It seems unrestricted capitalism and the free market eventually leads to a complete take over by monopolies. Case in point: USA.
The US after successfully chaining and regulating a "natural monopoly" in telecom in a way that granted them some of the highest quality home service in the world: what if we broke it up into a hundred pieces and made it more free marketer?
This does not track. If you had a 100 way split and still ended up with just one choice per customer you are doing something wrong.
The US after successfully chaining and regulating a "natural monopoly" in telecom in a way that granted them some of the highest quality home service in the world: what if we broke it up into a hundred pieces and made it more free marketer?
This does not track. If you had a 100 way split and still ended up with just one choice per customer you are doing something wrong.
The 100 is an exaggeration, but splitting the Bell System was still done rather stupidly as the status quo of them slowly being defanged in their grip over customers (eg long distance fees, answering machines, third party phones) while they still invested ungodly amounts of money into the US infrastructure would've probably served us better in the internet age than smashing the thing apart until they all just bought each other again. We'd probably actually have nationwide FTTH at this point.
What's wrong with US broadband, in my case, is that it simply doesn't exist. Some people lament having a choice of one carrier, but I have a choice of zero carriers who provide broadband service (as currently defined by the FCC).
I live in a county of approximately one million people and the neighborhood adjacent to mine, including a house less than 200 feet away, has cable internet with 300 Mbps service. I've been paying Universal Service Fund fees for years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund) but I had a faster DSL connection 20 years ago.