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by rhblake
2909 days ago
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> If you ever wondered why so many people only have relatively expensive cable internet in Sweden instead of being connected directly to widely available fiber networks that is to a large extent because of EQT. Care to expand on this? Among OECD countries Sweden is near the top in "Percentage of fibre connections in total broadband subscriptions" [0], with 61.8% (for reference the OECD average is 23.3%, with US at 12.6% and e.g. Germany being woefully poor at 2.3%). [0] https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.10-PctFibreToTotalBroad... |
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The things is that the telephone network itself is still essentially owned by the government and multiple companies compete to provide service. And fiber is to large extent operated under a similar model. (950 000 of the 1 300 000 are municipal broadband).
The cable monopoly, including exclusivity contracts, was instead sold to EQT (which later sold to someone else) and of course instead of opening up to competition they kept the monopoly in place.
It isn't that EQT was doing something awful (their schools with inflated grades are probably worse in that regard). Internet connectivity in Sweden is still rather good. It is just that PE firms generally do whatever makes them money, not necessarily what is good for consumers or anyone else.
[0] In Swedish, page 106: http://www.konkurrensverket.se/globalassets/publikationer/ra...