Connected to in-class discussion of network neutrality, it was discovered that pretty much everyone there felt good about the idea of letting the consumer/business/other customer own the pipe going to their house/building, then allowing them to choose the ISP they would connect to at some central routing box. This seems like a great way to encourage competition without incurring the overhead and other potential problems associated with regulation. The problem is that certain largish companies have already paid at least a significant portion of the cost to put infrastructure in, and they should be allowed to profit from that. So how do we resolve these ideals? I'm not sure of the answer, but here are a few ideas that were postulated:
1. After a certain amount of time (which has perhaps already passed), the companies have made back their investment plus a reasonable profit, so ownership should pass to someone else (preferably the building owners).
I see a few problems with this approach. For one, it feels a little to close to the principle of nationalization for my liking. Secondly, I don't think it would fly with my understanding of the way things work in the US. Since the companies are losing property, they should be compensated equitably for their loss. That leads me to solution #2:
2. Some plan could be established whereby customers could purchase the pipe going to their house.
Again, I'm not sure about all the details, but I like the principle of this one a little more. The company can be compensated for the effort they exerted building the infrastructure, but either directly or indirectly (perhaps via the municipality), the customer could gain control of their "last mile" pipe and foster competition. Questions I have about this approach are what happens if an ISP doesn't want to sell their pipe, and how will the pricing work?
3. A competing infrastructure could be established.
This seems wasteful both in terms of redundant infrastructure and in tax money already spent subsidizing the existing infrastructure, but it may be the only way to fairly guarantee competition. It might be useful for cities to use their resources to build the infrastructure in an ISP-neutral way, but the cities large enough to afford it also have enough bureaucracy to not be able to do it well.
Anyone else have some thoughts? I'd love to see more competition in ISPs one day.
What about requiring the owner of the pipe to separate its ISP business from its pipe-providing business? Then there would be two separate charges on your bill -- one for the pipe and one for the ISP. Then allow any ISP to come in and use the pipe. The pipe-providing company still gets its cut to that part of its business unit.
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