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Wouldn't it make sense to share the pipes the dumb light pipes and compete on service?

That's more or less how it works here in New Zealand. A private company, Chorus, has a monopoly on the network itself, and can only provide the network to other ISPs and not direct to the consumer. I kind of presume there are other regulations in place, or conditions for the $1B subsidy they got for rolling out the fibre network.

As it is, for a household to get a plan that offers download speeds of 700Mbps-900Mbps and no data caps, we're paying NZ$109, or about US$72/mo.

And there's good competition, I'm paying NZ$90 for the same speed (900/400) with no data cap. Static IP. And all the NZ prices quoted include sales tax (NZ law requires this) so the equivalent US price without sales tax would be about US$52/mo.

> As it is, for a household to get a plan that offers download speeds of 700Mbps-900Mbps and no data caps, we're paying NZ$109, or about US$72/mo.

Which is pretty good, relatively speaking. 330Mbps HFC Comcast is USD$74.99/month here in SF.

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