3 ms·
I don’t know what this means (although I can maybe guess). Can you explain it for sake of clarity? Basically it means that whoever owns the "last mile" can't s
by crotchfire 3y ago
I don’t know what this means (although I can maybe guess). Can you explain it for sake of clarity?
Basically it means that whoever owns the "last mile" can't sell it only directly to the customer as part of a larger (bundled) product like "internet access." They have to sell access to that last mile of fiber or copper "unbundled" from anything else (such as "internet access"), and they have to offer it to other ISPs. This is how it has been for ~25 years in NL, and people there understand how important it is.
By forcing the monopoly (local loop) to be a separate company from everything else it makes it totally obvious when there are ridiculous shenanighans. Like, if local-loop company X has only one ISP customer Y, that's an obvious red flag. Also since they are separate companies regulators can subpoena the contracts, communications, and payments which flow between the two companies.
It's essentially the internet version of what the US did to voice telephony after we broke up our telephone monopoly back in the 1970s: no single company was allowed to do both local loop and long distance.
Currently the Netherlands has this for local-loop fiber, and a few counties in the US State of Washington have it due to the odd fact that their local-loop fiber is owned by the electric utility (not the phone or cable companies). It is an awesome system.
Here's the Dutch cases:
- copper (2000): https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/publication/9225/KPN-is-required-to-present-an-offer-for-access-to-the-local-loop https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/publication/9225/KPN-is-r...
- fiber (2015): https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/publication/15093/KPN-must-grant-competitors-access-to-its-copper-and-fiber-networks https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/publication/15093/KPN-mus...
General background info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_access
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_loop_unbundling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_loop_unbundling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit-stream_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit-stream_access
- klabb3 3y agoThanks. > and they have to offer it to other ISP Key point yes. That’s how it is or at least seems to be in many countries. Societies MUST decouple infrastructure, platforms etc from service providers. Doesn’t matter if private or public. If you don’t, you always end up with shit.