In the case of ISP’s there is a better option. What you do is regulate to prevent vertical integration. Isolate the ‘natural monopoly’ or (duopoly or whatever) to the segment it actually occupies, heavily regulate that (ideally by making it a public utility IMO), and allow competition with less regulation above and below.
Tacoma Washington built a public fiber optic network around the city (in part because it was incrementally more expensive than another upgrade they wanted to do) however the public utility which runs that physical network is not an ISP. There were, when I first saw the list, around ten ISP’s people could choose to use on that fiber network, looks like it’s now three. The city fiber provider is also not a giant megacorporation so it has to be buying all its longer range access from att, sprint, etc.
The Americans and British love widespread surveillance. Whether it’s government or corporate there will be universal spying.
Other countries who don’t love Big Brother have other schemes. One of the most common is that the infrastructure is a utility. ISPs buy bandwidth and resell it. It doesn’t matter whether the highly-regulated corporation is public or private. The costs will be lower, and there will be less spying.
I’m confused. Isn’t the problem that it’s regulated now? The reason there’s only one cable company in any particular region is because regulations prevent more. The reason there aren’t more local phone companies providing internet is because regulations prevent more.
Do we know that it was regulation that made fast cheap internet available in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc or was it de-regulation? note: I have no idea. All I know is that what we currently have in the USA is massively regulated. Maybe those regulation need to change? Arguing the problem is not enough regulation seems disingenuous
As for turning it into a utility, that doesn’t sound like a way to make it go fast and stay fast. Take a look at how hard it is to get our utilities to switch to better more modern tech or how bad the roads are, etc… I can’t imagine governments will be updating the infrastructure every 4-5 years as tech advances and the infrastructure placed today becomes 2nd, 3rd or 4th class compared to places where competition keeps the race for the best/fastest/cheapest going
I’m guessing someone will pipe in and say “look at the shitty internet we’re getting now” but we don’t have competition now BECAUSE OF REGULATION
Generally, anti-competitive regulations for ISPs have not held up in court. They generally don’t exist anymore.
The issue is that cable companies are natural monopolies, and they all have tacit agreements with one another not to compete. In infrastructure is expensive to build, and if you’re having to fight a competitor to get customers to pay for that new infrastructure, then you’re in trouble, especially since they don’t have big cable laying bills to pay off and can undercut your service until you go out of business. That’s why cable companies don’t compete for the most part.
Their only real competition is satellite TV, and that’s no good for internet access.
I read the news. I was making a joke and pointing out that the current invasion of privacy couldn’t possibly get any worse, regardless of who controls the pipes.
