3 ms·

All ISPs need is to separate the last mile (the fiber between your house and nearest POP) from their service. Once that would be available, we would have a real

by takeda 8y ago

All ISPs need is to separate the last mile (the fiber between your house and nearest POP) from their service. Once that would be available, we would have a real compression in that market. In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile.

inapis 8y ago
I digress. In India, my local ISP owns the last mile and I pay approximately 14 USD each for two lines of symmetric and unlimited 100 Mbps. ISPs can own the last mile. All you need is extensive competiton. I went from paying $100(4M/250GB) to $50(20M/500G) to $30(50M/UL) to the current $15 (100M/UL). The prices decreased as more players entered the market. Of course, India doesn’t have excellent internet infrastructure available nationally but you really don’t need public ownership of last mile to make a difference. Just don’t let the ISPs form any kind of a cartel.
- lambdadmitry 8y ago
  So I am, too, from a country where internet is (was) great while ISPs own the last mile (Russia). It seems there are two prerequisites for that: 1. Low level of regulation (i.e. lawlessness) so small ISPs can just string cables in the air without any licensing 2. Relatively young infrastructure Both of those aren't true for most developed countries. And even if it's not (Russia isn't), at some point market dynamics inevitably lead to monopoly. Most local competing ISPs are forced out of the market recently by state-sponsored mega-ISP that controls uplinks and finally went for last mile, too. As you can guess, the quality went down, while the prices went up. You can't cheat the market forces unless you eliminate the market. Physical fiber is an amazing moat, there is no way how upstart ISPs can be price-competitive while duplicating an already existing network.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    In Russia it's not market forces that push for internet access monopolization, but the government, as it wants Chinese-style mass surveillance and censorship.
rayiner 8y ago
> In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile. ISPs own their own last mile almost everywhere. What you may be thinking of is unbundling, where an ISP may be required to let other ISPs use their last-mile facilities at regulated rates. That is a minority rule as well. Most broadband providers in South Korea own their own facilities: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/korea/material/CS_Kor.pdf http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/korea/material/CS_Kor.pdf (see Table 5.2). Norway didn't start unbundling fiber until 2014, but was near the top of the charts in broadband performance long before that. (And it still doesn't impose price regulation on the unbundled fiber.) Sweden is an exception where, in Stockholm, there as a municipally-owned ISP that provides dark fiber. Hong Kong had unbundling, then got rid of it in 2004.
- robocat 8y ago
  The alternative to unbundling (private ownership, any ISP can use) is treating the fibre as infrastructure (public ownership, any ISP can use). In New Zealand (similar population and area to Oregon) a mixed private & public UFB project is well under way that cost the public about $1 billion. As of March 2018, the original fibre rollout is 89% complete, with fibre available to 1,300,914 households and businesses, of which 550,314 (42.3%) have connected. I think there are approximately 1.6 million households and 0.6 million business premises in NZ. Getting connected is slow (the public company Chorus that manages connections is crappy) but there is plenty of choice of service (ISP) and good reliability once connected. Looking at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_cou... shows plenty of countries with private ISPs doing far worse than NZ. Australia is also rolling out a similar multi-billion project - Australia is about the same size as continental US with 1/10th the population.

by takeda 8y ago

inapis 8y ago

I digress. In India, my local ISP owns the last mile and I pay approximately 14 USD each for two lines of symmetric and unlimited 100 Mbps. ISPs can own the last mile. All you need is extensive competiton. I went from paying $100(4M/250GB) to $50(20M/500G) to $30(50M/UL) to the current $15 (100M/UL). The prices decreased as more players entered the market. Of course, India doesn’t have excellent internet infrastructure available nationally but you really don’t need public ownership of last mile to make a difference. Just don’t let the ISPs form any kind of a cartel.

lambdadmitry 8y ago
So I am, too, from a country where internet is (was) great while ISPs own the last mile (Russia). It seems there are two prerequisites for that: 1. Low level of regulation (i.e. lawlessness) so small ISPs can just string cables in the air without any licensing 2. Relatively young infrastructure Both of those aren't true for most developed countries. And even if it's not (Russia isn't), at some point market dynamics inevitably lead to monopoly. Most local competing ISPs are forced out of the market recently by state-sponsored mega-ISP that controls uplinks and finally went for last mile, too. As you can guess, the quality went down, while the prices went up. You can't cheat the market forces unless you eliminate the market. Physical fiber is an amazing moat, there is no way how upstart ISPs can be price-competitive while duplicating an already existing network.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  In Russia it's not market forces that push for internet access monopolization, but the government, as it wants Chinese-style mass surveillance and censorship.

rayiner 8y ago

> In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile. ISPs own their own last mile almost everywhere. What you may be thinking of is unbundling, where an ISP may be required to let other ISPs use their last-mile facilities at regulated rates. That is a minority rule as well. Most broadband providers in South Korea own their own facilities: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/korea/material/CS_Kor.pdf http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/korea/material/CS_Kor.pdf (see Table 5.2). Norway didn't start unbundling fiber until 2014, but was near the top of the charts in broadband performance long before that. (And it still doesn't impose price regulation on the unbundled fiber.) Sweden is an exception where, in Stockholm, there as a municipally-owned ISP that provides dark fiber. Hong Kong had unbundling, then got rid of it in 2004.

robocat 8y ago
The alternative to unbundling (private ownership, any ISP can use) is treating the fibre as infrastructure (public ownership, any ISP can use). In New Zealand (similar population and area to Oregon) a mixed private & public UFB project is well under way that cost the public about $1 billion. As of March 2018, the original fibre rollout is 89% complete, with fibre available to 1,300,914 households and businesses, of which 550,314 (42.3%) have connected. I think there are approximately 1.6 million households and 0.6 million business premises in NZ. Getting connected is slow (the public company Chorus that manages connections is crappy) but there is plenty of choice of service (ISP) and good reliability once connected. Looking at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_cou... shows plenty of countries with private ISPs doing far worse than NZ. Australia is also rolling out a similar multi-billion project - Australia is about the same size as continental US with 1/10th the population.