Hacker News Reader

Comment by gz5 | Hacker News Reader

The utility should be the fiber (or spectrum). Regulate that; leave the ISPs to then compete openly.

Today's software can enable multiple ISPs to share the fiber/spectrum. I could then have 10 ISPs today and 15 ISPs tomorrow. I might use ISP #1 for certain content, and ISP #2 for certain services.

ISPs essentially become a function of the services and content they provide, and how they provide it, in an ultra-competitive, granular market. The way it should be.

View on HN

Good point. I believe Sweden is quite close to this vision.

More generally, certain goods need to be owned by the community, such as infrastructure. Privately owned streets are a nightmare, and so are pipes and fibers. Almost by definition this must lead to malfunctioning markets. Only if a level playing field on this ground is guaranteed, a market on top if this can function efficiently.

Isn't that what happened to the DSL market? No one will bother laying new infrastructure because anyone can use it.

Good point but much larger overall pie with fiber; enough for the infrastructure owner and the ISPs to eat, and eat well.

Also the OSS/BSS/ops implementations for shared DSL were too costly and ineffective; we can do much better with today's software.

You can always make the government take care of what is becoming increasingly fundamental infrastructure.

But then you'll be called a communist.

And rightfully so, since taking care of it would mean the Ministry of Communications has deemed the current available bandwidth sufficient for serving the government's approved content (propaganda), thus eliminating the need for improved infrastructure. People should be in the fields growing food for their comrades anyways, not sitting on the internet.

How are the Ministries of Firefighting, of Police and of Roads going?

Yes, this is/was the situation in Germany. Which basically results in Telekom being the only provider building new infrastructure while every other (DSL)-provider just rents those lines. Of course it should be shared, but it lacks incentive to actually improve the reach of infrastructure.

I always had the idea of timed exclusivity - whoever builts infrastructure first should enjoy 2-4 years of exclusive operation before other providers can join.

This is a great model and is done in a number of countries eg UK. I know NZ too the govt created the environment for a single utility to build last mile fiber and then ISPs compete on the that connection.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com