this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
409 points (91.1% liked)
Games
32952 readers
516 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Wait, so does a single company own all the cabling or something!? We have a despised-for-their-incompetence company called Openreach in Britain but the cables they manage cover almost the entire county and any ISP can use them.
There's other options, but they're all MUCH slower. If you want a different ISP with comparable or faster speeds, you need to move. In my case, internet is bundled with HOA fees. And there is no other fast option available at my address anyway.
So why don't other ISPs offer comparable speeds in the same location?
Short simplified answer: nobody wants to pay for the infrastructure. Especially in the last mile. There's probably a Planet Money episode about it. If not, there should be.
I'm guessing the ISPs aren't forced to share their cables with other ISPs then?
Over here we have "fibre to the kerb" for people whose houses aren't fully supported yet, meaning it's fast fibre-optic cable all the way to somewhere near your house, then it uses your existing copper wires for the last bit. It's not at fast as proper fibre-optic but still a lot better than old copper wires.
@Intensely_Human is correct. ISPs sign contracts with your city or county (depending on state/province laws) for a designated area. They are the sole provider of one type of Internet there. So you have one cable company and one phone line Internet company. The exception to this is the wireless companies that you buy your cell phone line from. Some cities may allow a second choice in one location but it's not common outside the largest cities.
From the customer point of view, when you move in you are told what cable company serves your area. Then you have a choice of cable, phone line, satellite, or cell phone. Our government pretends that choice makes it not a monopoly.
Also, municipal run Internet is explicitly banned in many states. So if a town doesn't like any of the options or no private company will serve the town, they cannot setup their own.
That's mental
Yup, America, eternally asking the question, "but what about my 10th super yacht?"