The Heritage Foundation has issued a paper giving ideological reasons attacking any public interest in wired communications.

Before reading where they stand understand where they sit. The Heritage Foundation is the grandfather of right-wing lobbying organizations. Its money comes from rich men (and women) devoted, through their "charity", to pushing their own self-interest.

Nothing wrong with that, but since conservatives now claim full disclosure is a substitute for regulation, I thought mentioning that fact would be fair and balanced.

The Heritage argument on telephony is based on the claim that most of the money invested in these networks over the last few years has been "post-deregulation" investment. That is, since we're all "free to compete" with the monopoly, any money the monopoly invests henceforth is none of our business.

This is like a cop with a throw-down gun. If you reach for it, he can kill you in self-defense. (To take the sting out of that for my police friends, we'll say it's a Communist cop or a Saddam Hussein cop. Feel better now?)

Technically it is possible to divorce the public interest from the wired network. The networks could buy those assets back, or they could truly open up the use of those networks to competition.

It's the latter that Heritage claims was done by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, but that depends on what your meaning of "is" is. The Act was only enforced, sporadically and unsuccessfully, during the second Clinton Administration. Since the Heritage's friends came to power, that act has been gutted. The Bells refuse to wholesale, claiming that cable isn't under the same obligation, and vice versa. Politicians enable this all the way.

And organizations like Heritage are nothing but the handmaidens of politicians, although who is leading and who is following in that dance is open to interpretation. (I tend to think Heritage is leading.)

What do I think should be done? I think the Bells and cable guys should, in their own self-interest, wholesale their last-mile at attractive prices.