4 ms·

It is expensive to wire rural areas up. That is why the [government is paying for it](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/att-grudgingly-acce

It is expensive to wire rural areas up. That is why the [government is paying for it](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/att-grudgingly-accepts-428-million-in-annual-government-funding/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/att-g...). Why isn't this a utility again? Comcast and Charter essentially have a [duopoly](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/comcast-or-charter-is-the-only-25mbps-choice-for-68-million-americans/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/comca...) over much of the United States. Where is the competition? The actual competition is in lobbying local governments to make ISP-as-utility illegal. See the [case of Wilson, North Carolina](https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-big-internet https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-bi...). People seem to easily forget that every major corporation is evil by default. If it is profitable, it gets done. Laws and public image are the only thing holding them back.

Karunamon 6y ago
>Where is the competition? 60 to 90 percent of households have access to two or more options for fixed (wired) broadband[1] depending on how you classify broadband, and that's not even counting the wireless options. That, to me, seems as about as competitive as you're reasonably ever going to get across a medium that is a natural monopoly without putting the government in the same line of business, which quite frankly, I don't see as their place. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Why is it a natural monopoly? The DSL that is my second option is garbage (slow, expensive). Redundant connections to homes are a lot cheaper when you are talking about cable vs water or power, and the hardware required to provide ISP presence isn't particularly comparable to things like water or power plants (it's considerably cheaper).
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    Because laying cable across a fixed amount of space is incredibly expensive and inherently unfriendly to new entrants. Wireless spectrum is limited by physics. And your DSL being too slow and expensive for your use case says nothing about the use case of someone else, or even anyone outside of your immediate market area.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      My point is that it is actually only moderately expensive.
- magicalist 6y ago
  > 60 to 90 percent of households have access to two or more options for fixed (wired) broadband[1] depending on how you classify broadband, and that's not even counting the wireless options. That chart says 52 to 80% if you're looking at wired internet, the upper end relies on classifying "3Mbps+" as broadband, and the "or more" part of "two or more" is doing a whole lot of work when it turns out 80% of those have two options. That means 48% of US households had a single or no choice if they wanted download speeds over 25Mbps. ...and we don't actually know what the real numbers are because the FCC doesn't require household level reporting, it's census block level reporting, and it's not even if a single household in that census block has service, it's if a single household in that census block could have service "without an extraordinary commitment of resources" by the ISP. See [1]. Spoiler: the updated maps still aren't in. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/the-fccs-horrible-broadband-mapping-system-is-finally-getting-an-upgrade/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/the-fccs-horribl...
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  For my home, 2.5mi from the Capital Building in Washington State, I'm offered four wired broadband providers: 1. Comcast, "advertised 100mbps to 1gbps" (true enough, although you can only get 150mbps, so I'm not sure if that's bracketing) 2. CenturyLink, "25-50mbps" (CenturyLink's own website says "Our systems indicate that our High Speed Internet is not currently available at your service address." I tried several other streets in the area that indicated that none of them had availability either.) 3. Platinum Equity LLC, "10-25mbps" (err, Platinum Equity is an investment firm - oh, one of their portfolio offers "T1 and Bonded T1" lines to businesses and after further investigation would offer me 192K SDSL as a residential offering) 4. Integra Telecom Holdings, "3-6mbps" (a Vancouver telco that does business fiber). So there's one - Olympia, WA.

Karunamon 6y ago

>Where is the competition? 60 to 90 percent of households have access to two or more options for fixed (wired) broadband[1] depending on how you classify broadband, and that's not even counting the wireless options. That, to me, seems as about as competitive as you're reasonably ever going to get across a medium that is a natural monopoly without putting the government in the same line of business, which quite frankly, I don't see as their place. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...

maxerickson 6y ago
Why is it a natural monopoly? The DSL that is my second option is garbage (slow, expensive). Redundant connections to homes are a lot cheaper when you are talking about cable vs water or power, and the hardware required to provide ISP presence isn't particularly comparable to things like water or power plants (it's considerably cheaper).
- Karunamon 6y ago
  Because laying cable across a fixed amount of space is incredibly expensive and inherently unfriendly to new entrants. Wireless spectrum is limited by physics. And your DSL being too slow and expensive for your use case says nothing about the use case of someone else, or even anyone outside of your immediate market area.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    My point is that it is actually only moderately expensive.
magicalist 6y ago
> 60 to 90 percent of households have access to two or more options for fixed (wired) broadband[1] depending on how you classify broadband, and that's not even counting the wireless options. That chart says 52 to 80% if you're looking at wired internet, the upper end relies on classifying "3Mbps+" as broadband, and the "or more" part of "two or more" is doing a whole lot of work when it turns out 80% of those have two options. That means 48% of US households had a single or no choice if they wanted download speeds over 25Mbps. ...and we don't actually know what the real numbers are because the FCC doesn't require household level reporting, it's census block level reporting, and it's not even if a single household in that census block has service, it's if a single household in that census block could have service "without an extraordinary commitment of resources" by the ISP. See [1]. Spoiler: the updated maps still aren't in. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/the-fccs-horrible-broadband-mapping-system-is-finally-getting-an-upgrade/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/the-fccs-horribl...
FireBeyond 6y ago
For my home, 2.5mi from the Capital Building in Washington State, I'm offered four wired broadband providers: 1. Comcast, "advertised 100mbps to 1gbps" (true enough, although you can only get 150mbps, so I'm not sure if that's bracketing) 2. CenturyLink, "25-50mbps" (CenturyLink's own website says "Our systems indicate that our High Speed Internet is not currently available at your service address." I tried several other streets in the area that indicated that none of them had availability either.) 3. Platinum Equity LLC, "10-25mbps" (err, Platinum Equity is an investment firm - oh, one of their portfolio offers "T1 and Bonded T1" lines to businesses and after further investigation would offer me 192K SDSL as a residential offering) 4. Integra Telecom Holdings, "3-6mbps" (a Vancouver telco that does business fiber). So there's one - Olympia, WA.