Re:FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger ro...
by hueving on Saturday February 25, 2017 @03:51AM
(#13730700)
>how much capital does it take to build a competitive ISP from scratch (keeping in mind that Google wasn't quite starting from scratch)?
It's significant, but it's often done in cities that don't have this regulation problem (see most high-density cities around the world with sane access to cabling tunnels). Or, if you take it to the extreme the other direction, look at all of the municipal fiber projects that end up working out. If a municipality can pay for it, certainly a company would be able to as well.
Laying fiber requires labor, but many of the service tunnels already exist so the only digging required is the last bit from the street to the customer's house.
There is an entire industry designed to help finance capital-intensive projects. Just because you can't do something with a text editor and a compiler in your basement doesn't mean it can't be done.
>but we are talking about a real natural monopoly
No we aren't. Trying to build up an ISP is 95% lobbying local governments. It's only 'natural' in the sense that it's a government created monopoly.
>much more resentment from their prospective customers
You wouldn't be pulling fiber to peoples' homes if they weren't already signing up (see the google fiber rollout mechanism).
>Given the choice, the customers would vastly prefer a local loop unbundling solution
Not if it means the best they can get is 5 mbps over cables that were laid to homes 20 years ago. If your city is filled with a bunch of NIMBYS, they are just as likely to vote down a bond or whatever it takes to raise money to lay in new fiber.
It's significant, but it's often done in cities that don't have this regulation problem (see most high-density cities around the world with sane access to cabling tunnels). Or, if you take it to the extreme the other direction, look at all of the municipal fiber projects that end up working out. If a municipality can pay for it, certainly a company would be able to as well.
Laying fiber requires labor, but many of the service tunnels already exist so the only digging required is the last bit from the street to the customer's house.
There is an entire industry designed to help finance capital-intensive projects. Just because you can't do something with a text editor and a compiler in your basement doesn't mean it can't be done.
>but we are talking about a real natural monopoly
No we aren't. Trying to build up an ISP is 95% lobbying local governments. It's only 'natural' in the sense that it's a government created monopoly.
>much more resentment from their prospective customers
You wouldn't be pulling fiber to peoples' homes if they weren't already signing up (see the google fiber rollout mechanism).
>Given the choice, the customers would vastly prefer a local loop unbundling solution
Not if it means the best they can get is 5 mbps over cables that were laid to homes 20 years ago. If your city is filled with a bunch of NIMBYS, they are just as likely to vote down a bond or whatever it takes to raise money to lay in new fiber.