I'm by no means an economic expert, but more of these discussions need more discussion about "natural monopoly"
anyone here against the idea that the last-mile/access network is a natural monopoly?
anyone here against the idea that the last-mile/access network is a natural monopoly?
Working within what's realistically possible (a free market in telecom services is impossible in the US), I find the idea of the government owning the last mile and renting it out to competition to be interesting. The companies pay a toll to provide services over it (internet, phone, tv, whatever), the government is charged with then putting that money back into upgrading the infrastructure. It would be open to any company, and no law should be allowed to be passed barring open competition.
With Comcast now a government protected monopoly, deeply in bed with all the right politicians, much like Verizon and AT&T, this scenario is impossible at scale (it would take decades of local munis building out their own networks to dent the Comcast monopoly, and Comcast will fight them every step of the way).
When your market system is broken by regulation and entrenched lobbying, and compromised by an existing protected monopoly (Comcast), you only have two choices: either fight your way back to a free market system, or demolish the broken half-way system and institute a better managed system ideally with competition. This is the exact same scenario that was faced in the healthcare market, and for the exact same reasons in principle. Half-way systems are more often terrible than not in my opinion, you tend to get the worst of both worlds.