Why are we discussing regulations that only apply to telecommunication providers? Why shouldn't Internet companies be subject to identical neutrality provisions?

Why should a platform like YouTube be permitted to make judgment calls on how to handle content on it's services, but ISPs can't make judgment calls on how to handle content on theirs?

You haven't given a single reason for why telecommunications companies are different.

For the same reason we prevent phone companies from doing the same. Until you're ok with phone companies not letting you call the Butterball hotline because they support another turkey company, I don't think you have a point.

Moreover, even without any antitrust issues, the number of ISPs, especially in rural areas will always be limited by start up costs. In cities it'll always be limited by space on lines poles or conduits underground.

I guess until you convince me phone operators shouldn't be regulated as common carriers, you won't convince me isps shouldn't.

It feels like you're actively avoiding the question. Let me show you:

If phone companies blocked you from the Butterball hotline because they support another turkey company, that would be what's known as an "anticompetitive business practice". Now, if you removed the special exemption telecoms get, the FTC would fine them for that, and tell them they can't do it.

In the same way, if ISPs were to prioritize their own video services or block a competitor's, that would also be against antitrust law, and the FTC could fine them for it. Hilariously, the common carrier designation actually prevents this from happening.

At the risk of aggravating the moderators, to ask this a third time what is so special about telecommunications companies, that, unlike other monopolies, need a whole different form of regulation?

> At the risk of aggravating the moderators, to ask this a third time what is so special about telecommunications companies, that, unlike other monopolies, need a whole different form of regulation?

I mean, you could ask the same thing about electric utilities. What's special is that as a society, we've decided that we don't want dozens and dozens of companies running infrastructure through public land. We grant some private companies space, for rent, but that also comes with the burdens of public process. In more space-constrained areas like telephone poles, streets, and conduits, it's often better to have a small number of companies utilize the space, but at the cost of additional regulations.

Electric, gas, phone, and water companies have captive audiences, but at the same time need the PUC to approve rate increases and are required to meet certain performance guidelines.

I'll also ask for the third time: Why should ISPs be different than the phone company?

ISPs shouldn't be different than the phone company: Both should be prohibited from anticompetitive actions via the Sherman Antitrust Act. It's time to do to both El Goog AND ISPs what was once done to a phone company: Breaking them up.

For the record, I didn't address your "space-constrained areas like telephone poles and conduits" before because neither is remotely space-constrained (especially in the fiber age), and this is a complete red herring.

Telecommunications are rolled out either on poles or underground, which incidentally is exactly where our other utilities like electricity, phone, and water/sewage are laid out. We used to have hundreds of wires overhead everywhere and roads being dug up all the time to add new pipes. Our society has decided that the benefits of competition are outweighed by all of destruction and blockage done to the limited space of our roads. Additionally we have decided that those industries are too important to deal with outages that would come from competition and having companies go out of business. Telecommunications have reached that stage in the US at least, and given this space constraint and need to keep the service running 24/7 they should be regulated as utilities. If we split the actual ownership of the wires off into a separate utility and had different companies selling the bandwidth and services like the UKs setup, then leaving the service up to normal regulations would be fine.

As long as they own the physical network they should be a utility