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> by making existing players share infrastructure. This is exactly what US needs to do to bring back competition. Sadly even Wheeler who reclassified Internet

by takeda 6y ago

> by making existing players share infrastructure. This is exactly what US needs to do to bring back competition. Sadly even Wheeler who reclassified Internet to Title II, excluded that part of it. Back in late 90s and early 2000, we had huge competition, exactly because of Title II (DSL, which ruled the net back then, because was under telecos automatically was under Title II, so your phone lines could be leased to other companies). In 2003 Internet was officially classified under Title I which ended this (including net neutrality) and here we are now.

smabie 6y ago
There are a lot of mobile players who lease towers though, and prices are still high.
- takeda 6y ago
  I wasn't talking about mobile, although given that article is about mobile, my bad I didn't clarify. I meant about wired Internet access. Running 10 wires to your house to have access to 10 ISPs is expensive and it's also a nightmare for the city. It is extremely wasteful because most people will only use one of them at the time. That's why requirement to lease is essential (ideally it should be a different entity that does this, like it's typically done in data centers). Currently the incumbents won't lease, because that will open door to competition, so this needs to be mandated. Going back to mobile providers, actually I believe they are under Title II and this is mandated. Though, because wireless bandwidth is limited, they are in their right to prioritize their own consumers. So if you use providers that lease other towers usually your coverage is worse than if you were direct consumer, but at least it is possible, unlike wired ISPs.
  - zahma 6y ago
    > I meant about wired Internet access. Running 10 wires to your house to have access to 10 ISPs is expensive and it's also a nightmare for the city. It is extremely wasteful because most people will only use one of them at the time. In Paris, you don't need to run separate cables into a building for each ISP. Orange Telecom owns the infrastructure and leases it out to the different ISPs. They then share the cables but have different end point hardware where the main trunk lines hook into the apartment buildings. Perhaps this is different in other residential communities, but from what I gather, once the infrastructure and wiring is in place, consumers can switch between ISPs and need only switch modems. Switching from Orange to another ISP would not need rewiring. My only problem with this "natural monopoly" method is it ensures a minimum price, which is not really decided by competition, but more likely on the return on cost to wire the country for fiber as agreed on with the government who owns 23% of the company. Then there's a lot of skullduggery with contracts (e.g. first 3 months for $19.99 then it shoots up to $50, some ISPs have 6-month contracts, others are month to month with no penalty if you disconnect). France does a lot of things like this, which makes sense when dealing with national infrastructure, but it doesn't quite do the consumer justice when the ISPs are rentiers selling bandwidth. I can only imagine how quickly it will take them to recoup their costs of wiring fiber. I bet the US could benefit a lot by sharing infrastructure, but it doesn't necessarily mean all will be perfect.
    - lawl 6y ago
      Similar in Switzerland. There are multiple providers building FTTH infrastructure and wiring houses. But each house is only wired once and the government mandates that if you build FTTH infrastructure, you have to rent out the (dark) fiber to anyone else under fair conditions (not quite sure if the gov sets the exact price or not). This did quite a lot for competition here. Speeds went up and prices went down significantly. Small independent ISPs started renting the last mile and offering symmetric gbit at affordable prices which forced the old established ISPs to also drop prices and offer symmetric instead of artificially restricting upload speeds on fiber.

by takeda 6y ago

smabie 6y ago

There are a lot of mobile players who lease towers though, and prices are still high.

takeda 6y ago
I wasn't talking about mobile, although given that article is about mobile, my bad I didn't clarify. I meant about wired Internet access. Running 10 wires to your house to have access to 10 ISPs is expensive and it's also a nightmare for the city. It is extremely wasteful because most people will only use one of them at the time. That's why requirement to lease is essential (ideally it should be a different entity that does this, like it's typically done in data centers). Currently the incumbents won't lease, because that will open door to competition, so this needs to be mandated. Going back to mobile providers, actually I believe they are under Title II and this is mandated. Though, because wireless bandwidth is limited, they are in their right to prioritize their own consumers. So if you use providers that lease other towers usually your coverage is worse than if you were direct consumer, but at least it is possible, unlike wired ISPs.
- zahma 6y ago
  > I meant about wired Internet access. Running 10 wires to your house to have access to 10 ISPs is expensive and it's also a nightmare for the city. It is extremely wasteful because most people will only use one of them at the time. In Paris, you don't need to run separate cables into a building for each ISP. Orange Telecom owns the infrastructure and leases it out to the different ISPs. They then share the cables but have different end point hardware where the main trunk lines hook into the apartment buildings. Perhaps this is different in other residential communities, but from what I gather, once the infrastructure and wiring is in place, consumers can switch between ISPs and need only switch modems. Switching from Orange to another ISP would not need rewiring. My only problem with this "natural monopoly" method is it ensures a minimum price, which is not really decided by competition, but more likely on the return on cost to wire the country for fiber as agreed on with the government who owns 23% of the company. Then there's a lot of skullduggery with contracts (e.g. first 3 months for $19.99 then it shoots up to $50, some ISPs have 6-month contracts, others are month to month with no penalty if you disconnect). France does a lot of things like this, which makes sense when dealing with national infrastructure, but it doesn't quite do the consumer justice when the ISPs are rentiers selling bandwidth. I can only imagine how quickly it will take them to recoup their costs of wiring fiber. I bet the US could benefit a lot by sharing infrastructure, but it doesn't necessarily mean all will be perfect.
  - lawl 6y ago
    Similar in Switzerland. There are multiple providers building FTTH infrastructure and wiring houses. But each house is only wired once and the government mandates that if you build FTTH infrastructure, you have to rent out the (dark) fiber to anyone else under fair conditions (not quite sure if the gov sets the exact price or not). This did quite a lot for competition here. Speeds went up and prices went down significantly. Small independent ISPs started renting the last mile and offering symmetric gbit at affordable prices which forced the old established ISPs to also drop prices and offer symmetric instead of artificially restricting upload speeds on fiber.