the basic BT infrastructure.
>
> It seems that this new 'world of choice' amounts to choosing whether you
> buy services at the top of the stack from a direct supplier or someone
> who rents from BT ... gee wiz!

Not quite that.  With your idea the ownership of the copper would change hands
everytime you switched supplier.  Instead, when you change supplier your bit
of wire gets plugged into a different company's DSLAM.  I think you're missing
the issue a bit.

I'm quite happy for BT to be the Transco of the telco world (quite...), but
that doesn't mean I want to send my phone calls their way.  But as I
understand it (and I could be wrong) I can't sign up to their low user type
tariff and route my calls via an alternative carrier.  I don't see why there
isn't a wires only price and a phone price.

I think obsessing about who owns the wet string is pointless, it really
doesn't affect you.  How you get charged for that affects you, as it would I
suspect if Trasco provided gas...

> Oh, and by the way, it still pisses me off that I was robbed of the
> copper, which I owned and paid for when it was laid by the GPO.

Yawn.  Repeat that argument for any privitisation.

jh

-- 
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