if so, then why should the pipes be privatized at all? in that case, the pipes should be built out and maintained at a governmental-level and leased back at a uniform/standardized price to all providers.

It makes sense to me that the government should own "the pipes", and then lease them to competing firms, as these are a vital communication infrastructure.

That is called municipal broadband and quite a few municipalities are looking very hard at it.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chattanooga-tennessee-big-int...

Because, you want the pipes to grow.

I wonder if that really matters all that much. It could be my limited perspective talking, but fiber seems pretty future-proof. Nothing is faster than light; the only conceivable improvement would be cables that can handle wider spectrum of light.

(The nodes on the other hand, of course, are continually improving)

Ethernet cable is a similar story. NICs have advanced tremendously, but Cat5 (defined in 1991) is still usually all you need.

Fiber is future proof but most people don't have it. The process of getting it is called growth. If it's the case that making the "pipes" a public utility would have hindered growth, then you would never have got fiber.

And 100M ethernet over Cat5e is pretty useless. Standard WiFi these days is 150-300 Mbps. I regret not running Cat6 in to my extension just to be safe.

I would run Cat6a if I was building a house, because it's the latest spec and not much more expensive, but Cat5e is still great. Standard WiFi never gets anywhere close to those speeds, is simplex, and I find a 10Mbps Ethernet (powerline) link handily outperforms a 100Mbps WiFi connection for networked file system access. (Probably either an issue with the simplex or dropped packets)

P.S. Cat5e can still do 1Gbps, just not over quite as great a distance as Cat6. Although Cat5e definitely isn't rated for 10Gbps (nor is vanilla Cat6 for that matter)

Cat5e does do gigabit speeds. You might be thinking of it's predecessor Cat5.

I 100% agree. In my ideal world, the government builds fiber to every house and pulls it back to a central POP where private entities compete to provide service over the top. Thus creating REAL competition and removing the barrier to entry. Unfortunately we've got a lot of people with their heads in the sand that think government is the root of all evil... so I'm working with what I've got :)

The way to do it is to create an essentially non-profit organiation with a very limited charter, which is to provide internet infrastructure only. Then we and huge companies all invest in it (it would still charge for access). It would cost billions of dollars but it would pay off in the long run. So it would be profitable, but it wouldn't be like a company that has to maximize shareholder value and can expand into any business activity.

Because of the charter, it could never be used in a way that is not "net neutral."

Or, you know, we could get a bunch of guys with guns to MAKE us do things according to the demands of special interest groups... and see how that turns out...

or mandate that pipes should have universal access, so that it becomes like a utility (i'd compare it to electricity). If you decide to sell your own brand of toasters, you cannot be allowed to send 'cleaner/better' electricity to your own toaster than to your competition's.

Why not apply that to other things?

Why is apple allowed to sell hardware then dictate who can sell apps for that hardware after it is sold?

Why can google use its search engine monopoly to push chrome, android, maps, etc. etc.?

Neither of your examples are even close to monopolies.

Comcast owns NBC, another content provider. I don't think there are any unfair advantages there.