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> Most of Europe followed suit and deregulated their telecom markets similar to how we did it in the 1996 act. But one big problem with "attempts to undo the 1

> Most of Europe followed suit and deregulated their telecom markets similar to how we did it in the 1996 act. But one big problem with "attempts to undo the 1996 reforms" is that Europe kept (and expanded) linesharing and unbundled network element rules; the United States threw out most mandatory UNE rules and never expanded them to include companies operating networks over coax or new-build fiber optic networks. So now we have this farce where, in some areas, people served by DSL have the choice of several (slow) ISPs because the copper is still technically, kinda unbundled. But if you can't get DSL or can't get a sufficiently fast speed, your sole choice is likely your monopoly cable provider.

rayiner 8y ago
Most large European countries didn't expand unbundling to include cable and fiber either: https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf. None of the five largest EU countries (which comprise the majority of the EU population), applied unbundling to coax. Most don't apply unbundling to fiber either. U.S. copper unbundling rules are weaker than the U.S., but copper is also largely irrelevant in the U.S., because most broadband is over cable or fiber. Unbundling matters more in Europe, but primarily because DSL is much more common in Europe.