RE: US West and RADSL (fwd)

North American Network Operators Group
RE: US West and RADSL (fwd)

From: Chad Skidmore
Date: Thu Jun 04 23:04:49 1998
Actually, they are not cross-marketing in ALL 14 states.  The Washington
Association of ISPs managed to work with the Utilities Commission in
Washington to put language in the tariff that prevents/limits
cross-marketing.  Take a look at the tariff at http://tariffs.uswest.com
and check the Washington MegaBit tariffs.  Some of the language from
that tariff could be incorporated into other state tariffs to prevent
this kind of cross-marketing.

If you know of any cross-marketing please let us know.  The WUTC would
love to hear as well.

---------------------------------------------
Chad Skidmore
Director of Network Engineering
Northwest Nexus, Inc.
http://www.nwnexus.com
1-888-NWNEXUS


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dax Kelson [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, June 04, 1998 2:31 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: US West and RADSL (fwd)
> 
> 
> 
> Doesn't look like her email made it to the NANOG list.  
> Co-marketing of an
> ILEC ISP along with the DSL circuit is going to be a big issue as the
> ILECs rollout DSL nationwide.  DSL is coming probably faster then you
> think, we turned up the first DSL connection in Utah a couple 
> weeks ago.
> 
> Dax Kelson
> Internet Connect, Inc.
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 12:18:39 -0600
> From: Marianne Granoff <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
> Subject: US West and RADSL
> 
> [snip]
> >I could go on and on about the VERY APPALLING situation here 
> with USW and
> >DSL and Internet access, about regulated and unregulated 
> services, etc,
> >etc. 
> >
> >Dax Kelson
> >Internet Connect, Inc.
> 
> The preceeding message was forwarded to me by one of our NM 
> ISPs.  US West
> has been co-marketing its Internet service _with_ its RADSL 
> service in all
> of its 14 states 
> (http://www.uswest.com/com/customers/interprise/dsl/).
> Actions by ISP groups in Oregon and New Mexico may provide 
> some relief to
> local ISPs there.
> 
> I have just put up a listserve for ISPs in the US West states 
> to use in
> sharing information.  Technet has had one for the NM ISPs for 
> several years
> - it has been a big help in getting out the word about some of these
> actions.  How about [email protected]?  Please feel free to 
> send this out
> to any interested ISPs.
> 
> To subscribe, just send an empty note to:
> 
>    [email protected]
>    
> I believe that all the RBOCs/ILECs have taken or will be 
> taking similar
> actions.  Even Sprint's new ION services are part of this 
> trend.  In my
> opinion, this is anti-competitive behavior by monopoly 
> organizations.  I
> think that many local ISPs will be severly hurt by such 
> actions, and more
> than a few will close their doors.
> 
> As I see it - the biggest problem is that local ISPs are not 
> organized and
> do not know how - or have the forums - to work together to 
> fight actions by
> a company the size of US West (or other RBOC/ILEC).  My 
> company, New Mexico
> Technet, is one of the larger ISPs in NM.  We wholesale 
> Internet access to
> other ISPs.  We have intervened in the NM tariff filing for US West's
> Megabit services (see http://www.technet.nm.org/press.htm) to 
> attempt to
> correct some of the things that are very anti-competitive about the
> proposed tariff.  So far it has cost us over $30,000 in legal 
> fees and we
> have not even had the hearing yet.  Most local ISPs cannot do 
> this.  Most
> local ISPs do not know how to take the actions with the FCC 
> or with the
> state public regulatory agencies so that their concerns can 
> even be heard.
> Frankly - most ISPs are not members of CIX or of ISP/C - and 
> many of them
> do not even know about those organizations, or understand why 
> they should
> care.
> 
> In NM, the local ISPs come in mostly 2 flavors: those that serve urban
> areas (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Los Alamos) who 
> "may" be affected
> by what US West does but are not sure, and those in rural 
> areas who do not
> feel they will ever be affected by these actions, and so do 
> not care.  In
> much of US West's 14 state territory - I suspect that this is 
> similar.  The
> local ISPs in the urban areas have mostly seen the other local ISPs as
> competitors, not collaborators.  They have seen US West (or 
> the RBOC/ILEC)
> as a vendor, not as a competitor.  Most local ISPs worry 
> about retribution
> from US West (or other RBOC/ILEC) (delayed service, 
> unresponsiveness on
> outages, unfilled orders) if they come on too strong in criticizing a
> company that they are _so_ dependent on. I am not sure that 
> their concerns
> are not valid.
> 
> The local (state) regulatory agencies are overworked and 
> underfunded in
> this age of telecommunications transition/revolution.  It is 
> not that they
> don't care.  It is that they simply have too much on their 
> plates already.
> Few states provided extra funding to handle all the _new_ 
> issues raised by
> the 1996 Telecommunications Act at the _state_ regulatory 
> agency level.  No
> one is championing any of this in most states.  I think 
> probably because it
> is not considered a problem by the vast majority of ISP 
> _customers_.  I had
> one of my customers tell me to "just get out of the way" and 
> let US West
> introduce the high speed service because the customer needed 
> it right away
> and I was just holding it up.  They never saw that US West 
> owned some of
> the blame in the constant delays, counterfilings, 
> interrogatories, motions
> to compel, and other actions that have caused this 
> intervention to drag on.
>  Unfortunately, this person is more typical of ISP customers 
> than local
> ISPs want to believe.
> 
> The saddest aspect of this is that unless something changes, 
> US West and
> the other RBOCs/ILECs will likely dominate the supply of 
> Internet access in
> large urban areas in a few years - and the rural areas will 
> have a great
> deal less Internet access than they do today.  
> 
> I think the answer is that the local ISPs _and their 
> customers_ have to
> come together if they want to have choices about ISPs in the 
> future.  It
> will take some of the larger ISPs reaching out to the smaller 
> local ISPs to
> help them get _all_ of their respective customers informed of 
> the issues.
> It will take the larger ISPs intervening in more state and 
> FCC proceedings.
>  It will take constant email, listserves, and newsgroups 
> spreading such
> information - and reaching customers - not just ISPs.  It 
> will take some
> national politicians to "champion" this cause - some who are 
> not worried
> about losing RBOC/ILEC campaign contributions - which are 
> considerable.  It
> will take involvement by media organizations that are not 
> worried about
> losing the RBOC advertising revenues - which are also considerable. 
> 
> It will take every local ISP who is harmed by US West actions calling,
> writing, or emailing their local and national politicians and 
> letting them
> know that they have informed all of their own customers about 
> the actions
> by US West or other RBOC/ILEC and informing their customers 
> of the fact
> that the politician has not responded to these
> illegal/unethical/anti-competitive actions.
> 
> In NM, it is now other internet professionals and businesses that have
> joined ISPs in questioning the actions of US West.  Web 
> designers, web page
> hosting services, internet trainers, web-advertising services 
> and other
> businesses are starting to realize that US West wants to take their
> Internet-based business as well.  This is a start.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Marianne
> 
> Marianne Granoff
> Director of Operations
> New Mexico Technet, Inc.
> 5921 Jefferson NE
> Albuquerque, N.M. 87109
> Ph: (505) 345-6555
> FAX: (505) 345-6559
> email: [email protected] or [email protected]
> 
>