telcom compebreastion, was: Metroliner telephone article

This argument is getting more and more bogus as time goes by.

I am connected to two ISP's. One comes with the housing, and delivers very basic functions. The wiring is owned by us, the proprietors, to a demarc room that covers a whole city block. A local ISP has set up a DSLAM there and sells budget connections; they pay ZERO for use of lines to the apartments.

They use municipal fiber to connect it, and links to a private, pan-european fiber network.

All because the bill the PTT sent in 1956 for the complete installation was preserved in archives. We (or the previous owners) paid for the lines in full, so we own them.

The other is part of cable service, and follows cable lines onto another, private pan-european network.

So, neither this posting nor any of my international phone calls touch incumbent owned infrastructure at all.

This is getting more and more common. Almost 25% of broadband internet in Sweden, and a large percentage in NO, NL and IT is actually provided by such schemes as above, where they are part of the building infrastructure.

I would guess most Manhattan building complexes are large enough to justify a small DSLAM in the building for some smaller, specialised operators.

Ditto here. The rail authorities (the state part that owns the physical infrastructure, not the operating part) this year will collect more money from the fiber accesses than from the rail operations. If the trend continues for another three years the rail authorities will turn a net profit for the first time since the 1870s.

And they provide reasonable terms all over, and are a pleasure to deal with.

-- mrr