> One of the companies (let's call is "Bell") owns a national fibre network, the last mile of copper or fiber to the home, ISP service, mobile phone service, an

> One of the companies (let's call is "Bell") owns a national fibre network, the last mile of copper or fiber to the home, ISP service, mobile phone service, and several national content networks. It receives significant subsidies from the federal government for providing national backbone service, fixed wireless service in rural areas from its extensive network of towers, and content production on its networks. Sounds like Deutsche Telekom. There were instances of those assholes ripping fibre out of the ground so they could put copper lines back in. When DSL was becoming more and more prominent in our area during the early-mid 2000s Telekom always BS'd their way around giving my family more than that trash-tier ISDN hookup. In the end my father had enough and went to 1&1 for internet access which also wasn't that easy since Telekom had (and IIRC still has) control over the "last mile" from the roadside box to the customer. > The other duopolist is similar, but started in the cable TV business instead of the telephone business. > At one point the cable company was successfully sued because they throttled all encrypted traffic Sounds like Kabel Deutschland (now after its acquisition called "Vodafone Kabel Deutschland") which had its run-ins with net neutrality