ATC User Fees

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:2mqce.34479$r53.15777@attbi_s21...
To truly privatize it would require free market competition among
providers
of ATC services. That simply is not possible.

They used to say that the phone company or the utility companies needed to
be monopolies.


Exactly.

Economic sectors where only monopoly businesses can function pretty much
defines (in my mind) where "government" should exist.

Such as?

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

They used to say that the phone company or the utility companies needed to
be monopolies.


That's not quite the same situation. True competition between phone and
utility companies would require each company to create their own
distribution networks in the same area. Separate phone, gas, and electrical
lines for each company. It could be done but at greater cost to the
consumer and less profit for the company.

You could have separate ATC providers, each providing their own
infrastructure in the form of radar sites, radio transceivers, etc., but
their clients would all be operating in the same airspace. Customers of
Acme ATC would be separated from other Acme ATC customers, and Consolidated
ATC clients would be separated from each other, but Acme ATC customers could
not be separated from Consolidated ATC clients.

"Matt Barrow" writes:

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:2mqce.34479$r53.15777@attbi_s21...
To truly privatize it would require free market competition among
providers
of ATC services. That simply is not possible.

They used to say that the phone company or the utility companies needed to
be monopolies.

And, in fact, there is only *one* gas pipe, *one* water pipe, *one*
sewer pipe running down the street out front of my house. And only
*one* set of electrical wires in the neighborhood. And *one* set of
phone wires. And *one* set of cable company coax.

It's possible to multiplex services from different companies on them,
to some extent. It's not very meaningful for the water, phone,
electricity, or sewer; for the phone wires, also used for DSL, it
actually seems to work well to allow multiple ISPs to connect
through those lines. But tht's because it's a separate run from the
switching office to each house, whereas all the rest use shared
wiring/piping.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/