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> A national policy that actually encourages competition I'm all for improving the Internet and dunking on large ISPs, but what does this mean? Specifically wh

> A national policy that actually encourages competition I'm all for improving the Internet and dunking on large ISPs, but what does this mean? Specifically what kind of national policy would foster competition (regulation tends to favor monopolies, right?)? Also, don't these private networks and marketplaces constitute competition? Or are you talking specifically about the network edge while the article is talking about the backbone? This article has me thinking that there is potentially a lot of economic efficiency to be unlocked by these sorts of marketplaces--basically routing based on economics, but maybe this is antithetical to net neutrality ("pay to play" internet routing)?

mjevans 8y ago
Ideally competition in all areas, but different areas might require different policy and this is a question that should actually be studied by experts, or at least in academia summarizing the results of policy in different nations (as well as how closely they might match similar housing density for actually lived in areas). Some places that I think should be at least initially studied / considered for LAST MILE* competition include: * LAST MILE (connectivity) being the connection between citizen's houses and peering/point-of-presence locations: connecting citizens to a marketplace of different service providers. * Remove legal barriers that prevent municipalities and utility entities from providing last mile connectivity (often laws lobbied (paid) for by existing monopoly or near monopoly companies). * Things similar to "Local Loop Un-bundling" > Require the existing providers break out last mile connectivity from their back-haul package. > Require they sell access to their private PoP at a cost which they also pay at a similar rate (to the PoP on the balance sheet). * Things equivalent to 'right of way' grants (poles on public land, trenches, etc) must be owned by the citizens. > Also leased at FRAND rates to any entities > Serviceable with 'one touch' by any entity licensed with the owners (citizens via the City/County/State/etc that owns it) Possibly other things I can't think of in a short break.
swiftcoder 8y ago
Anti-trust action against the major telecoms would not favour monopolies, certainly :) There are other regulatory levers here, though. Prevent municipal governments from awarding monopolies to providers (Boston and Comcast, I'm looking at you). Require last-mile fiber owners to lease to multiple competing companies. And so on...
kbenson 8y ago
> but maybe this is antithetical to net neutrality By separating the bulk transit last mile provider from the private network direct routing solutions, I think we actually guard against a lot of the problems net neutrality is meant to fight (as long as the ISP doesn't classify the private network provider as higher tier). Net neutrality is only really needed because there's not enough competition in the ISP space for large swaths of the country. If we each had 4-5 ISP choices, net neutrality actually starts being a negative, because it impacts types of offerings that might require special priority routing to work well and that are willing to pay for it. The market would probably settle on specific plans where consumers may or may not pay for better streaming/gaming capability, and that's a good thing. There would be no chance for an ISP to strong-arm a content provider because no ISP would have enough market share to do so (customers that care would just jump ship to another ISP if youtube/facebook/whetever ran like crap and another ISP advertised better speeds for them).

mjevans 8y ago

Ideally competition in all areas, but different areas might require different policy and this is a question that should actually be studied by experts, or at least in academia summarizing the results of policy in different nations (as well as how closely they might match similar housing density for actually lived in areas). Some places that I think should be at least initially studied / considered for LAST MILE* competition include: * LAST MILE (connectivity) being the connection between citizen's houses and peering/point-of-presence locations: connecting citizens to a marketplace of different service providers. * Remove legal barriers that prevent municipalities and utility entities from providing last mile connectivity (often laws lobbied (paid) for by existing monopoly or near monopoly companies). * Things similar to "Local Loop Un-bundling" > Require the existing providers break out last mile connectivity from their back-haul package. > Require they sell access to their private PoP at a cost which they also pay at a similar rate (to the PoP on the balance sheet). * Things equivalent to 'right of way' grants (poles on public land, trenches, etc) must be owned by the citizens. > Also leased at FRAND rates to any entities > Serviceable with 'one touch' by any entity licensed with the owners (citizens via the City/County/State/etc that owns it) Possibly other things I can't think of in a short break.

swiftcoder 8y ago

Anti-trust action against the major telecoms would not favour monopolies, certainly :) There are other regulatory levers here, though. Prevent municipal governments from awarding monopolies to providers (Boston and Comcast, I'm looking at you). Require last-mile fiber owners to lease to multiple competing companies. And so on...

kbenson 8y ago

> but maybe this is antithetical to net neutrality By separating the bulk transit last mile provider from the private network direct routing solutions, I think we actually guard against a lot of the problems net neutrality is meant to fight (as long as the ISP doesn't classify the private network provider as higher tier). Net neutrality is only really needed because there's not enough competition in the ISP space for large swaths of the country. If we each had 4-5 ISP choices, net neutrality actually starts being a negative, because it impacts types of offerings that might require special priority routing to work well and that are willing to pay for it. The market would probably settle on specific plans where consumers may or may not pay for better streaming/gaming capability, and that's a good thing. There would be no chance for an ISP to strong-arm a content provider because no ISP would have enough market share to do so (customers that care would just jump ship to another ISP if youtube/facebook/whetever ran like crap and another ISP advertised better speeds for them).