PC World: Court Decision Could Mean Higher Broadband Prices. Broadband consumers could find themselves dealing with lackluster service and rising prices as the Baby Bells gain ground in the telecom deregulation debate, industry experts say. The warning comes in the wake of a District of Columbia appeals court decision last week to reject existing unbundling and line-sharing rules imposed on the Bells, put in place by a 1996 law.

Hmm not sure what to think about this one.  My gut reaction is that when someone owns something, they shouldn't have to share it unless they want to.  That's the remanants of an Ayn Rand philosophy leftover from my college years.  I've felt the same way with the cable companies when AOL was trying to sue to use ATT cables. 

However, I now have DSL and love it.  Cable isn't available in my area and my carrier just happens to be one of the Baby Bells, SBC Communications.  So this starts to get personal at this point.  Which is always a true test of a philosophy, no?  There are several CLECs in my area that I could have chosen from.  I chose SBC because I feel that if something goes wrong, I don't want my DSL provider to say it's phone related and my phone company to say it's DSL related.  But I like the fact that I have the choice to go with someone else's service if SBC gets complacent.

So my desire to have competition in things that I buy collides with my philosophy(sort of) that companies shouldn't have to be piggy-backed upon by upstarts.  This is a difficult subject.  I'll have to think a little more on it.