We -Norway, a country of 6 million people spread out- have multiple companies competing in all parts of the country. Fiber companies compete in the larger cities, and even in the smaller towns we are starting to see more and more fiber competition.
I have a hard time believing the U.S. offers less grounds for competition, that's a ridiculous proposal at best. When we can do it, you can.
Your problem is rampant corruption. I wish I could, as a foreigner, ignore it, but what happens across the Atlantic has a tendency of spreading here.
This isn't really true. Verizon stopped its FiOS rollout several years ago, and was never interested in dense urban areas. Comcast only offers residential internet over coax, which is not a "fiber option."
Population density is a red herring. The dense cities of the US have nothing like the connectivity of cities abroad.
[1] 10% of Oslo is below Norway's very generous poverty line ($25k). 25% of Baltimore is below the much less generous federal poverty line ($25k for a family of 4!).
[2] Talks to get FIOS in Wilmington broke down because the government demanded "even coverage": http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Dont-Actually-Demand-Anyt.... This is a city where half of kids live below the poverty line, and the median income is about 65% of the national average. Basically Verizon would have to spend a bunch of money running fiber to poor areas that could never afford it. It makes no sense. But that's the kind of ridiculous demands that leave urban markets in the U.S. without cable competition.
Before deregulation all I had in my metro area was dial up, ISDN, or a T1. Then came the various providers riding on the dial up wave when the phone company was forced to allow them.
Guess what I was stuck with even more dial up. Eventually DSL showed up but was the same price by all of them. Then Comcast (I forget who they were before the name changed) came in and suddenly my DSL came down in price but was still slower.
So, yeah it worked. The key takeaway is when we look for bad its easy to forget worse. I am no fan of Comcast in general but they have been many times faster than my phone company for the same price or less. Would it be nice to have a third or more option? Certainly and I damn well want someone to one day think they can do it, but if you common carrier it we will be stuck with whatever some damn government guy thinks is good for my area.
You know that means, tell me who has their streets plowed first in the storms, well lets just say the right people don't live here.
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but just to note:
Municipalities can't have exclusive franchise agreements anymore (since 1992).
As an example, see the cable franchise map link (in bold) here https://www.seattle.gov/cable/franchises.htm --thankfully it's not a perpetual contract.
I guess that means there aren't any free markets, since you are at least being violently taxed, and are probably violently forced to comply with regulation unless your implicit production process doesn't violate any such laws, which is unlikely.
But you outlined precisely when it breaks down: when 'ownership' cannot be determined because the thing in question is a communal resource.
It's not the concept of ownership that breaks down; it's your analogy that breaks down.
Money is an entry in a ledger. It can or cannot have a tangible manifestation (coins, bills), but it is not always the case (reserves are purely electronic).
In other words, if you or anyone else attempted to compete with Comcast in your municipality, the government would use violence (or the threat thereof) to prevent them from doing so. If that doesn't count as "regulation" then I don't know what does.
Think about those sentences compared to your second sentence.
>So glad that deregulation works to open the free market.
You set up a strawman about the free market in the beginning and then contradict it at the end. The reason it doesn't feel free is because by definition, it isn't.
However, when we had consistent outages and horrible service, I eventually gathered enough evidence to give to the HOA of what the problem was, and when the HOA contacted the ISP, they looped me into an email chain with their account rep and we got immediate service. If we all had to choose Comcast or ATT individually, neither would really care about individuals. But the HOA is in a much larger bargaining position and our ISP cares about losing the whole building.
From my experience and friends in the area, those in condo buildings with the exclusive ISP arrangement tend to get better/faster service than those in condos with the standard cable/telco choice. Since condo buildings are managed by the residents who mostly use internet, usually enough percentage care about the quality of internet access to hold the exclusive ISP accountable or replace them. Of course in Apt buildings, mgmt just views internet as an expense and it's a different scenario.
Monopolists can and do arise with or without the assistance of government. As long as someone has authority over a resource and is amenable to being bought.