Re:F.C.C. Asks AT&T for Details on Plans to Halt Fiber Expan...
by AceJohnny2 on Friday November 14, 2014 @06:05PM
(#8610070)
> Or is the best response to increase competition among ISPs? How many people would choose the ISP that throttles Netflix?
That's really the core problem. Coming from Europe, the US has terrible telecom infrastructure* that is controlled by vertical monopolists. Of course bad things happen then. Cities are difficult about letting companies add infrastructure (it's costly and disruptive to add cables to the ground, it's ugly and disrubtive to add cables to poles), and in some cases the telecom companies themselves have succesfully lobbied to prevent cities/counties/states from building that infrastructure themselves.
Ideally, you'd have a public infrastructure (wire/cable/fiber), that is then leased out at cost to the actual ISPs, kind of like the power industry in texas (wire's public, power plants are private).
But that would be too large a change which of course the existing monopolies are fighting tooth and nail to prevent, as it would break their vertical monopoly.
* and don't people go whining about "ah but rural this and distance that". Even the cities suck.
That's really the core problem. Coming from Europe, the US has terrible telecom infrastructure* that is controlled by vertical monopolists. Of course bad things happen then. Cities are difficult about letting companies add infrastructure (it's costly and disruptive to add cables to the ground, it's ugly and disrubtive to add cables to poles), and in some cases the telecom companies themselves have succesfully lobbied to prevent cities/counties/states from building that infrastructure themselves.
Ideally, you'd have a public infrastructure (wire/cable/fiber), that is then leased out at cost to the actual ISPs, kind of like the power industry in texas (wire's public, power plants are private).
But that would be too large a change which of course the existing monopolies are fighting tooth and nail to prevent, as it would break their vertical monopoly.
* and don't people go whining about "ah but rural this and distance that". Even the cities suck.