I'd argue that Title II classification (along with competitive access requirements) was a huge handicap on the telcos ability to make money in DSL, so it was starved of investment, and that by 2005 they were already too far behind cable to compete.

Why won't this happen with cable? What motivation does Comcast have to keep increasing the speed of their network? Especially since, believe you me, the calls for the FCC to mandate "open networks" (i.e. competitive access) could be right around the corner.

We have competitive access in Canada and that hasn't stopped telcos from making money or layout out new technology.

The original Title II classification which included local loop bundling killed DSL investment and allowed cable broadband to take over the market. Ever wonder why America has cable broadband and the rest of the world uses some version of DSL or fiber provided by the telephone company? Title II.

As soon as it was deregulated, Verizon and AT&T began upgrades. But before then, they weren't going to build upgrades to networks that any competitor could borrow at wholesale value.

The title II being proposed is a lot lighter than the old kind applied to the DSL, so it won't necessarily destroy invesment. But the fear is reasonable.

> As soon as it was deregulated, Verizon and AT&T began upgrades. But before then, they weren't going to build upgrades to networks that any competitor could borrow at wholesale value.

Given the great intentions that such bastions of corporate ethics like AT&T and Verizon have, is it possible that they simple held out until the got what they wanted?

What exactly is "unethical" about not investing tons of money in something that isn't going to yield the kind of profit your investors want? People act like Verizon and AT&T have a moral obligation to spend money on telecom infrastructure as a public good at minimal price above cost.

Having agreed to make such an expansion, and having been paid for it, it is unethical to choose not to without returning the money.

They're given public rights of way and tax write offs to build their infrastructure. So yeah, they have a public duty.

Well, investing tons of money in lobbyists to pass state laws to prevent the deployment of municipal broadband utilizing public tax monies and breaks, is considered unethical (at least to me).

So, not investing in infrastructure is not the problem, but preventing others from doing so, is scummy.

They do not want to invest AND they don't want to compete.

If so, it was a massive mistake on their part. AT&T and Verizon lost the ISP market to cable companies in the mean time.

which is actually better than spending billions and then losing the ISP market to cable + other ISPs using wholesale.

It's actually a rational move. Title II prevented them from competing effectively with the companies that were not under Title II, hence the rational decision not to invest in competing infrastructure.

What's interesting, though, if you look at the published numbers... The number of new subscribers each year grew at about the same rate, with DSL in the lead (of growth, but not hard numbers), until 2005... When they both leveled off. DSL more sharply than cable. Most of the historic data only differentiates between greater and less than 200kbps, though, so it's difficult to know the impact that it did on bandwidth availability growth for the two connection mediums.

> The original Title II classification which included local loop bundling killed DSL investment

Then why, when reclassified as an information service, did it not get better? It got better from 1999 to 2005 (768kbps -> 1-6Mbps), but only in very select regions has it actually improved beyond that in the past ten years.

By the monopoly phone provider's logic, it did "get better" after it was reclassified.

(This is where AT&T switched to "Uverse" fiber-to-the-neighborhood network, with speeds up to 40+mbps. And since that's an "information service", no other companies are allowed to use it to sell internet, even though it's literally the same phone line as DSL, with almost identical technology and performance seen in other countries faster DSL services)

I guess I'm a little confused. The last mile unbundling would have just been the node-to-home lines, would it not? A new ISP entering the market would be able to lease those, but not necessarily the fiber network? Or would that fiber network have been unbundled too?

That is mostly a technology issue. There is a maximum bitrate at which the transmission line can support for a given distance. To get past that, they have to start dragging fiberoptics to nodes they build closer to your house. Before you hit that speeds, protocol upgrades were giving you faster speed.

And I wouldn't say "very select regions." At least a quarter of the country live in areas with FTTN or FTTP networks deployed by the telecoms.