Subject: Re: APT
Donald Vial (dvial@pacbell.net)
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 23:22:12 -0800
Message-Id: <35F77E24.3A13@pacbell.net> Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 23:22:12 -0800 From: Donald Vial <dvial@pacbell.net> To: roundtable@cni.org Subject: Re: APT References: <35F5D9E2.761A@apt.org>
Yes, Mr Johnson, we are still alive at APT. I chair
the policy committee of APT and do much of the
writing of our FCC filings with Henry Geller.
We are both former regulators, and we do this pro
bono because we believe in the policies being
advanced by APT to achieve a transition to a
competitive environment that does not dump the
failures of the markeplace on marginalize
communities.
We may have some real diffenences with you and
others in how we view the evolution of competition
in the industry. For that reason, we do post our
filings and policy viewpoints on our web page for
everyone to see and read. Most recently we posted
the remarks I made at a NARUC Telecommunication
Committee meeting in Seattle as part of a policy
panel on the implementation of Section 706. You
might find them useful in gaining a better
understanding of what drives me to give so much of
my time to APT. Also,in the next few days, we will
be posting an Action Alert which I have written in
connection with the recent action of the FCC
regarding its NPRM/OII on the implementation of
Section 706--the nation's commitment to ubiquity in
the deployment of advanced telecommunications
capabilty. That alert attempts to relate what the
FCC is proposing in the context of APT policies
which we have been consistently advancing both
before and since the passage of the 1996
Telecommunications Act
I wish I had the time to answer everyone's views
about APT, but I am afraid that it is going to be
necessary to refer people who have an interest in
APT,whether positive or negative,to read what we are
actually saying in our policy documents, rather than
depending on others to interpret them.
Like many struggling public interest groups, we wish
we had a broader base of financial support for our
activities. However, given our strong egalitarian
policies, it is understandable that we are finding
it difficult to obtain any support from companies in
the convengent industry whose primary focus in
breaking up monopolies is on capturing the
high-margin, high-end of the market. We are, as our
name implies an Alliance for "Public" Technology. To
us, competition is a means to an end; not an end in
itself. I must admit, that I do not say three "hail
Milton Friedman's" every day. If we are going to
depend on the marketplace of competition to build
"public" infrastructure, then we had better start
focusing on how the marketplace is going to work for
communities that it marginalizes in the process or
segmenting and stratifing markets for exploitation.
We have advanced three specific, pro-active
recommendations to overcome the implicit "electronic
redlining" of the marketplace that is laying a new
infrastructure foundation for another round of
economic and social polarization of the society. I
hope our critics take the time to read those
recommendations and to advise us whether of not we
are on the right track, or how we might more
effectively pursue our universal service objectives
in a market environment. We advanced the pro-active
recommendation (see my Alert) as an integral part of
our recommendations to remove disincentives to
investments in high capacity bandwidth to reach all
of society. These issues are highly germaine to the
FCC's recent action. We do not want to see, in the
name of a "level playing field" for competitors, the
launching of another competitive race for the high
end of the market. Read our Alert and you will find
out why have taken that position. Then, if you want
to snipe at us, that is your privelege. At least you
will have a more informed base for doing so.
Don Vial
APT Policy Committee Chair
<dvial@pacbell.net>
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