>Municipalities were trying to build out their own last mile infrastructure. Some of them wanted to add ISP functionality on to that, but not all. In other words, they were already trying to do exactly what a "1 wire rule" would have mandated.
Building out last-mile != becoming an ISP. The city builds roads that lead to my house, they don't sell me the car I drive down the road or the gas I fill it with.
>Yes, and funding was never an issue. Many municipalities were trying to build, or had already started building, last-mile 1-wire infrastructure with their own funding that would have required ISPs to compete for access at aggregation points, exactly as you describe. What stopped them, as I said, was regulations and lawsuits.
You're completely out of touch if you think funding isn't an issue. There's a reason the federal government has handed out hundreds of BILLIONS to expand internet coverage in the US.
>Regulatory capture and a broken US legal system that allows large corporations with deep pockets to make frivolous lawsuits against municipalities that they know can't afford to defend themselves. If we forced plaintiffs to pay all legal costs for the defendants if they lose their lawsuit, those frivolous lawsuits would go away.
Are you serious? Comcast makes billions of dollars a year, they can sue and lose repeatedly and it isn't a blip on their radar. A city with a budget measured in the hundreds of thousands per year would immediately cease and desist if they were faced with a multi-million dollar settlement should they lose the case. It would literally have the exact opposite effect of what you're claiming it would do. The city can provide a city lawyer to defend itself, but having to pay for Comcasts lawyers who will no doubt inflate their hours and wages a hundred fold? Good luck.
>Yes, indeed; see above. But why should we allow them to get away with frivolous lawsuits? Why not do the obvious thing to fix that particular problem, as described above?
Your "solution" fixes absolutely nothing. Comcast will still sue, only the city will immediately stop buildout - and small cities won't even bother trying to start if they know there's a possibility they'll be sued. Comcast won't even have to go to court, they just have to write a nastygram!
>Smart regulation that was targeted at obvious abuses, like the lawsuits mentioned above, would greatly improve the situation, without having to have the government try to impose one-size-fits-all policies on everyone
I love this saying as if it's a bad thing. I was just telling my neighbors the other day that 1-size-fits-all regulations like clean water and fiber internet are horrible and really need to be specialized. Some of us want arsenic and lead in our water and dial-up internet in 2020, the government overreach is unbearable!
Regulation has never been the issue in the US. EVERY SINGLE TIME regulation gets rolled back, the exact issue it was intended to fix comes right back. See the mortgage crisis for the latest example.