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Comment by martinald | Hacker News Reader

I don't think that's the reason really.

The main reason I can see is that Comcast (or cable internet) has no real competition. I don't understand why that is. AT&T, Verizon etc seem to have given up on competing. Verizon stopped their rollout of FTTH a while back nearly entirely, though it has restarted very slowly.

AT&Ts VDSL based UVerse solution is way too sparse, with very long cable runs. Compare this to BT in the UK where most VDSL2 runs they are doing are <500m. They're now looking at GFast to push fibre even closer to customers, getting copper runs down to ~200m.

Ok, so this may be caused by low population density, but I'm not entirely convinced. It must be way cheaper to dig trenches in suburbia USA as many of the places don't even have sidewalks to dig up and then expensively refill, you could just trench along the side of the road.

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One other reason is that counties have the land rights. They negotiate with the big Telco's like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, Charter, etc and then issue a monopoly or duopoly in the county for a fixed period of time - usually 10 years at once.

The Telco can offer a few things like fiber connectivity between county buildings, tax payments, etc. By doing that, they secure the rights to the area. Given the federal system of the United States, this is a difficult thing to stop.

This makes true market-based competition within most areas very difficult to achieve.

> One other reason is that counties have the land rights. They negotiate with the big Telco's like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, Charter, etc and then issue a monopoly or duopoly in the county for a fixed period of time - usually 10 years at once.

They do not do that. It's illegal under federal law. Pole and conduit owners are required to rent out access at non-discriminatory rates: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/224.

The reason companies don't overbuild is because it's expensive and there isn't any return. FiOS came to my building in Baltimore. I was the only person on my floor to switch away from Comcast. Even these days, people choose their broadband provider based primarily on the TV package.

> They do not do that. It's illegal under federal law.

But they most certainly can impose enough bureaucracy and other hurdles to make renting factually impossible. Or simply both the incumbent provider and the county employ just a single FTE (or less!) to handle permits, and one can't do anything about it. All while following the letter of the law, because there's nothing in the law that says "county has X days to deal with the permit else it is being automatically granted".

That feels easily litigated to me. The law probably makes some statement like 'will make available'. You then go to court showing that the opportunity to rent isn't available even though there technically is a service.

"easily" "litigated"

Those two words do not go together.

> easily litigated

Nothing in the US is "easily" litigated, especially not when you're up against a multimedia conglomerate and a portion of the government itself.

I don't think that's true with the massive switch to cord cutting - cable TV revenues are collapsing.

Was FiOS much cheaper/better than Comcast (apart from the underlying tech)?

> They do not do that. It's illegal under federal law.

They definitely do. Our city has a franchise agreement with the incumbent cable provider; they're the only company allowed to provide cable television service. ~10 years ago a company called NuNet tried to come in and run fiber in a neighboring city, Hazleton, and both they and the city were sued by the incumbent for breaching the franchise.

The 1992 Cable Act made exclusive franchises illegal, but does not retroactively apply to pre-1992 contracts. Almost all of those contracts have since expired and been renewed as non-exclusive contracts under the 1992 Act. Hazelton, for example, granted an exclusive franchise before 1992, which expired in 2005: http://articles.mcall.com/2004-03-25/business/3517245_1_fibe.... The suit in 2004 was over the last year of exclusivity.

I imagine there are some 30-year exclusive franchises granted in 1991 that are still in effect. I don't actually know of any.

Interesting; that clears things up. Thanks!

We do in theory have competition for DSL service but the telcos just conspired to let their cable plant rot to make that undesirable.

But why though? It seems really silly. Even in a hyper competitive market like the UK, the incumbent telco still makes a fortune off home broadband service.

In the US AT&T and Verizon seem to have given up and want to just do cellular to make money and let their copper plant rot. They are gifting the entire market to Comcast et al.

No, we don't. The Brand X decision killed unbundling for DSL.

Verizon stopped competing because they are transitioning from a wired and wireless company to solely wireless. They have no interest in holding onto their old POTS, and FCC required them to service it.

Cost of the Telcom union, employers and pension adds up, not to mention infrastructure.

They avoid all this by wireless voice, cellular communications.

Still under the FCC though.

They could just try not having jacked prices and offering good packages. Their customer-base would skyrocket and revenue would more than cover costs.

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