> In a free-market, rural availability won't improve. False. In a free market, non-profits, co-ops and other parties with lesser ROI requirements than publicly

> In a free-market, rural availability won't improve. False. In a free market, non-profits, co-ops and other parties with lesser ROI requirements than publicly listed companies can and may build and/or provide network infrastructure and/or service. For concrete examples look at local fiber network and WISP build-outs in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. > The "competitive tide" under unbundling is a fiction. False. Service level competition with unbundling is very real and creates a quantifiable consumer surplus even without intermodal competition. For concrete examples see any European country with unbundling. > It was not accompanied by increased investment into the actual wires that ran into peoples' homes. False. A more accurate statement would be that the unbundling requirements were not in force long enough for competing ISPs to start building their own access networks. Infrastructure build-outs require scale. Unbundling requirements enable competing ISPs to build up scale before starting on the next investment ladder step, i.e. their own infrastructure. Concrete example: In France, one explicit reason for Free to start on their fiber network buildout in Paris was to stop paying the unbundling fees to the incumbent and instead use the money to fund their network buildout and improve their margins. > Indeed, it eliminated any incentive to invest in those wires--why pour billions of dollars into infrastructure you'll have to lease out at cost to your competitors? False. Unbundling and other infrastructure charges are not at cost. Regulatory schemes for tariffs are: costs plus, retail minus or in some egregious cases retail plus. All these schemes include (sometimes a substantial) profit. So, why pour billions of dollars into infrastructure you'll have to lease out to your competitors? The answer is, as always, money or more exactly profits. Once a network buildout has been completed it becomes a sunk cost with the additional downside of maintenance cost. The one single metric determining if this sunk cost turns a profit is take rate, i.e. how many subscribers you can get and subsequently how much it will cost to service each subscriber. Leasing your infrastructure drives up the take rate. It's basically free money, analogous to airlines selling empty seats to third parties. > People mention the "unbundling" requirement as if its a panacea, comparing it to what has been done in Europe, but ignore what makes that policy work in places like the U.K.--the company that owns the wires is a sanctioned monopoly, protected from competition, that is guaranteed return on investment through statutory means. False. Wireline infrastructure is not a monopoly in Europe and certainly not in the UK. Anybody can get a license to deploy wireline infrastructure in the UK and it's not like BT has 100% coverage either. For example KCOM has a de facto monopoly in Hull where BT has no infrastructure.