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Re: [TCLUG:12048] AOL - Time Warner Merger?



> >I think it's pretty much a done deal. Doesn't the government only have to
> >approve mergers that might create some sort of monopoly?
>         what percentage of the world's wealth do they need to control,
> before they're considered a 'financial monopoly'? sure their interests are
> in many different areas; but combined, their influence on the
> world economy
> is notable...
>
> Carl Soderstrom

  There's no provision in the law for a 'financial monopoly'.  MS and
Standard Oil didn't get in trouble just because they were rich, they got in
trouble because they controlled most of the world's supply of a vital
resource, and used their leverage to do evil things to competitors.  Neither
is true of AOL/T-W -- yet.  Obviously there's a potential for a vertical
monopoly, but there's still some very viable competition out there.
Remember, T-W is only the *second* largest cable company, and the #1 is
owned by AT&T.

  I was chatting about this with my boss this morning...  In my view, what
MS, or somebody, ought to be doing if they want to compete, is rendering
ISPs obsolete.  Take me... I don't need an ISP to provide me with anything
but an IP address and some copper -- once I've got that I can set up my own
POP complete with e-mail, DNS, website, etc.  Supposing Windows or RedHat or
MacOS came with a one-button "make me an ISP" system...  Click a button,
fill out a form, and it registers your domain, sets up a DNS entry at some
server provided by the OS provider, installs SMTP, httpd, etc, bills your
Visa for the processing costs and voila -- who needs AOL?

  The only things missing from this picture are widespread broadband access
and IPv6 -- once the Internet finally gets to the point where there's
several thousand IP addresses available for every square foot of habitable
terrain on Earth, and broadband becomes as common as cable or telephone
service, the above scenario should be perfectly feasible.

  I should probably patent this idea, right?

--
Eric Hillman
UNIX Sysadmin
City & County Credit Union
ehillman@cccu.com
--
perl -e '$_="06fde129ae54c1b4c8152374c00";
s/(.)/printf "%c",(10,32,65,67,69,72,
(74..76),(78..80),(82..85))[hex$1]/ge;'