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by 908B64B197 1774 days ago
Both really.

Once a location is served by more than one provider, it becomes a commodity (who can sell packets the cheapest).

1 comments

In many locations, essentially once you get outside of major cities, it is not economical to run more than one line to each property - telecoms often ends up a monopoly, similar to power distribution or water supply. You can lessen the effects by having the physical infrastructure owned by a different entity to the service provided - like in the U.K. with BT Openreach for example, and in that case maybe the service is a commodity - but I don’t think the infrastructure ever really is.
Wireless, satelite, cable in own ducts, fibre through sewer.

There’s multiple ways to deliver ip packets to a property in the country.

A better solution could be to have ducts to run whatever owned by the council and available on a RAND basis - sane way roads are, but it’s not essential for competition.