There is some genuine concern about any regulations involving the internet. But the need for Net Belligerence only arises in stifled and monopolized markets. The solution would be to break open the myriad of rules that make it hard for independent ISPs to expand: from local right-of-way's to utility poles to telecom regulations.
When bandwidth is expanding in a Moore's law manner, Net Neutrality begins to be less relevant. ISPs under market forces will expand their network capacity to meet demand. It's monopoly ISPs that want to forego that investment to squeeze out content distributors.
In the end, even if Net Neutrality is passed, that still leaves entrenched monopoly ISPs with outdated networks (and terrible customer support). Even if the big ISPs get broken up and get forced to inter-connect, there remains the problem of local regulations, right-of-way's and utility poles (local utilities are also monopolies under political control).
I would say that as "further regulate", as in the companies in questions, the cablecos and telcos ("AT&T", Century, Verizon) are already regulated government enabled monopolies.
Or have homeowner associations own the last mile. Give them he ability to switch their entire local network from provider to provider to get better service and/or lower prices.
That sort of model could be used for all sorts of utilities.
Collective ownership is not a bad thing when its very, very local. Especially when individuals have a direct, immediate say in who's acting on their behalf.
People don't even trust their HOAs to tell them when and where to store their trash cans. Maybe a better type of entity exists that is less susceptible to petty, hyper-local personality politics.
I don't know about that. Our trash cans are in the trash room here. But I'm sure some of these arrangements are more disorderly than others.
In any case, most HOAs and municipalities are fixed. They typically don't expand or contract based on people removing their property from the arrangement. If people could vote with their feet, these entities would have to be responsive.
When people were nomadic, they lived together in groups and did many things collectively. And if the arrangement became oppressive, they left. That was a natural check on corruption. We need the same ability, even though we are no longer nomadic.
Most likely, yes, but once in a while you have a solid group of like-minded, motivated people that can come together and produce the municipal broadband success stories we read about. I'm sure there are a few rare, decent HOAs out there, too.
Is this not what the government did to the telephone companies providing internet services, which subsequently caused them to stop investing in their infrastructure, thus resulting in the current market situation, where only cable companies provide broadband?
> Is this not what the government did to the telephone companies providing internet services, which subsequently caused them to stop investing in their infrastructure, thus resulting in the current market situation, where only cable companies provide broadband?
Last I checked, they never split up Bell into separate retail, wholesale, and infrastructure divisions operating as separate companies. Look at BT's organisation for how it's better done: BT Wholesale sell everything from the exchange to the backbones to retailers, and BT Openreach (generally) maintain the last mile. Then, there's a market of retail ISPs who buy services and space in the exchanges from BT Wholesale, BT Openreach, and other companies, and sell a whole Internet service to businesses and consumers.
If BT Wholesale or BT Openreach didn't get off their arses, there's now enough money floating around in the right places for any retail ISP or group of ISPs to invest in replacing them. They don't really want to, as there'd be a bunch of red tape and figuring out how the regulations apply, but they could if they needed to. We also have Ofcom, which is a very strong telecoms regulator which keeps this market running fairly (i.e. various parts of BT can't give out special discounts to retail ISPs, new services fall under the same regulations, etc).
We've had a few bumps, but all in all, it's going well for us. Many in the cities and large towns now have access to 70Mbps fully unmetered, unshaped Internet access through a number of ISPs for no more than their previous Internet package cost, and they can also often get Internet access through American-style cable companies (Virgin being the big one).
We're still trying to solve the problem of investment in rural areas, but there's actually been a couple of success stories regarding independent community ISPs, and I've noticed various towns you'd generally regard as "small" having their exchanges being upgraded to support fibre.
Nope, or at least not directly. AT&T and Verizon (US Worst/Century never really cared about this) stopped when the Great Recession hit. Since new home construction also took a big hit, there was also less demand (although I know Century is spending non-trivial sums to wire up new residences for people attracted to North Dakota Bakken formation hydrocarbon extraction).
The bigger issue is the inherent moral hazard with a monopoly-level company delivering media (via CaTV) and internet service (which, as a platform, provides direct competitors of CaTV).
"The solution would be to break open the myriad of rules that make it hard for independent ISPs to expand: from local right-of-way's to utility poles to telecom regulations."
Well, and the shitload of money that stringing last-mile wire costs.
Also, 47 new telcos would like you to know they'll all be digging trenches in your yard next week. Because freedom.
When bandwidth is expanding in a Moore's law manner, Net Neutrality begins to be less relevant. ISPs under market forces will expand their network capacity to meet demand. It's monopoly ISPs that want to forego that investment to squeeze out content distributors.
In the end, even if Net Neutrality is passed, that still leaves entrenched monopoly ISPs with outdated networks (and terrible customer support). Even if the big ISPs get broken up and get forced to inter-connect, there remains the problem of local regulations, right-of-way's and utility poles (local utilities are also monopolies under political control).