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"virtually no competition"? Title II was designed for phone-line utilities in the 1930s, where there really was a total monopoly: you either got service from y
by gojomo 12y ago
"virtually no competition"?
Title II was designed for phone-line utilities in the 1930s, where there really was a total monopoly: you either got service from your single phone company, or not at all.
For broadband, most Americans had not one but zero options 20 years ago.
Now, most have 2 or more wired options (cable and DSL), and 3 or more cellular-wireless options. Some have extra fiber, cable, or DSL options. Some have other wireless options in the unlicensed spectrum. (Most people have more broadband options than smart-phone OS options; should the iOS/Android be federally-regulated as a software utility?)
There are certainly places where the options are too few and too expensive. But that's a local issue, often created by correctable local government errors. To say there's "virtually no competition… for most" is a false claim lacking perspective.
Based on that false impression, Title II puts every ISP, even where there is competition, under federal-review rules designed for the single-provider telephone monopoly of the mid-20th century. Utility-style regulation tends to lock-in incumbents: it doesn't expand competition or options, but rather gives up on competition, and just tells the presumed-permanent "monopolist" what to do.
- wwweston 12y ago> Now, most have 2 or more wired options (cable and DSL), and 3 or more cellular-wireless options. If this is the counterargument to the idea that we have a captured market and should regulate it like one, then it's essentially a concession: wireless is a non-starter because of inherent limits, and saying "oh, there's always one alternative" isn't exactly describing a vibrant competitive market in the land of tethered connections. But the thing is, that's pretty much a red herring. The net neutrality debate isn't about competition among carriers at all. It's about competition between people offering services over the network, and most specifically whether those offering/receiving those services have to pay by source/destination. It's arguable that the new rules address more than that, but if the carriers didn't want us to land here, maybe they shouldn't have fired the first shot by threatening the neutral model.