this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
546 points (98.6% liked)
Technology
59422 readers
3199 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Nah, go the other way: deregulate competition.
Prices stay high because ISPs are able to block competition with stupid compliance laws (e.g. obstacles to run cable, obstacles to register, and lawsuits galore). In my area, prices are pretty reasonable, because we actually have decent competition. We have:
The muni fiber project is doing a lot of work here, but our local ISP is pretty decent as well, with speeds from 20/10 to 1000/500, from $40 to $125, taxes included in price (5 tiers total; only had two crappy tiers before muni fiber project announced). Cable prices are also reasonable because they need to compete with the local muni ISP, but they hide fees and whatnot, so I don't bother with them.
As someone thats lived through numerous industry deregulations, it never works out in favor of the consumer.
That's a pretty broad brush you got there.
Basically what happened was, cable companies made a deal with cities to essentially get a monopoly on Internet infrastructure, and they keep lobbying for additional barriers to block entry for new competitors. So if a new telecom tries to come in, they'll lock them up in lawsuits to encourage them to go away. Here's an example in Nashville. Generally they'll lobby for newcomers to have to ask them for help or permission, then drag their feet to waste the other company's time and money.
So eliminating those types of regulations could help new ISPs compete in new markets. There should obviously be some regulations, but they need to be reasonable and relevant, like they need to fix any roads they dig up, get permission from the city to run cable on existing conduit, etc.