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In Canada our internet became much faster for cheaper with better customer support when the government allowed competition from smaller players. Telecom also got better when they allowed a foreign competitor to compete against the government mandated oligopoly. But the market is still heavily regulated in a way that benefits the existing monopolies.
tl;dr: The lie here is the assumption that the US has, or has ever had, a free market for wired internet service providers. The article initially does a good job of describing the situation, but gets a bit confused when it gets to the history of the US, especially this line "This is what happens when you let natural monopolies operate without oversight." What it's discussing is not natural monopolies; it's discussing…
The point is that "free market" is a lie, not that the US ever had one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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They called in a favor that put pressure on the company from public expectations.
The other point that I'd like to bring up is how useful is a 25G connection to your local demarcation point if your speeds to most sites will be far lower in practice because the Internet isn't circuit-switched.
Care to give a rebuttal?
Because it isn't a free market in the USA. And those that regulate it don't seem to care. Or maybe it is those that have been granted a monopoly do everything they can to retain said monopoly. Things would be different if we actually had a free market
Also any workload I have that is bandwidth heavy would be on clouds machines between data centres and generally very fast. Are there reasons why someone at home would benefit from 25GB internet beyond whatever is available?
Is this a case of over engineered central planning instead of a blow against the free market?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> ...one day, one of the municipal counselors just called up a friend who worked for a fiber laying company and asked them for a favor: put out a press release saying that they were “investigating” laying an undersea fiber to power a municipal fiber network on the little island. They called in a favor that put pressure on the company from public expectations.
The details of how the "public pressure" came to be don't matter, because the monopoly didn't know about that. All they knew was there was a potential competitor, so they behaved according to that information. That's how it works.
What does one achieve with 25 GB internet? Are speeds actually usefully faster, or is there some other bottleneck that makes the practical speed the same as in the US? Also any workload I have that is bandwidth heavy would be on clouds machines between data centres and generally very fast. Are there reasons why someone at home would benefit from 25GB internet beyond whatever is available? Is this a case of over engin…
What does one achieve with 25 GB internet? Are speeds actually usefully faster, or is there some other bottleneck that makes the practical speed the same as in the US? Also any workload I have that is bandwidth heavy would be on clouds machines between data centres and generally very fast. Are there reasons why someone at home would benefit from 25GB internet beyond whatever is available? Is this a case of over engin…
If people don't actually use the extra speed then it's effectively free to provide, anyway. If providers could advertise 25Gbps while only needing the same capacity they do for 1Gbps, I imagine they'd do it just to bring in a few more customers. The fact that they don't suggests it would result in more usage suggests it would be useful.