> Suddenly anybody could start a local telecom, lease lines from Qwest Communications (now CenturyLink), resell them and then compete with them in the local mar

> Suddenly anybody could start a local telecom, lease lines from Qwest Communications (now CenturyLink), resell them and then compete with them in the local market. Here in Utah, if you are very lucky, you can get an intentionally-designed version of that: UTOPIA. UTOPIA works by leasing a municipal fiber network to anyone interested in running an ISP. Because the same network is sold by many separate ISPs, each ISP must actually offer a competitive price. It's very effective: while Comcast (XFinity) will charge anyone it can >$100/mo. for 1000/40mbit, while every UTOPIA provider has their price set to ~$60/mo. for 1000/1000mbit. Actually, I just checked, and UTOPIA prices have actually gone down to ~$45-50, and ~$75 for 2.5G! The only problem left is that this only creates competitive pricing for areas where UTOPIA owns the network. Anywhere Comcast or CenturyLink owns still has predatory pricing. The worst part (in my experience) is that a handful of apartment developers have shady deals with specific ISPs, where they write the price, but not the speed, into each tenant's lease. For example, I must pay $100/mo. for what ends up being ~300/300mbit from SenaWave. That's better than my last apartment (owned by the same company) where the price and ISP were the same, but I was lucky to get any more than 100/100mbit. Competition works, so long as it is actively maintained.