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> brought on tens of millions of new users in recent years. Competition has been a force for good. This is the problem, your example is too new. Give it a deca

> brought on tens of millions of new users in recent years. Competition has been a force for good. This is the problem, your example is too new. Give it a decade or two for amalgamation to occur and let's see where things are once 2-3 companies own the market.

simonh 4y ago
Then don’t allow the amalgamation. Governments can veto mergers and takeovers. Telecoms used to be a natural monopoly when it was based on land lines to every house. It made no sense to lay competing infrastructure for that. Now with mobile networks the infrastructure is a fraction of the cost and competing networks can coexist seamlessly, so a competitive marketplace for services makes sense.
BeetleB 4y ago
I can't speak for India, but having seen the effect of telecom in multiple Asian and African countries, I think you underestimate how incompetent/corrupt the government can be. Waiting years to get a phone line was the norm for most people I knew there. I've known several folks where the wait list for getting a land line was over a decade - and we're not talking some remote rural village. If we project how long it would take to get the country connected at the pace they were going vs the progress private companies made with cell phones, it is several orders of magnitude. The number of people in the former category who would have died before having a chance at merely having a phone is in the millions.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  The reverse exists in spades where after decades the private ISP make no network improvements and the town has to foot the bill to get decent internet. It comes down to who can get away with what: do you have more leverage on your officials or on your local conpanies? If your local companies are monopolies that benefit more from not serving you, you'll be in the same situation as you descibre.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    > The reverse exists in spades where after decades the private ISP make no network improvements and the town has to foot the bill to get decent internet. As opposed to simply not having the service for all those decades, and continuing to not have it? Keep in mind that these governments have a longer history of not delivering, and not maintaining existing infrastructure than most of these private companies. By a margin of decades. There is more data on their inability to deliver than there is on the private companies' malfeasance. > do you have more leverage on your officials or on your local conpanies? If your local companies are monopolies that benefit more from not serving you, you'll be in the same situation as you descibre. The difference being local monopolies still provide service to those with resources to pay, whereas the local governments wouldn't. If there is a market, they will continue to provide service. If they leave, another company will take its place. I'm not a believer in the free market. But this is one of the classic examples where in corrupt countries international private companies really were way, way better. When the lowly street vendor can afford a cell phone, everyone's life is way better.

simonh 4y ago

Then don’t allow the amalgamation. Governments can veto mergers and takeovers. Telecoms used to be a natural monopoly when it was based on land lines to every house. It made no sense to lay competing infrastructure for that. Now with mobile networks the infrastructure is a fraction of the cost and competing networks can coexist seamlessly, so a competitive marketplace for services makes sense.

BeetleB 4y ago

I can't speak for India, but having seen the effect of telecom in multiple Asian and African countries, I think you underestimate how incompetent/corrupt the government can be. Waiting years to get a phone line was the norm for most people I knew there. I've known several folks where the wait list for getting a land line was over a decade - and we're not talking some remote rural village. If we project how long it would take to get the country connected at the pace they were going vs the progress private companies made with cell phones, it is several orders of magnitude. The number of people in the former category who would have died before having a chance at merely having a phone is in the millions.

makeitdouble 4y ago
The reverse exists in spades where after decades the private ISP make no network improvements and the town has to foot the bill to get decent internet. It comes down to who can get away with what: do you have more leverage on your officials or on your local conpanies? If your local companies are monopolies that benefit more from not serving you, you'll be in the same situation as you descibre.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > The reverse exists in spades where after decades the private ISP make no network improvements and the town has to foot the bill to get decent internet. As opposed to simply not having the service for all those decades, and continuing to not have it? Keep in mind that these governments have a longer history of not delivering, and not maintaining existing infrastructure than most of these private companies. By a margin of decades. There is more data on their inability to deliver than there is on the private companies' malfeasance. > do you have more leverage on your officials or on your local conpanies? If your local companies are monopolies that benefit more from not serving you, you'll be in the same situation as you descibre. The difference being local monopolies still provide service to those with resources to pay, whereas the local governments wouldn't. If there is a market, they will continue to provide service. If they leave, another company will take its place. I'm not a believer in the free market. But this is one of the classic examples where in corrupt countries international private companies really were way, way better. When the lowly street vendor can afford a cell phone, everyone's life is way better.