4 ms·

It’s not a 180 if he truly believes that removing Net Neutrality would increase competition amongst ISPs.

adventured 8y ago
Net neutrality was in place for all of five minutes. Keeping it or removing it won't do anything to spur connection competition. There are three options. 1. Technology inflection forces greater competition, such as Starlink or 5G. 1a would be that an extremely deep pocket competitor forces some improvement; that works at least temporarily, however I'm skeptical that's sustainable (as witnessed by Google's pull-back). 2. The government makes smart decisions regulation wise, that help to smooth a path for increased competition. That includes things like one touch make ready, dig once fiber rules, and blocking munis from signing cable/etc monopoly agreements. 3. Nationalize the infrastructure and allow anyone to rent it. That's too far fetched (unrealistic) for the US as a mostly market system, to go that direction from a heavily privatized market. 3a would be, pass a law stipulating that muni broadband can't be impeded, if a city or town wants to set up its own network it's legally entitled to attempt it. Every bit of added competition around the country helps. Any combination of those is a big assist. The US is a top 15 broadband country currently, and most of the nations in front of it are tiny (except Japan and South Korea, both of which have hyper population concentration in just a few cities). We've made tremendous progress from how far we were lagging behind just six or seven years ago. Keep throwing more of the above onto that momentum, and it will keep the US competitive in that top echelon, which is a great outcome. Any time a country the size of the US (not just eg a state like Massachusetts) can keep up with countries like Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden on broadband, or any infrastructure frankly, it's a big deal.

Net neutrality was in place for all of five minutes. Keeping it or removing it won't do anything to spur connection competition. There are three options. 1. Technology inflection forces greater competition, such as Starlink or 5G. 1a would be that an extremely deep pocket competitor forces some improvement; that works at least temporarily, however I'm skeptical that's sustainable (as witnessed by Google's pull-back). 2. The government makes smart decisions regulation wise, that help to smooth a path for increased competition. That includes things like one touch make ready, dig once fiber rules, and blocking munis from signing cable/etc monopoly agreements. 3. Nationalize the infrastructure and allow anyone to rent it. That's too far fetched (unrealistic) for the US as a mostly market system, to go that direction from a heavily privatized market. 3a would be, pass a law stipulating that muni broadband can't be impeded, if a city or town wants to set up its own network it's legally entitled to attempt it. Every bit of added competition around the country helps. Any combination of those is a big assist. The US is a top 15 broadband country currently, and most of the nations in front of it are tiny (except Japan and South Korea, both of which have hyper population concentration in just a few cities). We've made tremendous progress from how far we were lagging behind just six or seven years ago. Keep throwing more of the above onto that momentum, and it will keep the US competitive in that top echelon, which is a great outcome. Any time a country the size of the US (not just eg a state like Massachusetts) can keep up with countries like Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden on broadband, or any infrastructure frankly, it's a big deal.