Welcome to my Dark Side (Fiber that is) – Pt 1

May 30, 2008

Today is my inaugural day for my Blog. What I intend to do is provide you with my passing thoughts and insights on the ever changing world of telecommunications and perhaps other things that pop in and out of my head. Not everyone will like my perspectives, I guarantee. Plus, a touch of sarcasm and cynicism along the way. What I will guarantee you though, that I won’t be offering a commercial for my company? Why, you may ask? Simply because in this day and age of the Internet, everyone creates a web site with all the cutesy words they think you want to hear leaving an impression that services being offered are a low price commodity.

I assure you on our web site (www.afsnetworks.com) it’s all true and to be even more direct, you don’t want to do business with us if your needs are all about the lowest price. I’ll tell you now, we are not the lowest priced but we are the most reliable. If you need reliability, AFS is your Huckleberry.

The aforementioned is as close as I will get to a commercial. Good luck out there but with deregulation comes choices, with choices come all sorts of promises and representations; and the parsing of words… caveat emptor. At AFS we own the fiber optic networks that serve you! Do your own homework before buying. Do you really know who owns the physical network BEFORE you sign on the dotted line.

I never thought I would be writing a Blog, I don’t even like the word blog. Someone should have come up with something better that sounds more intellectual. When I hear the word blog, it reminds of the teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon saying: “blah, blah, blah, blah …” to Peppermint Patti.

Today, let’s superficially discuss one of my favorite topics, the Communications Act of 1996 and its aftermath. Let me first start out by saying that anything created by lawyers, amongst lawyers is more than likely not going to work well, if at all. The lawyers I am talking about are those in Congress, the FCC and lobbyists. In all three categories the pedigree is pretty much having a law degree. For the life of me, it was apparent at the time of the Act and since then, no one baked in a single ounce of common sense from a non-lawyer into the mix. The day that we will all know that telecoms is truly competitive is when the Vice President of Strategy in most firms is no longer required to be a regulatory lawyer.

Rusinism: Behind every idiot act is a lawyer willing to litigate and a Judge that will listen.

Thank you if you have read this far … I am done for the moment. Remember: The softest pillow is a clear conscience.

Written by Dave Rusin - Telecom Executive
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