| They did. But only on copper facilities. In the United States, they are called unbundled network elements or UNEs[1][2]. The ISP (either directly or through a nationwide aggregator[3] such as Covad, NorthPoint, or Rhythms) would purchase a UNE from the phone company, aggregate the data portion into a DSLAM[4], which would pass layer 2 back to the ISP’s network interconnect (to be bridged through the ISP’s router). This was one of the things that made the early days of DSL feel so much more competitive from an end user perspective. However, utilities were granted an exemption[5] as part of the National Broadband Plan from needing to unbundle on greenfield deployments (e.g. fiber to the home) to allow for “return on investment” and/or faster deployments. This exemption fueled a somewhat perverse incentive of removing copper facilities during or immediately after a fiber installation[6]. Going further, lobbyists have long argued on behalf of their utilities that unbundling wasn't necessary because an end user has access to multiple "competitive" options[7], e.g. someone fed up with their local wireline phone monopoly can switch to cellular; or someone fed up with their local cable TV monopoly can switch to satellite. This was codified as a final ruling[8] in February of this year. This puts the nail in the coffin for UNEs, or at least their viability for providing high speed broadband. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_network_element 2: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521154234.pdf 3: https://www.channelfutures.com/telephony-uc-collaboration/bu... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subscriber_line_access... 5: https://www.cybertelecom.org/broadband/fiber.htm 6: https://seclists.org/nanog/2012/Mar/759 7: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-367363A1.pdf 8: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/01/08/2020-25... |