Plans are afoot to push the United States into an attack on Iran. Anyone knowing the political atmosphere would believe this impossible unless something really terrible were to happen.
No nation on earth, we should believe, would ever stage such an event, dirty bomb or even full-scale nuclear attack, as nothing less than that could push Americans to war, not an America very skeptical of 9/11 and its aftermath.
However, one nation is free to do just that, knowing it faces no consequences of any kind from America, our closest ally, continually caught spying on us, buying off politicians or, as in Britain, running the government into the ground behind the front of “News Corp” and the Murdoch empire.
We need not name that country, not while 81 members of congress are there, entertained, perhaps being recruited? The real issue is terrorism, a potential attack that could kill tens of thousands of Americans.
The NeoCon Crew - More Dangerous Than Al Queda??
Since 1999, confirmed as the year that the invasion of Iran was decided upon by Israel and their key allies in the US, the “neocons,” world events have been dominated by attempts to pre-stage a massive war.
But the enemy is nearly unassailable, geographically isolated, armed to the teeth and closely aligned with China, the world’s second military power, the nation with the stranglehold on America’s credit purse strings.
9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq were just “run-ups” to the Iran invasion that never materialized in 2005 like Bush had planned, pushed forward by a “false flag” terror attack in Bahrain the White House and JSOC had attempted, thwarted by patriotic American military leaders.
None of this is news, none is history, all is, however, very easy to document though some of those involved in thwarting the Bush plan has been assassinated and others put on “terror suspect” lists. Now we see it all heating up again.
I can categorically state that there are plans afoot to stage a terror attack on the United States, in the wake of the Norway killings, not a “lone nutcase,” but a staged terrorist attack with broad international implications. Intelligence is pouring in, and if I am getting it, it means the US and UK governments have this and more.
The Rupert Murdoch Scowl
Whether they admit it, bury it or even know they have it is something else.
Recent history, particularly the Murdoch scandal in Britain, teaches us that police and counter-terrorism organizations have fallen under the control of “newspapers?”
No, the problem is far worse.
The endgame will be a nuclear bomb, a fission device or, minimally, a very large “dirty bomb.” Chatter says “Chicago.” To be blamed? Iran. Who is doing it?
Think “the usual suspects,” think global, think the Middle East, think Christian extremist, think Zionist, think big news agencies facing collapse, their leaders looking at the prison, think oil, you know the names.
A game is afoot, no guessing, no “dots” to connect.
The video below was “Clue Number one.”
Author Jeff Gates
The next clue was the report of 5 killings in Israel, blamed on “terrorists.”
Next you will see “rockets” coming from Gaza and Lebanon, carefully staged by Israel, carefully timed to pressure on Syria. Suddenly, Israeli news filled with stories of anti-government demonstrations and an Israeli version of “Arab Spring” are now talking about “terrorism.”
In Syria, Assad had to shell entire cities into submission. Israel, thus far, has only had to kill 5 of their own. Note we say “thus far.” Author Jeff Gates outlines the narrative from the “usual suspects” here:
How many Americans had heard of the Taliban before March 2001 when the destruction of the ancient Buddhas at Bamiyan was reported worldwide as a ‘Cultural Holocaust’? Voila! An Evil Doer brand emerged and was soon repackaged as Islamo-fascism.
Six months later, an attack on U.S. soil left little doubt that outraged Americans would be provoked to war. Combine an emotionally wrenching mass murder with manipulated intelligence and an invasion was assured—of Iraq. That miscue required sophisticated pre-staging.
Residents of Washington, DC well recall the sniper attacks that left ten dead during the October 2002 lead-up to a Senate vote on a war resolution sponsored by Jewish Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman. Those well-timed murders ensured a heightened sense of insecurity and helped ratchet up the requisite hatred—to invade a nation that played no role in 911.
Remember the Times Square Terrorist? A car belonging to a Muslim was found with two Walmart propane tanks, an alarm clock, a box of fireworks and some fertilizer. When? In May 2010 during the lead-up to a UN vote on the nuclear-free Middle East—opposed by Israel.
To sustain hate requires a sustained stream of plausible reasons to hate. Plus careful maintenance of a ‘generally accepted truth’ that keeps attention focused on a credible threat.
Preparing the Minds
Islamo-phobia was a fresh threat when it first appeared in a 1993 article in Foreign Affairs. Yet it dates from 1990 when Princeton Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis, an avid Zionist, touted “The Roots of Muslim Rage.” By 1996, Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington was ready to publish The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
With more than 100 nongovernmental organizations promoting The Clash, Americans experienced a seamless segue from an old narrative to a new. Without missing a beat in Pentagon spending, we ended a global Cold War and, by consensus, began a global War on Terrorism…
With Osama bin Laden dead and war-weary Americans nearing the tenth anniversary of 911, The narrative was losing its punch. Plus the storytellers face a transparency problem: Intelligence agencies worldwide have identified pro-Israelis as the common source of the manipulated intelligence that induced the invasion of Iraq.
What’s a Zionist to do? Answer: look to past successes.
The Norwegian shooter is akin to the narrative-advancing snipers who emerged in the lead-up to the Senate vote authorizing the U.S. military to invade Iraq. In the lead-up to next month’s UN vote on statehood for Palestine, the carnage in Norway freshened up a stale storyline.
This latest mass murder was committed on the 65th anniversary of the bombing of the King David Hotel in Tel Aviv. That mass murder was an operation of the Irgun, Zionist-terrorist predecessors to the Likud Party of today’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
The same night that Israel launched its Six-Day War in June 1967, Irgun operative Mathilde Krim was continuing her torrid affair with President Lyndon Johnson—in the White House. Why then? Because that land grab ensured the roots of the Muslim rage required to shape future events.
Why would a Norwegian Zionist target Norwegians? For the same reason that Irgun Zionist Menachem Begin murdered Jews in the King David Hotel: to advance a narrative.
In September 2000, Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led a provocative march to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. When, after a year of calm, suicide bombings recommenced, Sharon and Netanyahu warned that only when Americans “feel our pain” would we appreciate their plight. To feel Israel’s pain, they said, would require that America lose 4,500 to 5,000 to terrorism, the initial estimate of those lives lost to a mass murder one year later.
The well-timed operation in Norway turned to mass murder as a means to remake the world order in plain sight. Those complicit specialize in maintaining a storyline that dates from when the medieval Crusades pit Christians against Muslims.
Absent the success of such deceit, we may forget whom to hate.
Syrian Phone Sniper
Look for news stories claiming Iran has sent sniper teams to Syria to gun down innocent demonstrators, dozens of major news agencies carry these, wild and insane stories. Remember Obama’s announcement on Syria yesterday?
These pre-stages moves against Hezbollah in Lebanon, sold to the west as “security for Israel,” but seen in the Middle East as genocide, a holocaust against the remaining Palestinians, Israel wiping a people, racially Semitic, 4000 years of continual residence in Judea, many former Jews and Christians, wiping them from the face of the earth.
9/11 came up again, Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism “insider” came out blaming George Tenet and the CIA for “allowing” Muslims to “do” 9/11. Problem here? The story is told, undeserving of the massive news coverage. Problem two, ten years of evidence has debunked the hijacker theory.
You don’t know that? Watch too much TV news? Keeping the old stories, Flight 93, the box cutters, the 19 hijackers in front of you, stories long proven to be total fabrications is a full-time job.
We call this “disinformation” and it is why having government-controlled news or, as in Britain, “news controlled government,” is so dangerous.
Richard Clarke - Playing Us or Being PlayedMaking it worse, a few leaders of alternative journalism, respected people, backed Clarke’s accusation against the CIA. Truth?
We are told Clarke was a member of the group that planned the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent coverup, coordinated through Israel, Bush insiders, a group called PNAC and Pentagon traitors who tried, in 2007, to steal nuclear weapons to stage a war on Iran.
Do you now see why TV news is so dangerous?
Not a word of this will be printed in the west. Expect to turn on the TV and see “Schindlers List” and “Exodus” reruns and new films released about hunting down Nazi war criminals.
This is how terrorism is pre-staged, this and Norway and the London riots and the 5 dead Israelis while cluster bombs have been dropped on Gaza night after night with no reports at all.
Fully complicit in this is Al Jazeera, a propaganda organization that Americans are told is run by terrorists.
In fact, it is a censorship agency that is used to control news given to Muslims, buying sympathy and credibility while being controlled by the CIA and Mossad. Remember the talk, Bush, saying he was going to shoot their satellites down? Funny. What a liar!
Bibi Doing the Tough Guy Routine
Israel is facing the strongest pressure in decades, massive demonstrations of its Jewish population demanding the ouster of the Netanyahu government that has wasted the country’s resources on “phony security issues,”along with broad international condemnation which will be presented to the United Nations next month.
Turkey, long an ally of Israel, once hopeful of membership in the EU has been blocked permanently.
Think Iraq. We know we have been told to forget Iraq but, in the past weeks, terror attacks there have taken on a massive scale. This is no accident.
Tensions between Shiites and Sunnis, there and across the Middle East, have been orchestrated to create a mosaic of instability, cover for spy agencies to infiltrate and turn the new “Arab Spring” governments in Tunisia and Egypt.
The High Fashioned Gaddafi
What can we expect in Libya, Gaddafi supposedly leaving in a week, his billions safe?
Gaddafi, like Assad, has been running a police state, despite the claims of some members of the press. However, those same people who wrongly defend Gaddafi very rightly warn of what will follow.
Americans aren’t told that Turkey stands ready to invade Syria. Turkey claims to be angry at Israel but it is Israel that wants Turkey to invade Syria and is telling them so through Israel’s “client state,” the United States of America.
Too complicated for you? This means you have been watching too much news.
GOING NUCLEAR, FOR A MORE “GLOWING” AMERICA
Two weeks ago, stories oft-told, Iran having purchased nuclear weapons, stories related to the Maddow video, began running. This is an earlier version by Alexander Cockburn, sent on by Michael Shrimpton:
Lost Nuclear Warheads from a B-52 now in Iran? By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Iran may have the weapons-grade uranium out of three nuclear
warheads were dumped out of a B-52 back in 1991. Or so at least the US government
might have some reason to believe, according to a seemingly well-informed person
talking to CounterPunch last week.
On February 3, 1991, this particular B-52G had
been deployed to circle around Baghdad. It was armed with 3 SRAM missiles armed
with nuclear warheads and fitted with rocket drives to push them 100 miles to
the rear of the B-52 before detonating…
Modern Nuclear Bomb Storage
The weapons were lost, a “Broken Arrow” declared by the US.
The CIA’s top man in the area, Osama bin Laden, helped run the recovery operations that led into Kenya and Tanzania.
His reward was a terrorism indictment and the initial invention of the previously unknown term “Al Qaeda.”
One of these lost weapons made its way, part of it at least, to North Korea where it was part of an unsuccessful “demonstration,” a shipload of fertilizer and one “plutonium pit” bought from arms dealers from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa.
For years, the Pelandaba facility in South Africa produced highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium. This was a facility owned by Armscorp.
The uranium came from the Congo, supplied by Gencor, a company owned by the Rothschild family.
GENCORE was an amalgamation of Union Mining Corporation and General Mining Corporation. Their real business was nuclear proliferation done in partnership between Israel and South Africa, a partnership that tested nuclear weapons, one in 1979 and sold them on the open market, one to North Korea which was exploded in 2009.
Pelandaba - Former South African-Israeli Nuclear Weapons Facility
The Maddow story, of an attempted raid on Pelandaba is partially true. It is never asked why and how nuclear bomb-making material ended up there. This isn’t DU or isotopes, this is plutonium and uranium 235, pure as the driven snow, something even a child could make a nuclear weapon with.
A year ago, President Obama thanked South Africa for abandoning its nuclear weapons program, something never reported except here.
United States President Barack Obama on Sunday heaped
praise South Africa for taking the decision to become the first country to
abandon a nuclear weapons program, as he met President Jacob Zuma.
Obama met Zuma amid a string of bilateral
meetings with world leaders on the eve of a 47-nation nuclear security summit,
designed to draw commitments from key powers to keep loose nuclear material out
of the hands of extremist groups.
“South Africa is singular in having had
a nuclear weapon program had moved forward on it and then decided this was not
the right path,” Obama said, noting how South Africa had since been a leader on
non-proliferation.
“South Africa has special standing in being a moral
leader on this issue. And I wanted to publicly compliment President Zuma and his
administration for the leadership they’ve shown,” Obama said.
“And we are
looking forward to the possibility of them helping to guide other countries
down a similar direction of non-proliferation.”
South Africa abandoned
its nuclear weapons program in the 1990s and the International Atomic Energy
Agency certified in 1994 that the program had been fully dismantled. —
Sapa-AFP
Cyprus
The dismantled program, Israeli and South African, had produced and tested weapons, some which were turned over to the US to be dismantled.
What Obama is thanking South Africa for, and 3 that Britain had taken control of and “misplaced,” amid stories of Saddam having them, Iran using them or some even being placed inside the US as “blackmail.”
We tracked them from Durban to Oman to Cyprus, one to North Korea where it was “demonstrated” and two a source of deep concern.
This is a back channel intel source discussing this:
The fissile material recently stolen from Pelindaba has a long history.
It came from six atomic bombs made there in the 1980s.
Initially they were shipped from South Africa direct to Chicago, USA before the Afrikaners handed South Africa over to the Blacks.
The six remained in storage with each still in its separate 20ft ISO Container.
Then after all six atomic bombs were finally taken out of their shipping containers, and dismantled,
Their fissile materials had to be returned to South Africa.
Thereafter everyone could pretend that only SIX bombs (not nine plus one that was tested) had ever been made and that these SIX had never left South Africa.
Even Obama joined in on this act of deception.
Dashing David Cameron (#2) and Bullingdon clubmates at Oxford '87
The stories have been verified, and contacts with Armscorp and Gencor. We have the histories of the production teams, the agreements between South Africa and Israel, the shipping of the weapons, the negotiations which included Nelson Mandela, Dr. David Kelly and a very young David Cameron.
We have also been contacted by a virtual army of shadowy figures, arms dealers, former “Iran/Contra” figures, and names on “watch lists” who move with the ease of Swiss diplomats.
The result? A “legend,” the intelligence term for a false background, has been created to support missing nuclear weapons, stolen fissionable material, and everything necessary to place blame on Iran, perhaps even Pakistan and China.
George W. Bush - Working the Crowd
The agenda? Such things are too dark to imagine.
Back in 2000, the Supreme Court placed George “W” Bush in office, a mentally unstable individual with little personal focus, an addict, a “dry drunk” with delusional religious beliefs and personal history it took millions to bury.
Soon afterward, the largest terror attack in history accidentally happened on a day that NORAD was “off duty.”
It was a day that the Air Force was involved in war games and unable to respond to threats a day that scientists will tell you the laws of physics, of “conservation of matter and energy” and even the flow of time itself seemed suspended.
A country led by a psychotic dupe, one not dissimilar from the virtual army of malignant narcissists lining up to run against Obama, was capable of anything.
After all, the military had been taken over by the Dominionist cult, dedicated to bringing on the “end times” through staging a nuclear war while the White House held hourly prayer sessions and with the term “rapture” used far more often than “fiscal.”
Thousands died on 9/11 under questionable circumstances too absurd they defy belief, circumstances never to be spoken of, never to be questioned and certainly never to be reported.
Five died in Israel, a small price for control. The agenda?
Doesn’t the world have too many people, people using too much of the world’s resources, not paying enough mortgage interest, not buying enough gasoline, eating too much food? What if most of them were to simply vanish? Is the technology there to do that? I think the Japanese have answered that question for us.
Is the will there to do it? There’s the rub. As long as we believe evil doesn’t exist…
[youtube VYteFBJ44MA]
Cameron’s Oxford Photo Notes: Dear VT readers, As we have time we are trying to increase the research value of some of our key articles. The speed at which the world news flows, and a basically all volunteer staff, often preclude doing it. The Oxford Bullingdon Club photo was included as peek behing the curtain into the long time relationships between some of the major socio-political players affecting our lives now.
In Britain a major area for this is school mates. These guys are almost as tight a combat squad veterans. Don’t miss the ‘grooming’ that Cameron got for top political office and his media stint which certainly put him in the loop on much of the behind the scenes Murdoch stuff (note media positions of the others, including spouses, especially the Murdoch properties and you will see an intelligence operation in action).
One of the major goals of foreign media espionage is to have your fingers on the pulse of a nation, especially their emerging leaders, where early relationships (and funding) can put you right at the table of power down the road.
I also wanted to extend a personal VT thank you for the great info that is contributed from readers in the comment sections. Jim W. Dean, VT editor.
1. Sebastian Grigg …Still close to David Cameron, Grigg knew him from Eton and lives nearby, in Holland Park. Born into privilege – he is the oldest son of Baron Altrincham, Anthony Ullick David Dundas Grigg, and went to Eton before going to Oriel College – he is now a member of the moneyed aristocracy as a partner at Goldman Sachs. He and his wife, former Times journalist Rachel Kelly, host an annual Christmas drinks in Lansdowne Crescent which is very much a fixture for Notting Hill grandees. Grigg made an unsuccessful bid to be a Tory MP.
2. David Cameron …Misdemeanours with cannabis aside, Cameron was clearly a surefooted operator at Eton, for by the time he arrived at Oxford he had the social connections to make joining the Bullingdon Club easy. He still found time for work, though, getting a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics before going on to work at the Conservative Research Department. Spells at the Treasury and Home Office, then seven years as communications head at Carlton TV. Elected MP for Witney in 2001, and became Tory leader in 2005.
3. Ralph Perry Robinson… A former child actor, he had a walkon part in the 1984 film Another Country, that study of public school homosexuality and betrayal. At Oxford he once paraded round Oriel quad dressed as a monk and calling for virgins to be sacrificed. A former pupil of the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture, he was recruited by Richard Rogers to help him design a virtual reality centre in Japan. He now lives in a village near Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he makes furniture.
4. Ewen Fergusson… Generally thought of as the “quiet one” of the group, Fergusson also had a wild side and is thought to have been responsible for a notorious Bullingdon incident in which a plant pot was thrown through a restaurant window, resulting in six members spending a night in police cells. The son of former rugby international turned British ambassador in Paris Sir Ewen Fergusson, Ewen Junior – Rugby and Oriel – is now a partner in the banking and finance section of City law firm Herbert Smith.
5. Matthew Benson… Born into proper money – his family were wealthy merchant bankers – Benson spent three years working for Morgan Stanley before setting up a property consultancy. Now a director of Rettie and Co, an Edinburgh-based property company, he married in 1997 Lady Lulu Douglas-Hamilton, ex-wife of Lord Patrick Douglas-Hamilton, at a ceremony which involved a ruined castle being rebuilt over three floors.
6. Sebastian James… Another Bullingdon blue blood, James is the son of Lord Northbourne, a major landowner from Kent. Something of an entrepreneur, his business ventures have included a DVD rental business, Silverscreen, and a dotcom business, ClassicForum, which was supposed to be an eBay for rare books.
7. Jonathan Ford… The president of the Bullingdon – a post to which Boris Johnson aspired, but never succeeded in attaining – the Westminster-educated Ford was elected to the post because “he had a mad genius about him”. After Oxford, where he read modern history, he had a spell in the City as a banker with Morgan Grenfell before going into financial journalism. He is now deputy editor of a financial website, and married to Susannah Herbert,literary editor of the Sunday Times.
8. Boris Johnson… He looked much the same then as he does now, albeit a trifle slimmer, and was regarded in much the same light: ludicrous, but with an ambition that is not to be underestimated. Beaten by Ford for the post of president of the Buller, he made up for it by becoming president of the Oxford Union. Editor of the Spectator from 1999 to 2005, and MP for Henley since 2001, his chief occupations outside journalism and politics would seem to be amusing television quiz show audiences and being unfaithful to his wives (two, at the last count).
9. Harry Eastwood… Another old Etonian, after Oxford Eastwood worked in corporate finance at Storehouse, the retail group. Later tried his hand at setting up his own business, co-founding a firm called Filmbox which aimed to operate vending machines for people to rent videos from. They were persuasive enough to get backers to stump up £450,000, but the business was a failure before it even got off the ground. Is now commercial director for a company called Monkey.
INTERNET SERVICE COMPETITION:ANNA-MARIA KOVACS
Congressional Testimony July 14, 1999 00-00-0000 Written statement of Anna-Maria Kovacs First Vice President Janney Montgomery Scott Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss in the broadband Internet-access market. My name is Anna-Maria Kovacs and I am the telecommunications and broadband services analyst for Janney Montgomery Scott, a brokerage and investment banking firm. My job is to make judgments about the strategies, business plans and financials of firms within the telecommunications and cable industries and to gauge their chances for success in the face of their competitors` strategies and plans, so that I can help our investors pick stocks within this industry. site isp speed test
One of my observations is that the Telecommunications Act is on the verge of bearing the kind of fruit that was hoped for when the Act passed. Meaningful competition in various segments of the telecommunications market has finally emerged, and where it existed before the Act it is taking increasingly strong hold.
Facilities-based competition against the incumbent telcos is becoming a reality in the consumer as well as business markets. Competition in the business markets was real even before the Act passed. Cable-telephony has been deployed in large enough volume to assure us that competition in residential markets is becoming real, as well. While mass deployment may take a couple of years and another generation of technology, there can be no doubt that it is coming. Video competition has become a reality, with satellite- based services providing real competition to cable. Competition for high- speed Internet access is becoming a reality as well. Cable modems are proliferating and telcos have begun to deploy DSL, with both technologies able to run data at speeds 20 or more times those we have been accustomed to. In the backbone, long-haul segment, several new competitors are creating networks each of which provide more potential capacity than the total current traffic requires. Wireless is beginning to replace wireline.
The major players in each of these segments are trying to play in all segments, as they prepare for a world in which they expect a large part of the market to require bundled services. Thus, they are moving from their traditional areas of strength into new areas, concerned that they will not be able to defend their original position unless they are equally competitive in the other segments. Cable companies have upgraded their video capabilities and moved into data carriage and have begun to move into voice carriage because they see threats to their traditional markets from satellite- based video and need the new sources of growth that Internet access and telephony provide them. Telcos have accelerated their deployment of DSL in response to the threat posed by cable modems, which could decimate the telcos` second-line growth unless the telcos can offer a product that offers competitive speed. The long-distance carriers have moved both into Internet-based value- added services and into local markets, AT&T most notably with its enormous investments in the cable industry. In each case, the presence of a real, facilities- based competitor has spurred the incumbent to move more rapidly to provide new technologies, products and services.
That is an important lesson, in my view, to keep in mind as we look at the Internet access market and concern ourselves with ways to insure that the Internet continues to flourish and that there is unimpeded access to it by both consumers and content providers.
Today, there are two primary ways to access the Internet. The vast majority of users do so over the telcos` networks. Some do so at high speed, most often off corporate networks. Millions of consumers do so at relatively low speed, generally at or below 56 kilobits, though as many as 100, 000 consumers may be gaining high- speed access via DSL. The telco network these customers use provides point-to-point connections to any of thousands of ISPs, who in turn provide access to a plethora of websites that hold the actual content the customers want to reach. Slightly under a million consumers reach the Internet over cable networks, at speeds that may reach a megabit or more. They generally have direct access to one Internet Service Provider, Home or Road Runner, through whom they may reach other ISPs and the content of the Web. From the consumer`s standpoint, today`s choices can be roughly described as low-speed and the ISP of my choice on my telco or high-speed and a single ISP on my cable, for a more or less comparable total price of about $40 for the connection and ISP. Speed vs. ISP of my choice.
That clear-cut choice, however, is blurring. It is becoming possible in more and more locations to get high-speed on the telco via DSL, and Home has made it possible to access other ISPs through it, albeit at an extra charge. In other words, there are real technologies deployed in the field that make it realistic to expect that within a year or two, most consumers will be able to get high-speed access to the Internet via at least two media, cable and telco-DSL. The ability of cable to offer high-speed is spurring telcos` deployment of comparable speed even though it is not necessarily economic at this early stage in DSL`s learning curve. I believe that the deployment of DSL, in turn, will spur the cable industry to insure that it offers consumers a choice in content, content providers, and gateways that is comparable to what the telcos can offer. In other words, I believe that consumers, given a choice of two media which offer equally high speed at comparable prices will select the provider that gives them the content and ISP of their choice. The best guarantee that consumers will enjoy the benefits of broadband and the content of their choice, and that content providers will have access to all consumers, is to do everything possible to encourage both sides to deploy as vigorously as technology, human resources, and capital allow.
Both sides face some barriers on each of those fronts. DSL is a difficult technology to deploy. It is sensitive to distance from the central office as well as to the quality of the loop, and current versions of it are not compatible with the digital loop carrier that the best modernized telcos have deployed. All of these make it expensive to deploy and account for the slowness with which it has reached the field. Once it is deployed, however, it provides a secure, point-to-point connection whose speed is predictable and controllable. Some of these problems will disappear as new generations of DSL come to market over the next year or two, thus increasing the market that can be physically targeted and lowering the cost of deployment. A factor that will lower deployment cost for both DSL and cable-modems is the appearance of PCs that are DSL-and/or cable-ready. Those have begun to come to market and will help to further lower deployment cost and alleviate the human-resource problem the shortage of competent technicians who today have to go out and install either cable-modems or DSL directly into the PC. Thus, it is reasonable to foresee that at some point during 2000, DSL deployment will kick into high gear, which I would define as passing the million customer mark that cable-modems are already approaching. By that point, cable companies will have to face the fact that telcos can provide a product that is equally attractive in terms of speed and price to cable-modems. Consumers will no longer face the current choice of speed vs. my favorite ISP, but will be able to get both over DSL.
At that point the pressure will be on cable to open access to its network, a task that faces some real technology barriers. Cable networks are shared pipes. Because they are shared, it becomes difficult to control the actual speed any user will enjoy when multiple users are on-line. Home and Road Runner are able to some extent to control bandwidth allocation, to ensure that a few customers do not hog the entire pipe and exclude all others. There is today no network management system that can do that bandwidth- allocation job when many ISPs are providing service over the cable network directly to the end user during periods when the network is carrying a full load. It is likely that such an operating system could be developed for cable networks, but it is not here today. Hence, the cable industry`s insistence that other ISPs use Home or Road Runner as their gateway to the customer.
There are many who insist that the cable industry is motivated to limit or control access to its network not only by technical difficulties but by anti-competitive motives. The potential for that certainly exists given the vertical integration in this industry and the small number of horizontal players providing local access. It does not take much imagination to envision the potential for a player like AT&T that controls access to the majority of cable homes in the U.S. through its own properties or its affiliates, which is a part-owner of Home and will be of Road Runner, and which has a variety of content properties, finding ways to advantage its own content and sites on its own network. But it also does not take much knowledge of history to understand that in a competitive market that is likely to be a highly self- destructive strategy. Consumers who, at comparable prices and speeds, can get unlimited choice of content over the telcos vs. limited choice over their cable network are not likely to opt for the cable network. Beta vs. VHS and Apple vs. Microsoft both tell us that customers primarily care about content and applications and will flock to the vendor that gives them the best and widest selection of each. Thus, if AT&T were inclined to try to limit the number of ISPs and the content on its network, it would be punished severely by the market place, assuming there is another choice in that marketplace. Most Internet access would happen over the telcos` DSL pipes. Given the enormity of AT&T`s investment in cable systems and its inability to earn adequately over those systems without a hefty penetration of cable-modems and telephony, its stock would suffer severely if it maintained a closed-access strategy once DSL is readily available in the market- place.
The key, then, to ensuring that the cable industry, and especially AT&T which has invested so heavily in its cable networks, do not act in ways that anti-competitive against ISPs and content providers is to ensure that it has a real competitor at the network level. That is, the key is to ensure that DSL can be deployed as efficiently, economically, and rapidly as possible. That will put pressure on the cable industry to open its network. Ultimately that means creating new cable-network operating systems that allow network capacity control to be distributed among multiple ISPs. In the short run, it may mean reaching agreements with ISPs that enable them to look to the consumer like the primary ISP even when Home is actually providing the network control Regulators can also have some impact on the speed of deployment on each side. On the DSL side, rules that are likely to discourage deployment by the telcos themselves include the requirement that telcos to have separate data subsidiaries, that they provide competitors with a portion of the spectrum on the line on an unbundled basis, that they provide collocation for DSLAMs in already-crowded field-vaults. Each of these makes it operations more difficult and expensive for the telco. On the other hand, each of these facilitates deployment by Data LECs who ride on the telco`s network. If the primary need is to encourage as much DSL deployment as possible to put pressure on cable operators to open their networks, then the key question in considering such regulations has to be whether more DSL will be deployed by the telcos themselves, if they are left free of regulation, or by the DLECs, if they are helped by such regulations. website isp speed test
Similarly, regulators can have some impact on cable deployment. It is unlikely that cable will refuse to upgrade its networks in the face of regulation. AT&T, in particular, has already spent so much on buying TCI and will spend so much more on MediaOne, that it has no choice but to upgrade its networks to make as much money as it can on Internet access and telephony. However, regulations that do not take into account actual technological realities could slow deployment. Forcing kluged solutions to allow multiple ISPs direct access to customers before an effective operating system is ready would be one such possibility, because it could increase expense and might degrade service and therefore the marketability of cable Internet access.
How Wall Street allocates capital within this industry, or more simply how stock prices will move, will depend on the development of these various technologies, on the strategies chosen by the various players, and on regulation as well. To focus most specifically on the latter with some examples, minimizing regulations on the telcos is likely to help their stocks, but is likely to hurt the Covads and other Data LECs who provide DSL over the telco networks. Immediate open-access rules are likely to help the stocks of ISPs other than Home, and to hurt Home`s as well as to some extent cable stocks. That means that regulators need to be very clear on what their over-riding goals are, and to balance short-term vs. long-term goals. Is it more important to pit telcos vs. cable to ensure that each side is as aggressive as possible right now or is it more important to promote the health of the Data LECs? Is it critical to ensure open-access on cable today via regulations that might impose extra expenses on cable companies and will probably damage the financial health of Home, or is it possible to wait and see whether DSL-based competition takes care of the problem? How regulators answer these questions will help determine which companies and industry segments receive support from investors.
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Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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