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A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

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Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#271

Post by donor20 »

pb77 wrote: post #168

In some of the newer neighborhood around my place, the telecom providers pay a fee to the neighborhood developer to make them the only sole provider. So in these new neighborhoods there is only one option. I don't know if DOJ can do anything about it or how they can fix it.

Not uncommon - rental buildings are almost all like this (building owner get's a cut / provides one option).

Commercial buildings similar but usually one preferred and pre-wired, but if you are negotiating for a floor etc you can get what you want.

HOA's etc generally don't like new holes in walls especially common walls. So generally one preferred.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#272

Post by elithrar »

somnic wrote: post #258
omegabravo wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it make sense to share the pipes the dumb light pipes and compete on service?

That's more or less how it works here in New Zealand. A private company, Chorus, has a monopoly on the network itself, and can only provide the network to other ISPs and not direct to the consumer. I kind of presume there are other regulations in place, or conditions for the $1B subsidy they got for rolling out the fibre network. As it is, for a household to get a plan that offers download speeds of 700Mbps-900Mbps a…

> As it is, for a household to get a plan that offers download speeds of 700Mbps-900Mbps and no data caps, we're paying NZ$109, or about US$72/mo.

Which is pretty good, relatively speaking. 330Mbps HFC Comcast is USD$74.99/month here in SF.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#273

Post by zbrozek »

bosswipe wrote: post #184
exabrial wrote: post #177

The problem is the proposed solutions really just entrench existing providers, specifically net neutrality policies: They legalize monopolies as long as they're "following the rules!" _You_ _cannot_ _legislate_ _good_ _behavior_ _into_ _monopolies_. So while I appreciate the spirit of Net Neutrality rules, the solution is fundamentally flawed. Let's say you want to open an ISP in your neighborhood. Based on their his…

> _You_ _cannot_ _legislate_ _good_ _behavior_ _into_ _monopolies_ Why not? Yes, breaking up monopolies is good but that doesn't mean we can't regulate industries before the point where things get so bad that there is enough political will to break them up.

Because companies are really good at optimizing and the outcomes are usually bad behavior that is not-yet legislated. It's a cat and mouse game. Much better to have a plethora of competition so that the competitive market provides the tight feedback loop. With wireless carriers the MVNO rules mean that I can shop around and jump ship pretty easily. I just switched providers a couple of months ago.

Look at PG&E. They're badly behaved but also highly regulated.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#274

Post by beaunative »

sneak wrote: post #269
xnyan wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs give the US government absolutely anything they want. You have no real protection from the government because of private ownership, the only difference is now both private organizations AND the government make decisions about your internet access. You also pay more for less vs most countries with more regulated infrastructure or state owned infrastructure. I'm happy to look at any evidence you have, but everythi…

Yes, but if the state is the only game in town, you can't pop down to the next shop and buy a new SIM card, or order an install from a different provider.

Owning the infrastructure (the cell towers, fiber lines) is not the same as operating a network, the infrastructure could be public owned, while the service provider operating in data centers that connects to those public owned infrascture for a cost.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#276

Post by beaunative »

sudosysgen wrote: post #244
ip26 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this only half-sarcastically, the Austrian school seems to start at their desired solution & worked backwards from there. They similarly deny the existence of externalities- although depending on who you read the justification varies widely.

It's not even sarcastic. The Austrian school literally starts with assumptions that basically imply their solutions, that people always act in their best interest and so on, and reject any kind of empirical test of their theory. At all. The Austrian school assumes that these bases are absolutely and completely true, and then posit that all economic truths can be derived thereof and cannot be impacted negatively or po…

I'd say that's treating econmics as pure math rather than science.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#277

Post by wtallis »

kanox wrote: post #237
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically anything that historically falls under common carrier regs. None of this debate is new. We saw it with railroads. Natural monopolies need counterbalancing regulation. This isn't even remotely a controversial statement in economics.

ISPs are NOT a natural monopoly, you can have multiple sets of wires going to every building. This is the situation in my part of Europe and my internet is pretty damn fast. Treating ISPs as a monopoly is fundamentally wrong.

Multiple sets of wires going to every building is feasible and perhaps even reasonable when we're talking about an apartment building. But digging multiple trenches along suburban and rural roads and driveways leading to single-family homes is very wasteful. It's usually prohibitively expensive for the second company that wants to come into town, and is basically guaranteed to be a negative ROI for the third company that tries to lay fiber to customers who already have two incumbent options.

In the US, Google Fiber has had limited success entering a handful of carefully-picked markets where the incumbent options are rotting copper POTS wires vs coax that can only compete on downstream bandwidth. In some of those markets, the incumbent phone companies have replaced some of their copper with fiber, but a third residential fiber option is still unheard-of. That may not fit the strictest definition of natural monopoly, but it's pretty close: in areas where both Google Fiber and eg. AT&T fiber are competing against coax, it would not be surprising to see one of the two fiber ISPs give up. We've already seen Google give up on bundling TV service, and both Google and AT&T are very reserved about further expansions.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#278

Post by sudosysgen »

beaunative wrote: post #276
sudosysgen wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even sarcastic. The Austrian school literally starts with assumptions that basically imply their solutions, that people always act in their best interest and so on, and reject any kind of empirical test of their theory. At all. The Austrian school assumes that these bases are absolutely and completely true, and then posit that all economic truths can be derived thereof and cannot be impacted negatively or po…

I'd say that's treating econmics as pure math rather than science.

No, no it's not. It's treating economics as some bastardized version of philosophy, not math. Mathematical axioms are based on the principle that you cannot imagine an alternative axiomatic system, I can easily imagine a different axiomatic system for economics, and that the axioms cannot be empirically contradicted. And I can actually justify it empirically.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#279

Post by baq »

jfengel wrote: post #159
baq wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

starlink cannot compete in densely populated area because the sats have comparatively (to dsl, fiber, etc.) limited total bandwidth to spare, just like any other shared medium. musk himself was very open about this. starlink is a game changer where the last mile is prohibitively expensive i.e. sparse/rural areas a few dozen miles away from population centers.

Any idea how suburbs fit into that? The last mile isn't prohibitively expensive, but enough that you don't get any kind of competition, either, and the space isn't extremely crowded. By the time Starlink goes wide it probably won't be any cheaper than I'm currently paying, but what I am paying is quite absurd given that it's not a network of satellites. It's just a fiber optic cable that was long since amortized to z…

It depends completely on how many of your neighbors have the same idea in a few dozen mile radius, and perhaps if you have a tree blocking a large part of the sky nearby.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#280

Post by mastazi »

pkaye wrote: post #267
mastazi wrote: post #239

As a non-American, the first time I heard about the situation with broadband monopolies in the US, it was hard for me to believe! Apparently in huge parts of the country you can only choose one single provider? Is that true just in "regional areas" or in suburbs and urban areas too? Are there stats about how much of the population has no choice? Edit: the article gives numbers in terms of how many people have access…

This the FCC statistics on broadband availability. https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/#/area-comparison?version=jun20...

Thank you! this is what I was looking for!
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