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What we got with this FCC ruling is an arrangement between the ISPs and the edge. Or you might call them the pipes and the content. It's striking to me how little discussions of the last-mile were framing the debate, or how little consumer choice was taken into consideration. According to Wheeler, my interests as a consumer end at me not having my traffic biased. When in fact, most consumers are more interested in having choice in last-mile providers, or just paying less for their Internet connectivity. In short, I'm bummed we didn't get unbundling in the last-mile.

I agree 100%. I was agape that Wheeler at least twice used his old company NABU as an opening shtick- a story about trying to create a competitive cable provider, but not having unbundling to pull it off; for him to transition into regulation instead of competition was comedically dissonant.

As for actually undoing bundling, it's the courts. They decided that given that fiber investments were going to be costly, and given the threat that build-outs might not happen, the scales somehow tipped to allow them to overturn (on purely economic merits) the FCC's rules on local loop unbundling.

Thus, we determine that, particularly in light of a competitive landscape in which competitive LECs are leading the deployment of FTTH, removing incumbent LEC unbundling obligations on FTTH loops will promote their deployment of the network infrastructure necessary to provide broadband services to the mass market.

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-36A1.pd... , paragraph 278.

Truly one of the worst, least well-structured Court rulings to have occurred. And worse, here we are almost 15 years in, with fiber no longer rolling out, and there's no structure or hope to revise this court edict made at a particular time balancing particular economic factors to demand a reassesment- the FCC's Triennial Review.

On the bright side, I'm very happy that on the same day that the FCC announced Open Access approval, they also announced they were going to move to block states and municipalities from legally obstructing community and municipal competitors.

BrandX challenged the rules you quote which eventually went to SCOTUS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_%26_Telecommuni...

The FCC fought all the way to the Supreme Court to ensure last-mile ISPs don't have to unbundle. Of course that was in 2005 under the Bush Administration when the FCC was run by Michael Powell.

I lean towards the belief that the FCC is involved specifically because there is little or no competition in broadband because it has characteristics of a natural monopoly when delivered via wire/cable/fiber. The FCC didn't hand them a monopoly. The market handed them a monopoly and therefore the FCC needs to regulate it. Besides that, I agree with your other sentiments.

> The market handed them a monopoly

Local governments handed them a monopoly.

http://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-jus...

I disagree that ISPs are a natural monopoly. It's crazy to think that my house could choose between two competing road systems, but my house already has multiple wired communications networks.

And if we all agree that ISP monopolies are real -- then we have a way of dealing with monopolies: break up the companies.

It seems to me that this is the proper solution -- yet for some reason it's never discussed and instead we just keep rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

It seems like the idea of going AT&T on modern corporations is completely off the table. Any time I bring this up, people look at me like I'm pro-tyranny.

Break them up. They're holding our nation back and don't deserve to use us as a crutch.

Given that Google, Amazon, and Apple are all larger than Comcast in market-cap and most measures of market-share or customer count, will those three be broken up before Comcast, or after?

During.

They each have meaningful competition. I'm not sure what your definition of "monopoly" is if it includes companies like those.

Almost everywhere in the US, almost every ISP faces at least 4 (and often more) alternative ways to get on the internet.

Compared to Google or Apple, Comcast has a smaller market cap and smaller profit margins – and profit margins are a more reliable indicator of market power than eyeballing whether the competition looks "meaningful".

Almost everywhere in the US, almost every ISP faces at least 4 (and often more) alternative ways to get on the internet. How is that a "monopoly"?

Compared to Google or Apple, Comcast has a smaller market cap and smaller profit margins – and profit margins are a more reliable indicator of market power than eyeballing whether the competition looks "meaningful".

>Almost everywhere in the US, almost every ISP faces at least 4 (and often more) alternative ways to get on the internet.

When you typed "ISP" is that supposed to mean "customer"? Citation?

Against whom is Comcast competing? I know very few people who can choose even between Comcast & AT&T. It's widely known that Comcast colludes with other cable companies (Time Warner) to avoid competition.

You're using a straw man argument. "Comcast is a monopoly." "Hey, look over there at something unrelated to your statement! Therefore, Comcast faces competition."

Citation?

I had 1 choice in Dallas (TimeWarner). In McKinney (Dallas exurb with a population of 400K) I only had UVerse as a choice.

The next best in those markets is ADSL. But that doesn't fit the bill if we're talking about broadband.

So right now, myself and everyone I'm familiar with, face monopolies.

And you're seriously trying to say Apple doesn't have competition? I have a hell of a lot more choice in what laptop I buy than what broadband provider I have for my home address (read: none).

I decided a couple weeks ago to switch toe DuckDuckGo for search. I opened my Safari Preferences. Made the change. Done.

This seems like an issue of basic reasoning skills.

We live in a country where our public officials openly state that companies are "too big to jail", and they are unwilling to prosecute them for wrong doing because it could cause "systemic failure".

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_45/ag-holder-confir...

There are many different ways of dealing with monopolies. Sometimes breaking them up is not the best solution. Unbundling like we had with DSL, is another way to deal with telecom monopolies that doesn't result in breaking them up.

Unfortunately ever since BrandX the FCC has fought against unbundling.

You've got multiple wired communications networks at home partly because that market is operating inefficiently, which is a thing that tends to happen in the real world.

We need to do both. Working to increase competition sounds like the most effective strategy in the long run, but that will be difficult and take a long time by Internet standards. Net neutrality will help curb abuse in the (relatively) short run.

I wonder what it would look like if the last mile were a) unbundled and b) operated as a co-operative.

You make an important distinction. Perhaps I should have said, "The FCC missed an opportunity to regulate a natural monopoly."

Because you're right in that last-mile Internet delivery is a natural monopoly. Just like last-mile phone service is a natural monopoly.

The general response I've seen to that is they're encouraging more last-mile providers to be developed from Title II opening up the equipment poles/lines.

Basically, making it easier for the Google Fiber types to do their thing.

But then they have to live under the same rules as the big guys, and that was one of the rebuttal points. Valid or not.

I can't find any section of the rules that have to do with equipment poles/lines. Can you point it out?

Everything I can find indicates this limits existing providers, rather than opening any possibilities for new providers, and is thus likely to decrease competition/variety. That is, it's making local ISP service more like a commodity/monopoly than it currently is.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/224

By classifying ISPs under Title II, they become subject to these rules.

But the FCC hasn't applied all of Title II. There's nothing in today's document about poles.

It's paragraph 56, page 17.

> check out a recent talk @ NANOG from John Yoo

Christopher Yoo. John Yoo is the advocate for torture.

Sorry about that. I can't edit my comment for some reason, oh well.

This step gives a foundation to curb many aspects of monopoly broadband providers. There needs to be another related but separate fight on competition in the last mile.