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In a nutshell: If I want fast, cheap internet, then I should get the heck out of the US (where there's no competition and no government enforcement of anti-trus
by ergoproxy 13y ago
In a nutshell: If I want fast, cheap internet, then I should get the heck out of the US (where there's no competition and no government enforcement of anti-trust law, competition law, or consumer protection law); vote with my feet; and go to South Korea. There, the government intervenes in the market and regulates ISPs to foster competition:
"South Korea's government worked closely with providers, encouraging investment and coming up with a development strategy that was collective but still included a deep reliance on competition." Source: http://news.cnet.com/South-Korea-leads-the-way/2009-1034_3-5261393.html http://news.cnet.com/South-Korea-leads-the-way/2009-1034_3-5...
"A number of governments, including South Korea [...] have experimented with or embraced infrastructure-sharing as a way to get new companies to compete in the broadband market." Source: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/31/broadband.south.korea/ http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/31/broadband.south.korea/
By contrast, here in the US, regulators like the FCC are toothless, and the Courts favor Big Business. We just saw Verizon crush the FCC's net neutrality policy in federal court. And we probably won't see the DOJ stop this Comcast/Time-Warner merger either.
There is a Whitehouse petition to "Stop the Comcast/TimeWarner Cable merger and require more competition in the cable industry." https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-comcasttimewarner-cable-merger-and-require-more-competition-cable-industry/ym52vbd4 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-comcasttimewa...
I will sign it, but I don't expect it to do any good--the Democratic party is beholden to Comcast as much as the Republicans are to Verizon. See http://shopyourpolitics.com/category/telecommunications http://shopyourpolitics.com/category/telecommunications