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.
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.