>Ahh, but we have a precedence to look at. Look at all the Baby Bells. No way do they share information freely; they are too busy trying to cut each others throats were their markets intersect.

And for a very brief while this was very beneficial to the consumer. Now all those little bells have merged and basically we're back where we started from. Case in point Cable Modems and DSL. AT&T bought the local cable company over a year and a half ago. At that time a local ISP wanted to do cable modems and would have had the whole city done in six months. Now we have the west side of town done and my side (not the more expensive side) won't see it for at least another 9 months.

DSL is even worse. Ameritech merged/bought/joined SBC??? and that company slashs all low margin services. They're taking away services and don't want to give us DSL.

But can get ISDN at a reasonable (for ISDN) price.

My head hurts.

I also remeber the bad old days of incompatibility and think you're total;y right on this one. But DOJ doesn't get a feather if they don't go for the brass ring.