>An argument could be made here for removing all vertical integration in communication services. Whoever owns the infrastructure shouldn’t also provide the serv

>An argument could be made here for removing all vertical integration in communication services. Whoever owns the infrastructure shouldn’t also provide the service. This doesn't make sense as a universal maxim. It does make sense in certain contexts such as government-funded monopolies (the former Bell System) or government-funded expansion efforts (RDOF and BEAD expansion being funded by the United States and separately by the several states) And it also doesn't make sense at certain technological levels. Old telephone lines were a point-to-point set of wires from your house to some central point. Allowing competitors into that central point and using the single set of wires that were dedicated to you, the consumer was very clean and easy to do Unbundling shared media like coaxial lines or radio networks where all of the traffic is intermingled--at what point do you differentiate between the different providers? What are the different providers actually....providing? It's like the deregulated natural gas market in Georgia. The monopoly no longer serves customers directly, but they still own all the pipes in the ground. The 'marketers' buy gas and sell it to us, the consumers, but it's all put into the pipelines at the same place by the old monopoly. It's all just a financial shell game with provider A essentially redeeming so many cubic feet of gas into the system. It's fungible and there's effectively no differentiation between the providers, who all have exactly the same pricing, exactly the same contracts, exactly the same policies. Except now you have half a dozen CEOs, and HR departments, and IT departments, and billing systems all adding costs--costs that are now unregulated since it's "competitive"