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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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Privacy
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That is the wrong answer entirely. You should try to dictate prices to ISPs. The better approach is to work to increase competition. That will drive down prices and increase speeds.
Its worked in my city as prices for fiber are cheap and there is like 6-7 companies who will do it.
Telecom is a natural monopoly: even if you've got 6-7 companies marketing to the public, chances are only one of them is actually running the lines (maybe two, if we're talking about both fiber and coaxial) and the others are just resellers. In other words, the competition is kinda artificial since the one with the infrastructure should (in theory -- barring regulations disallowing it) always be able to undercut the others, who are just middlemen taking out an extra chunk of profit.
Although I guess you could argue that deregulation is better than the regulatory-captured status quo, fully regulating the telecom provider as the monopoly it is (if not nationalizing it entirely) would be inherently more efficient.
This is why I think that the lines should be owned by the municipalities (or a multi-community partnership) and access to them resold. Not even just for fiber, do all of them. The town already handles the water and the sewer, why can’t they lay the pipe for the gas?
They don’t need to be the ISP, or the cable company, or electric company, or whatever (though they can be). Just own and maintain the infra. Obtain right of way. Lease access.
I just know that government contracts with telecom industries always make monopolies worst, not better.
In my city the competition seems to have driven down prices and given everyone access to fiber