I live in a monopoly area. My only choice for internet is comcast at 10/5mbps down up and it costs me 180 a month. Two blocks away fiber costs 40 a month.
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.
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.
It’s not a full monopoly. You can choose another ISP, but it’s just that in practice you’d need to physically move to a new location to make that change of vendor.
Why are you bickering with me about it? I don’t appreciate people asking questions in bad faith just so they can make a spicy comment. Think I like it?
There are choices, it’s just they all suck unless you’re willing to move. Nobody’s arguing that it is a local semi-monopoly.
I’m not the guy you responded to, I’m just pointing out that it is a full monopoly. Which is important because part of the story they sell is that the ability to pay thousands of dollars in moving costs is a reasonable cost of switching providers. We’re never going to get the situation changed if we don’t acknowledge that it’s a full monopoly, complete with rent seeking.
I keep seeing comcast mentioned, why do you guys across the pond pay for a broadband service with a maximum download amount like it’s a 3G phone?
I live in a monopoly area. My only choice for internet is comcast at 10/5mbps down up and it costs me 180 a month. Two blocks away fiber costs 40 a month.
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.
In the US, ISPs are government-enforced monopolies.
What exactly does that mean? I thought you had anti-monopoly laws?
It’s not a full monopoly. You can choose another ISP, but it’s just that in practice you’d need to physically move to a new location to make that change of vendor.
That’s a full monopoly.
Why are you bickering with me about it? I don’t appreciate people asking questions in bad faith just so they can make a spicy comment. Think I like it?
There are choices, it’s just they all suck unless you’re willing to move. Nobody’s arguing that it is a local semi-monopoly.
I’m not the guy you responded to, I’m just pointing out that it is a full monopoly. Which is important because part of the story they sell is that the ability to pay thousands of dollars in moving costs is a reasonable cost of switching providers. We’re never going to get the situation changed if we don’t acknowledge that it’s a full monopoly, complete with rent seeking.