

Monopolizing bandwidth - pointillistic
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/02/17/monopolizing-bandwidth/

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ergoproxy
In a nutshell: If I want fast, cheap internet, then I should get the heck out
of the US (where there's no competition and no government enforcement of anti-
trust law, competition law, or consumer protection law); vote with my feet;
and go to South Korea. There, the government intervenes in the market and
regulates ISPs _to foster competition_ :

"South Korea's government worked closely with providers, encouraging
investment and coming up with a development strategy that was collective but
still included a deep reliance on competition." Source:
[http://news.cnet.com/South-Korea-leads-the-
way/2009-1034_3-5...](http://news.cnet.com/South-Korea-leads-the-
way/2009-1034_3-5261393.html)

"A number of governments, including South Korea [...] have experimented with
or embraced infrastructure-sharing as a way to get new companies to compete in
the broadband market." Source:
[http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/31/broadband.south.korea/](http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/31/broadband.south.korea/)

By contrast, here in the US, regulators like the FCC are toothless, and the
Courts favor Big Business. We just saw Verizon crush the FCC's _net
neutrality_ policy in federal court. And we probably won't see the DOJ stop
this Comcast/Time-Warner merger either.

There is a Whitehouse petition to "Stop the Comcast/TimeWarner Cable merger
and require more competition in the cable industry."
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-
comcasttimewa...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-
comcasttimewarner-cable-merger-and-require-more-competition-cable-
industry/ym52vbd4)

I will sign it, but I don't expect it to do any good--the Democratic party is
beholden to Comcast as much as the Republicans are to Verizon. See
[http://shopyourpolitics.com/category/telecommunications](http://shopyourpolitics.com/category/telecommunications)

