| > For context, the recent move in Paris ends over a century of water privatization. The city seems to have managed fine during that time frame. The focus on consumer prices is emblematic of the problem with public water management. Water/sewer services shouldn't be cheap. Prices should be high enough to adequately maintain infrastructure. Water rates in the U.S. are less than half of what they are in France,[1] and as a result, our water infrastructure is in terrible shape.[2] No, that happened in 1984.
(https://research.ncl.ac.uk/media/sites/researchwebsites/goba... slide 11 or http://www.eaudeparis.fr/lespace-culture/patrimoine/). > You quote the example of communications, in France by law France Telecom had to expand its network to reach any citizen, whether 10km away from the grid or 10m at no cost for the consumer. This led to a great coverage of the territory and very high access to broadband for most of the population. >> There is no free lunch. More money spent covering more people means less money invested in improving infrastructure in urban areas. The point here is that the regulatory authority creates a legal framework which favors investement in the grid, resolving one of the inefficiencies of the market (no interest in paying 2MM euros to connect a person who's distant in the country side), makes investments happen which would never take place under a fully deregulated environment. This addresses issues of digital inequalities which would push actors on investing only on people or products which can yield the higher profits. At term it hurts society. I'll take your points on the OCED and Akamai rankings, and yes I provided anecdotal evidence, not a lot of time for research :) But my sense is that if you compare speeds delivered to prices paid, consumers are still much better off in Europe. The other point which might be hard to quantify is the little choice US consumers have when choosing their ISP. It's often one or two actors who offer the same speed, price points and whose situation of oligopoly allows them to forgo proper consumer support alltogether (TWC). That is the result of no regulation and I don't see how more of that will benefit consumers. More sources on water remunicipalisation:
https://www.tni.org/en/article/180-cities-take-back-public-c... https://www.tni.org/en/publication/here-to-stay-water-remuni... |