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Comcast, Charter Dominate US; Telcos 'Abandoned Rural America,' Report Says (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast is the only choice for 30 million Americans when it comes to broadband speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream, the report says. Charter Communications is the only choice for 38 million Americans. Combined, Comcast and Charter offer service in the majority of the U.S., with almost no overlap. Yet many Americans are even worse off, living in areas where DSL is the best option. AT&T, Verizon, and other telcos still provide only sub-broadband speeds over copper wires throughout huge parts of their territories. The telcos have mostly avoided upgrading their copper networks to fiber -- except in areas where they face competition from cable companies. These details are in "Profiles of Monopoly: Big Cable and Telecom," a report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). The full report should be available at this link today. "The broadband market is broken," the report's conclusion states. "Comcast and Charter maintain a monopoly over 68 million people. Some 48 million households (about 122 million people) subscribe to these cable companies, whereas the four largest telecom companies combined have far fewer subscribers -- only 31.6 million households (about 80.3 million people). The large telecom companies have largely abandoned rural America -- their DSL networks overwhelmingly do not support broadband speeds -- despite years of federal subsidies and many state grant programs."
What free market?
The last mile cable monopoly is actually government regulated and sponsored monopoly called "Franchise Agreements". There is little or more likely, no "choice" for consumers.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The combination of a monopoly and high barriers to entry, including the regulatory ones, generally result in expensive and poor quality service for consumers. Not all regulation is good regulation, as you correctly noted. Regulating a monopoly with a public service commission or equivalent entity is generally not the best way to impose regulations. Removal of all regulations generally isn't a good idea, either. Instead, it's probably best in those situations to have strong antitrust laws and enforcement to make the market as competitive as possible. It's also a good idea to lower the barriers to entry as much as possible, including removing unnecessary regulatory barriers. If the barriers to entry are low, it's much harder for a monopolist to abuse their position. When the barriers to entry are high, which they are for utilities, it's much easier to get monopolies that are harmful to consumers.
New York is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with a population of ~ 8.6 million and that's the best you can do?
That's a totally broken system, and the fact you think a choice of 3 in New York is good is a bit odd.
As far as making their investment back, TFA explains
despite years of federal subsidies and many state grant programs.
They're being paid to supply rural Internet, and they still won't do it.