NamedPipe

Two recent pieces of legislation highlight a shady thing corporations do to ensure monopoly.

First, Iowa HF 861, a bill to make it harder for cities and municipalities to build telecommunications networks is eligible for debate on the Iowa House floor. While the last thing we need is every city to build their own telecommunications facility, limiting our choices to the LEC (usually Qwest) or the cable company (Mediacom in Des Moines) only protects these already crappy monopolies. (The customer service offered by local government is sometimes better than the phone company or cable company). A bill like this didn’t appear because we already have a problem with cities building networks. It appeared because the current telecommunications monopoly wants to preserve their current meager offerings and high prices. Whenever an industry starts using the law or lawsuits (RIAA?) as a business tactic, that’s a sign they don’t have any prospects for future revenue. Qwest and Mediacom would be better off to sell their local loop facilities to cities and take the cash to look for new ways to make money. There is no more money in the local loop.

Second, Senator Santorum has introduced legislation that would essentially eliminate dissemination of National Weather Service data over the web. Companies like AccuWeather and The Weather Channel are upset that you can get the current temperature and forecast for free from the NWS web site. The funny thing about this one, is that the NWS exists and has existed for years, but private competition still thrives. In fact, AccuWeather (one of the complainers about the NWS) has this on their web site “AccuWeather is proud of its continued growth over the past 39 years. Each year, AccuWeather has grown in number of employees and clients served and total revenue.” The government competition must really be getting to them.

If you need legislation to protect your eroding profit margins maybe you should search for a new business model. And government competition is not all it’s cracked up to be. You’ve got tap water, but the bottled water market is booming. There’s city bus service, but taxi cabs somehow manage to stay in business.