[jinfiesto]

I'm pretty liberal, and I believe that there is some truth to the "less regulation and more competition will solve the issues" mantra. The issue here being that there isn't a real way to inject more competition into the ISP space. Soooo, we are just getting less regulation. Which will inevitably lead to abuses.

[Fnoord]

If the government owned the infrastructure, would be held accountable to maintain it, and would provide access to different ISPs there would be more competition. The problem is that some people see this is "regulation" or "socialism" or "lack of choice" while others see this as "healthy competition" and "liberty".

If there's just one infrastructure, or maybe two (cable and DSL) and the ISPs own it then there's barely any competition. That's when you get anti-competitive behaviour.

Such behaviour would be punished in a free market even if it were allowed. But we don't have a free market in this segment. We got monopolies and duopolies.

There are different ways to limit the power of monopolies and duopolies. One is legislation to force them to treat all data equal. Another one could be to break up the large mammoths who are monopolies and duopolies. The latter ain't happening, so why revert the former?

Either due to sheer stupidity or because of heavy lobbying from certain interest groups who'd profit greatly from this (ISPs is my guess).

[throwanem]

> If the government owned the infrastructure, would be held accountable to maintain it, and would provide access to different ISPs

Yeah last time we tried this we got Amtrak so I don't really see it as a workable solution. Size limits and market choice requirements might work, though. They did, pretty well, with media companies, for quite a long time.

Of course, those also only last until we get an FCC that's either so corrupt it'd be right at home in the Gilded Age, or so out of touch it'd be right at home in Versailles. I tend to the latter suspicion, myself; DC people are long known in general to make a habit of thinking of 495 more or less as the end of the civilized world, beyond which lies only a terrifying wasteland full of barbarians and howling ghosts. That's why lobbyists exist - just as in Versailles, there's a market for paying people to present one's case and pray intercession on one's behalf at court. I suppose we'll see whose lobbyists pray most effectively this time. And next time, and the time after that, and...

[QAkICoU7IDNkpFu]

Break up the biggest ISP's by force.

[vidarh]

Or properly regulate local loop unbundling and force cost+ resale of access to subscriber lines.

E.g. the way it works in the UK (it works similarly, but not entirely identically, in all EU countries), which is absolutely not ideal but gives reasonable competition is that BT OpenReach (by virtue of BT's past monopoly) is regulated and is required to offer any ISP access to their network on equal basis. This means the ISPs have a few choices:

* They can put equipment in the exchanges, and "just" get access to a raw connection to the subscriber. OpenReach maintains the lines.

* They can contract OpenReach for "backhaul" of IP traffic to central locations.

* They can build their own last mile network.

I can pick from dozens of providers because of that, but most of them mean I'll pay a basic line rental either directly to BT or via the provider, and that is the same for any of them. Others are free to build their own network without the same restrictions, but this for natural reasons happens very slowly (predominantly fibre providers in dense urban areas, and a cable provider).

In that model net neutrality is less of a concern. It's not entirely free of issues, as major ISPs certainly still could offer preferential access to certain content, but at least we have real competition beyond the last mile.

The biggest problem with this is that the way it is structured does not give BT a strong incentive to invest in improving the last mile network. I'd have preferred if there was an additional clause restricting them to only take out dividends from OpenReach proportional to the investments made in improving the network. But overall it's working reasonably well.

[rtpg]

The biggest issue is that since this is a network the most cost effective thing is for there to be a single network.

Networks are a great example where a regulated monopoly on one level can allow for a healthy free market on the upper levels.

If you forget about the money, having a single operator makes the most sense. Thus we should model our economic system to take this into account

[Endy]

We'd need another Teddy Roosevelt for that to happen. Unfortunately, we have Trump. And frankly I don't see politics changing from that mindset for a long time.

[Brybry]

The Ma Bell breakup was probably started under Nixon/Ford (lawsuit filed in 1974) and finished under Reagan.

Not that it worked completely, because everyone has nearly merged back together, but it is evidence that Republican administrations aren't necessarily pro-monopoly.

A large part of the issue is that, through lobbying and franchise agreements, ISPs have locally secured their status. Even if you break them up they only become more local monopolies (which is better but not competition and still requires regulation).