4 ms·

sounds intuitive, but it's actually the opposite. when telecomms like comcast don't have to lease their lines out to other ISPs, there's nowhere else to go. t

by jmtame 16y ago

sounds intuitive, but it's actually the opposite. when telecomms like comcast don't have to lease their lines out to other ISPs, there's nowhere else to go. the end-result is that any given person, if lucky, has only one or two places they can get high-speed internet from (att, verizon, comcast). and the redlining practices alone decrease broadband penetration, so a lot of people can't get to it. to go one step further, telecomms will sue any municipality that tries to install their own fiber optics network as if it were a public utility. even if an entire city supports it and is willing to pay for it, telecomms will ensure that it can't happen, as was the case with monticello. there are cases where regulation is necessary to prevent an oligopoly and encourage competition. right now, the tables are tipped favorably (imo unfairly) for the telecomms.

stretchwithme 16y ago
I think there's ATT and satellite, so not sure they are no other options. When I think of the free market, I don't mean the present situation. This is not a free market. Cities set up exclusive contracts with cable providers like comcast. In a free market, people would be banding together to negotiate for better terms and to lower infrastructure costs, but not at a city-wide level where they are frozen into the solution negotiated by grafty politicians. I don't pretend to know how a truly non-coercive free market would play out, but I imagine condo home owner associations being able to choose from a variety of options. They already do so for other services and would probably do the same for utilities if we didn't have the current system of regulated monopolies. In a truly free market, the type of suits you refer to wouldn't work. Municipalities wouldn't even be involved. We can add more coercion to the system, but I think undoing the coercion we already have is a better long term approach. Of course, its not often easy to see that path, especially when it looks so politically impossible.

by jmtame 16y ago

stretchwithme 16y ago

I think there's ATT and satellite, so not sure they are no other options. When I think of the free market, I don't mean the present situation. This is not a free market. Cities set up exclusive contracts with cable providers like comcast. In a free market, people would be banding together to negotiate for better terms and to lower infrastructure costs, but not at a city-wide level where they are frozen into the solution negotiated by grafty politicians. I don't pretend to know how a truly non-coercive free market would play out, but I imagine condo home owner associations being able to choose from a variety of options. They already do so for other services and would probably do the same for utilities if we didn't have the current system of regulated monopolies. In a truly free market, the type of suits you refer to wouldn't work. Municipalities wouldn't even be involved. We can add more coercion to the system, but I think undoing the coercion we already have is a better long term approach. Of course, its not often easy to see that path, especially when it looks so politically impossible.