To my surprise and delight Andy Oram was gracious in responding to yesterday's item. A less-gracious correspondent might think I implied criticism or that I was belittling his effort.

As I understand it, you're saying "Why invest a huge amount in some copper/fiber combo when we might get something 10 times faster in a few years?" That's a legitimate argument, but it's the same choice people have to make yearly when they buy a new computer.

The key word in the section above is computer. And by Jove, I think he's got it!

You don't get a 30-year note to buy a computer. You buy it for cash, and you may (if you care to) write it off over three years.

What does this mean for telecommunications investment?

Well, if you've got a service area of even a few hundred homes, you can write off a Wi-LAN 802.16 scheme from the nearest fiber in 3 years, and the customers can each write-off the 802.11 access to that system as well.

So that works with Moore's Law.

You can probably write off the electronics needed to upgrade the capacity of a fiber over three years, if you're increasing your backhaul capacity by 100x or more, as you might well be.

So you can buy that.

But laying new cable? Digging ditches or stringing wires?

Uh-uh.

Now, what does this imply for universal service and public policy? It implies small grants, delivered from general revenues, rather than a big slush fund, deilvered from some tax on telecom users. It implies favoritism toward small community groups and entrepreneurial efforts, and toward those who are competing with larger carriers.

I see no such proposal coming from the left or the right. And in absence of such a proposal, the best thing is to do no harm. Let 'em beat one another up, and pass nothing.

Economics, and Moore's Law, favors those small entrepreneurs, and those short-range investments. So doing nothing favors the small over the large. Doing something small expands the advantage, on behalf of what technology and economics dictates.

Doing something big, regardless of its ideological sponsor, is the only hope now for the big boys. And I say what I've said all along.

The Bells must die.

Or, if you prefer, the hell of quell falls mainly on the Bell.