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Comment by topranks | Hacker News Reader

In most of Europe competition in last mile networks is enforced by law and ISPs don't have nearly the scope for all this nefarious stuff. If they block/throttle or charge premiums you can just go to one of their competitors.

This is because the companies who own all the last mile networks (mostly former state monopolies,) are legally compelled to wholesale that last mile access.

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Wow, that was really forward thinking of places that do this. Can you cite some speeds and costs?

We should push for this in high density areas of the US. Not just beg a federal agency not to roll back net neutrality, which, under Trump, they may be able to do without losing much popularity.

Well it was also possible as most European companies had state-run telephone monopolies into the 1980s. And when they were privatised the government's were in a position to impose rules on the newly created private companies - namely that they had to sell local access to competitors.

As the US govt. didn't own AT&T, not the Baby Bells, nor today's Verizon & AT&T, the situation is a bit different.

The irony that the US has a much worse situation because there is so much less competition (despite it being the home of capatalism).

In terms of speed I know Ireland (where I am,) and the UK can both get you VDSL2+ service (so like up to 80Mb) on copper pair from numerous suppliers. One service slow access to netflix? Go to another.

> The irony that the US has a much worse situation because there is so much less competition (despite it being the home of capatalism).

Yup, pretty interesting stuff. In some ways we're more free; in others, more restricted.

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