7 ms·

How is this not investigated as an antitrust violation? North America has some of the highest telecom prices in the world with some of the slowest speeds and w

How is this not investigated as an antitrust violation? North America has some of the highest telecom prices in the world with some of the slowest speeds and worst service. There's clearly something very wrong with the market.

pydry 5y ago
IIRC anti-trust is only violated when you use an existing monopoly to muscle in on new markets. Also because political donations.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Antitrust laws are incredibly vague. Here's the relevant part of the Sherman Act as an example. >Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony,
  - giobox 5y ago
    You can’t begin to understand anti-trust law in US without looking at the extensive body of case law too - like any common law system, just reading the statute doesn’t tell you the whole story.
    - throwaway2037 5y ago
      The same is true for environmental law.
andromeduck 5y ago
The market failed because of how difficulty it is to establish last mine given municipal regulation, permitting and other bullshit. If we want to fix broadband and cellular, decouple utility pole ownership/permitting from retail providers.
- iptrans 5y ago
  The above is, in conciliatory terms, hyperbole. In reductionist terms the real underlying reason for market failure is regulatory capture. As to utility poles, a large number of poles are owned by power companies who by and large do not offer retail broadband services, so even here you are barking up the wrong tree. That being said, there are issues with utility poles which need to be addressed. Efforts such as one touch make ready and the like are needed on a national level.
  - unishark 5y ago
    Seems to me you're making the same point as the parent poster. I think by "ownership" they mean monopolization of the poles due to agreements with the local govt to provide service in return for monopoly rights.
    - iptrans 5y ago
      Not really. The parent to my original post identified a problem, but misdiagnosed the root cause and prescribed an incorrect solution. As noted above a lot of poles are owned by power companies that do not offer broadband service. Furthermore exclusive franchises have not been permitted for a good while anymore. Anybody with the correct permits can secure space on poles. This isn’t the issue. Part of the problems is how costs are assigned and how timely work progresses. Who owns the pole isn’t the big issue.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  I'm guessing by "decouple utility pole ownership/permitting" you're thinking about the Last Mile. This is almost exactly what happened in Britain. The last mile telephone system is owned by Openreach, which is owned by British Telecom, but they're required to sell the things you'd actually want that system for at regulated wholesale prices to any outfit that wants to retail it. So for example they'll sell you LLU (Local-loop Unbundled) service which means you can put data onto a copper cable between a home or business property and one of the thousands of physical telephone exchanges that used to house Strowger electro-mechanical switches when that's how telephones worked. You also get some footprint inside the exchange. How you make that into an ISP is your business, but unlike running cables to millions of houses, running fibre to a few thousand telephone exchanges is something a business might actually compete at and sure enough BT have competition for that part of the problem, at least outside the very rural areas. Or if you're a small outfit and you don't want contracts to shove data over fibres around the country you can buy Wholesale Line Rental for a higher price and Openreach will deliver the bits from that copper cable to a single point elsewhere on the telephone network, then you just build your ISP at that location. Since Openreach isn't allowed to sell retail products, the regulator mostly needs to make sure that it doesn't deliberately tweak these prices to benefit its owner, BT, which does sell retail products to consumers. For example maybe BT doesn't need Wholesale Line Rental, the regulator needs to make sure the price for it makes sense anyway as smaller ISPs would otherwise be run out of business. Overall I'm very satisfied with the results. Britain's cable Internet is a monopoly instead (Virgin) but of course almost everywhere that can get cable has a telephone line, so at least they are competing with somebody. More than 95% of households could actually get Superfast broadband (ie 30Mbps or better if the WiFi wasn't in an upstairs bedroom connected via a 1970s bell wire phone extension)
Dah00n 5y ago
It would create huge shockwaves in the US if these problems were fixed, like fixed for real. It's an ingrained part of the North American market. You would, IMO, have to go all the way to removing all money, except state funds, from politics to start to fix this. Top to bottom fixed are needed. Turtles all the way down.
- hytdstd 5y ago
  can you elaborate on this? in particular, why are state funds excluded?
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The comment makes sense to me if I read “state” as “government entity” rather than “individual state in the union”. Elections cost money to run, someone has to pay for that, so allowing funding but forcing all the money coming into the system to come from the government makes it harder for private individual or group X to subvert it in a “I scratch your back here and you remember this later” way. I suspect that first amendment will bar bans on advertising that would be necessary for this to be fully effective (without another amendment, of course), but a lot of progress is still possible without running afoul of 1A.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  At least in the areas so rural that the power companies didn't want to build out infrastructure either, where electricity only became available after FDR's Rural Electrification Act formed non-profit local electrical coops, the problem can be solved by allowing those still existing coops to get into the broadband business. Mississippi changed the law to allow this, and gave out matching block grants to get the ball rolling, and has seen great results. https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/how-coronavirus-stimulus-funds-helped-one-state-create-a-broadband-miracle/ https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/how-coronavirus-stimulus-...
johndunne 5y ago
My limited understanding of US politics (UK resident, Irish citizen here) is that lobby groups, once considered criminal organisations to the US senate, have gained 'acceptence' via decades of regulation creep i.e. the backdoor. This is why such loud responses have appeared from the 'Net neutraility' movement. The consequence is; more for the haves, less for the have-nots. Participation in democracy is a requirement, not an option... it can get exhausting though...
- rhino369 5y ago
  Lobbying is protracted by the first amendment—-“petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” They money is the big issue.
  - johndunne 5y ago
    I am actually referring to the 'Big Money' lobbying when I say 'lobbying'. My confusion, thanks for the highlight.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Why do people think there’s something inherently wrong with lobbying. Lobbying the government with your opinions is an essential right and a key part of how a government needs to work.
  - johndunne 5y ago
    I think the problem is when you're not particularly familiar with the US senate lingo or a non US native. In this case, the term 'lobbying' might most often be heard abroad when discussions are around the problem of the 'big money' behind lobbying. And it's this practise that was unlawful a few decades ago, not the lobbying itself. My bad, educated a little more and thankful.
_wldu 5y ago
I live in a rural college town on the East Coast USA. I paid Verizon 90 USD per month for 1.5Mbit DSL and a home phone number. I had this phone service for about 12 years. It was horrible. When the phone rang, the DSL would stop working. When I ended calls, the DSL would stop working. There was so much static on the line I could barely talk/hear others. But it grew worse and started impacting my ability to work from home after COVID. Verizon said they could "roll a truck" to my house in about two months if I agreed to pay several hundred dollars upfront. I told them no. I had had enough. I ported my phone number to Consumer Cellular and use 4G for Internet access now. It's faster, $30 cheaper each month and much more reliable although I do limit my use as it has a 35 GB per month cap and "may" slow down if I go over that. I wonder, would it slow down more than Verizon's 1.5Mbit? I'm still Waiting on Elon and Starlink to save us.
- umvi 5y ago
  I feel like geo internet such as HughesNet would be both cheaper and better than what you describe. Geo is high latency but at least better bandwidth than 1.5Mbps
  - mgamache 5y ago
    the latency would make real-time audio/video impossible. That's not a solution in the world of Zoom/discord.
- itsoktocry 5y ago
  >I'm still Waiting on Elon and Starlink to save us. What leads you to believe Elon's internet will, in any way, be pro consumer? Tesla certainly isn't, and their customer service is not good.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Competition is always good and will force other providers to up their game.
    - 5y ago
api 5y ago
Corruption is basically legal in the US. You will go to jail for trying to bribe a judge but there are dozens of totally legal ways to bribe politicians. This is one of the most significant problems with American politics and is why quite a few things are perverse and broken.
throwaway2037 5y ago
People say the same about Germany, frequently on HN. Terrible broadband speeds and lack of competition.
- fuzzy2 5y ago
  It's not true though. Due to unique circumstances and regulation you usually have lots of "virtual ISPs" to choose from. There is no real incentive to upgrade the network outside urban areas though, that's true.
- f1refly 5y ago
  The issue in germany is quite different though. There is a unique legal situation where isps can use unrelated digging operations to throw in their cables if they want. This results in effectively no investment in new last mile infrastructure ever, because if you where to pay for it all your competitors would use your investement to extend their networks as well and charge lower prices, since they didn't have to pay for anything. Some cities tried to create their own networks only to be outcompeted by the telekom who immediately used the opportunity to lay their new cables for free.

pydry 5y ago

IIRC anti-trust is only violated when you use an existing monopoly to muscle in on new markets. Also because political donations.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
Antitrust laws are incredibly vague. Here's the relevant part of the Sherman Act as an example. >Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony,
- giobox 5y ago
  You can’t begin to understand anti-trust law in US without looking at the extensive body of case law too - like any common law system, just reading the statute doesn’t tell you the whole story.
  - throwaway2037 5y ago
    The same is true for environmental law.

andromeduck 5y ago

The market failed because of how difficulty it is to establish last mine given municipal regulation, permitting and other bullshit. If we want to fix broadband and cellular, decouple utility pole ownership/permitting from retail providers.

iptrans 5y ago
The above is, in conciliatory terms, hyperbole. In reductionist terms the real underlying reason for market failure is regulatory capture. As to utility poles, a large number of poles are owned by power companies who by and large do not offer retail broadband services, so even here you are barking up the wrong tree. That being said, there are issues with utility poles which need to be addressed. Efforts such as one touch make ready and the like are needed on a national level.
- unishark 5y ago
  Seems to me you're making the same point as the parent poster. I think by "ownership" they mean monopolization of the poles due to agreements with the local govt to provide service in return for monopoly rights.
  - iptrans 5y ago
    Not really. The parent to my original post identified a problem, but misdiagnosed the root cause and prescribed an incorrect solution. As noted above a lot of poles are owned by power companies that do not offer broadband service. Furthermore exclusive franchises have not been permitted for a good while anymore. Anybody with the correct permits can secure space on poles. This isn’t the issue. Part of the problems is how costs are assigned and how timely work progresses. Who owns the pole isn’t the big issue.
tialaramex 5y ago
I'm guessing by "decouple utility pole ownership/permitting" you're thinking about the Last Mile. This is almost exactly what happened in Britain. The last mile telephone system is owned by Openreach, which is owned by British Telecom, but they're required to sell the things you'd actually want that system for at regulated wholesale prices to any outfit that wants to retail it. So for example they'll sell you LLU (Local-loop Unbundled) service which means you can put data onto a copper cable between a home or business property and one of the thousands of physical telephone exchanges that used to house Strowger electro-mechanical switches when that's how telephones worked. You also get some footprint inside the exchange. How you make that into an ISP is your business, but unlike running cables to millions of houses, running fibre to a few thousand telephone exchanges is something a business might actually compete at and sure enough BT have competition for that part of the problem, at least outside the very rural areas. Or if you're a small outfit and you don't want contracts to shove data over fibres around the country you can buy Wholesale Line Rental for a higher price and Openreach will deliver the bits from that copper cable to a single point elsewhere on the telephone network, then you just build your ISP at that location. Since Openreach isn't allowed to sell retail products, the regulator mostly needs to make sure that it doesn't deliberately tweak these prices to benefit its owner, BT, which does sell retail products to consumers. For example maybe BT doesn't need Wholesale Line Rental, the regulator needs to make sure the price for it makes sense anyway as smaller ISPs would otherwise be run out of business. Overall I'm very satisfied with the results. Britain's cable Internet is a monopoly instead (Virgin) but of course almost everywhere that can get cable has a telephone line, so at least they are competing with somebody. More than 95% of households could actually get Superfast broadband (ie 30Mbps or better if the WiFi wasn't in an upstairs bedroom connected via a 1970s bell wire phone extension)

Dah00n 5y ago

It would create huge shockwaves in the US if these problems were fixed, like fixed for real. It's an ingrained part of the North American market. You would, IMO, have to go all the way to removing all money, except state funds, from politics to start to fix this. Top to bottom fixed are needed. Turtles all the way down.

hytdstd 5y ago
can you elaborate on this? in particular, why are state funds excluded?
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The comment makes sense to me if I read “state” as “government entity” rather than “individual state in the union”. Elections cost money to run, someone has to pay for that, so allowing funding but forcing all the money coming into the system to come from the government makes it harder for private individual or group X to subvert it in a “I scratch your back here and you remember this later” way. I suspect that first amendment will bar bans on advertising that would be necessary for this to be fully effective (without another amendment, of course), but a lot of progress is still possible without running afoul of 1A.
GeekyBear 5y ago
At least in the areas so rural that the power companies didn't want to build out infrastructure either, where electricity only became available after FDR's Rural Electrification Act formed non-profit local electrical coops, the problem can be solved by allowing those still existing coops to get into the broadband business. Mississippi changed the law to allow this, and gave out matching block grants to get the ball rolling, and has seen great results. https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/how-coronavirus-stimulus-funds-helped-one-state-create-a-broadband-miracle/ https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/how-coronavirus-stimulus-...

johndunne 5y ago

My limited understanding of US politics (UK resident, Irish citizen here) is that lobby groups, once considered criminal organisations to the US senate, have gained 'acceptence' via decades of regulation creep i.e. the backdoor. This is why such loud responses have appeared from the 'Net neutraility' movement. The consequence is; more for the haves, less for the have-nots. Participation in democracy is a requirement, not an option... it can get exhausting though...

rhino369 5y ago
Lobbying is protracted by the first amendment—-“petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” They money is the big issue.
- johndunne 5y ago
  I am actually referring to the 'Big Money' lobbying when I say 'lobbying'. My confusion, thanks for the highlight.
chrisseaton 5y ago
Why do people think there’s something inherently wrong with lobbying. Lobbying the government with your opinions is an essential right and a key part of how a government needs to work.
- johndunne 5y ago
  I think the problem is when you're not particularly familiar with the US senate lingo or a non US native. In this case, the term 'lobbying' might most often be heard abroad when discussions are around the problem of the 'big money' behind lobbying. And it's this practise that was unlawful a few decades ago, not the lobbying itself. My bad, educated a little more and thankful.

_wldu 5y ago

I live in a rural college town on the East Coast USA. I paid Verizon 90 USD per month for 1.5Mbit DSL and a home phone number. I had this phone service for about 12 years. It was horrible. When the phone rang, the DSL would stop working. When I ended calls, the DSL would stop working. There was so much static on the line I could barely talk/hear others. But it grew worse and started impacting my ability to work from home after COVID. Verizon said they could "roll a truck" to my house in about two months if I agreed to pay several hundred dollars upfront. I told them no. I had had enough. I ported my phone number to Consumer Cellular and use 4G for Internet access now. It's faster, $30 cheaper each month and much more reliable although I do limit my use as it has a 35 GB per month cap and "may" slow down if I go over that. I wonder, would it slow down more than Verizon's 1.5Mbit? I'm still Waiting on Elon and Starlink to save us.

umvi 5y ago
I feel like geo internet such as HughesNet would be both cheaper and better than what you describe. Geo is high latency but at least better bandwidth than 1.5Mbps
- mgamache 5y ago
  the latency would make real-time audio/video impossible. That's not a solution in the world of Zoom/discord.
itsoktocry 5y ago
>I'm still Waiting on Elon and Starlink to save us. What leads you to believe Elon's internet will, in any way, be pro consumer? Tesla certainly isn't, and their customer service is not good.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Competition is always good and will force other providers to up their game.
  - 5y ago

api 5y ago

Corruption is basically legal in the US. You will go to jail for trying to bribe a judge but there are dozens of totally legal ways to bribe politicians. This is one of the most significant problems with American politics and is why quite a few things are perverse and broken.

throwaway2037 5y ago

People say the same about Germany, frequently on HN. Terrible broadband speeds and lack of competition.

fuzzy2 5y ago
It's not true though. Due to unique circumstances and regulation you usually have lots of "virtual ISPs" to choose from. There is no real incentive to upgrade the network outside urban areas though, that's true.
f1refly 5y ago
The issue in germany is quite different though. There is a unique legal situation where isps can use unrelated digging operations to throw in their cables if they want. This results in effectively no investment in new last mile infrastructure ever, because if you where to pay for it all your competitors would use your investement to extend their networks as well and charge lower prices, since they didn't have to pay for anything. Some cities tried to create their own networks only to be outcompeted by the telekom who immediately used the opportunity to lay their new cables for free.