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Danihan

Isn't the solution just more ISP competition?

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The problem is that the ISP business meets the textbook definition of a natural monopoly,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

That is, to be very generous, a long time horizon solution to a near-term problem.

ISP competition, assuming it's going to happen at all, will not happen quickly, and will be challenged by existing ISPs using a mix of legal and competitive methods.

A local ISP in a semi-rural area has been putting their business on the line for over a decade now to build out broadband in the area. They're targeting under-served, denser housing swaths of the region where there is little to no broadband competition.

The price tag for the initial stage of the build out is in the several millions of dollars. The first-stage service area would be under 1,000 homes. They hope to charge around $100/mo for the service.

So, you do the math. Is that a business model you'd want to try to live off of?

A startup like Mattermark raised 17 million simply to aggregate data about startups. Surely investors would be interested in an actual business with a clearly defined business model — or any business model for that matter. There’s a graveyard of startups that were able to raise a lot of money and not do basically anything other than raise more money. Didn’t Leap raise a billion dollars for a VR headset thingy that hasn’t even shipped? Surely there’s 50 million for an ISP startup.

With the ability to be something beyond a common utility, there is going to be interest in investing in ISP innovation — especially tech that provides fiber speed without ripping up the landscape.

New tech that removes or bypasses existing barriers to entry (like the need to physically lay cable from house to house) is one possible way to create competition.

That's easy to say, but there's the well-known last mine problem. How many separate companies will be willing to run cabling to your home just to compete bitterly with an incumbent? And even if that may happen in your neighborhood, will it happen nationwide? What about rural areas where you're lucky to have one fast ISP?

In other countries there are laws which force the cable owner to rent the last mile to any ISP.

I'd guess countries with that kind of sensible regulation also can manage net neutrality regulations...

Perhaps we should be innovating in that last mile problem.. Surely there are smart people working to engineer tech to avoid running cable.

The problem with wireless is that it's like sharing a single cable with everyone else. Yes, there are a lot of innovations to make that workable, but you're never going to get the same bandwidth and reliability as a cabled system.

But that's not going to happen any time soon? (in the US.) They try to unfairly kill off any competition, as far as I've read.

Instead, what if a decentralized web is a safer solution. Recently here at HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16005961 "Decentralization Roundup for 2017"

In a non-corrupt market, yes.

Lawmakers don't want that because they get paid lobby money from ISPs

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