
Ask HN: What laws would you remove or create to increase competition for ISPs - xGrill
In lieu of all of the net neutrality discussions that have been around, it is obvious law makers want to remove regulations. What regulations could we remove, or add to increase competition between ISPs so we have more choices to drive cost down and speeds up.
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Network2020
In the US:

1\. I would reverse the decision of SCOTUS that establishes corporations as
"people" and their money as "free speech".

2\. I would figure out a way to get money out of politics. It seems that the
main issue is that government officials spend about 1/3 of their time in
office fundraising from donors (who expect certain legislation in return) and
campaigning for re-election. The American citizens will continue to be thrown
under the bus in favor of corporate donors, such as the ISP's, in exchange for
money.

3\. I would make it to where the local governments own the basic
infrastructure (poles, towers, etc) and the ISP's are only allowed to pay a
fee (or percentage of earnings) in exchange for using such infrastructure.

~~~
xGrill
I think #1 and #2 wouldn't necessarily increase competition as much as limit
the governments ability to further constrain it.

Wouldn't #3 limit the speed and growth to whatever the city can afford to
provide? And truly the only ISP is the local government at that point since
they own everything.

~~~
Network2020
#1 and #2: True

#3: The government would only own the poles and towers. ISPs are free to pay a
fee to use said poles and towers to hang their cables/wires/antennaes. Since
these items would no longer be owned by ISPs, they would not be unable to
block smaller startups from trying to get into the neighborhood.

Imagine, for a moment, a landscape in which the roads in our country were
owned by FedEx and UPS (or even Amazon) rather than the government. Then,
imagine that they'd struck deals to stay out of each others way; moreover,
imagine that they decided to divide up the cities amongst themselves (LA roads
are owned by FedEx, SF roads are owned by UPS, etc). They would be able to
block smaller delivery companies from delivering around the country. The copy
shop in the next town over would be unable to deliver copy paper to your
office directly. They would have to either go through one of the larger
delivery companies or not deliver at all due to being blocked. Well, this is
what's happening with current ISPs.

I currently have only Comcast/Xfinity in my neighborhood because Comcast owns
all of the telephone poles (which are using public land for free), and in my
last neighborhood, my only choice was AT&T/DirectTV. There is no chance for
anyone new to come into the market where I live be cause the ISPs own the
basics. It's sad really.

