[gumby]

What monopoly? Here in Palo Alto I have full consumer “choice”: comcast or att.

I have to use crapcast (though goes down each night) as att, despite their ads, will only provision me 768kb DSL though I’m less than a mile from the CO/DSLAMS (and the PAIX for that matter)

I assume elsewhere the two companies have a deal where comcast is slow and att is faster. Of course the competition authorities and fcc are utterly supine.

Palo Alto used to run its own infrastructure but over the years stupid privatization has gradually shed phone, TV, garbage collection, parking enforcement and such for inferior, more expensive private services. I expect power and water to fall next.

[ghastmaster]

In most places the energy company owns the poles and the municipality grants them the right to be the sole energy provider. The access to the pole is limited to the cable company and the phone company(around here spectrum[cable] and cincinnati bell[phone]). The other option is satellite. Municipalities require payments for each lot that the company services whether or not they have a paying customer. These companies are given exclusive rights to access the poles.(Source=widowed spouse of TCI VP)

I imagine if historically cable tv and phone were transmitted by the same technology or company, there would only be one company allowed access. Since these were historically separate, they are granted access to the poles. Technically this is not a monopoly given that there are two different providers. It is monopolistic in my view. I have yet to live in an area that has more than two companies with pole access.

[kube-system]

You're lucky that you have that many options. You don't have to go too far into rural areas to find places where there isn't any coax on the poles.

24 million Americans don't have any options that the FCC considers as fixed broadband service (25/3mbps)

[ghastmaster]

I lived in one of those areas in the 90s. We had dial-up. I was incredibly happy when we moved to the city and were able to get broadband. I was shocked when I found out a friend who lives in my city today was still operating with broadband. He complained about his wife having trouble using voip while watching netflix, so I suggested he upgrade his router or move it. When I went over to install the new router I found a broadband modem...! His street is serviced by the same companies as mine. He is in an arguably affluent neighborhood. He had to switch companies to get to 50mbit+.