Who's the competition?
I had a visit today from a Taiwanese legislator who is interested in finding out about internet policy here in the U.S. He said that Taiwan has required its DSL and cable companies to interconnect on standard fees with all ISPs. No vertical integration — he seemed horrified by the idea that a telecommunications company would be a content company as well. He was confident that internet access should be a public utility, not a privately-held entertainment source.
He was shocked (really, I'm not kidding, shocked) that his five-star hotel here in New York charged him $10/day for internet access. He found that just outrageous. In Taiwan, internet access is virtually free.
At one point, he noted that Taiwan watches Japan and Korea very closely and tries to compete with them in making low-cost broadband access available. They're going great guns, so Taiwan is too.
He asked me whether the US was watching Europe closely to see what they were doing — we talked about northern Europe, and the UK, and I told him about the European Commission's rejection of Deutsche Telekom's plans. “Aren't they your competitors?” he said.
I said that as far as I could tell the US doesn't care what Europe is doing with broadband access policy. We don't feel that they're competitors of ours. We're content to slide farther and farther behind, while feeling confident that we're leading the world.
Nice visit, a little chilling. He really had trouble understanding why we were going in the direction we are. He suggested that this scandal be widely publicized.
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