alt Hacker NewsIn my small island community, I participated in a municipal committee whose mandate was to bring proper broadband to the island. Although two telecom duopolies already served the community, one of them had undersea fiber but zero fiber to the home (DSL remains the only option), whereas the other used a 670 Mbps wireless microwave link for backhaul and delivery via coaxial cable. And pricing? Insanely expensive for either terrible option.
Our little committee investigated all manner of options, including bringing municipal fiber across alongside a new undersea electricity cable that the power company was installing anyway. I spoke to the manager of that project and he said there was no real barrier to adding a few strands of fiber, since the undersea high voltage line already had space for it (for the power company’s own signaling).
Sadly, the municipality didn’t have any capital to invest a penny into that fiber, so one day, one of the municipal counselors just called up a friend who worked for a fiber laying company and asked them for a favor: put out a press release saying that they were “investigating” laying an undersea fiber to power a municipal fiber network on the little island.
A few weeks later, the cable monopoly engaged a cable ship and began laying their own fiber. Competition works, folks. Even if you have to fake it.
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this is a great example of where the government should step in and say “welp, you took too long, we’re now funding municiple fiber and we’ll give it to everyone cheap. sorry.”
i truly do believe competition can often drivr things forward but we have countless examples where executives get comfortable and decide their best course of action for profits is to do little to nothing.
if a community has been screaming for fiber internet for years and the service companies cry “oh it’s just too expensive” when we know that isn’t true, then the people who pay the taxes should say “ok, apparently you’re not up to the job, you and/or your business model is clearly a failure, we’ll do it and provide it cheaper than you would have anyway.”
maybe this would force the competition we know can often work. if they can’t figure out a way to do it without subsidies, then we’ll do it ourselves. you can call it “spooky government” all you want, but that’s just another term for “us”
something to the effect of: ok, this thing has become integral to society. ceos, you have 5 years to compete and prove that you’re up to the task by delivering A, B, and C for $N. can’t do it? not up to it? no worries, thanks for trying.
Local municipality power companies put fiber in the ground whenever they put power. The result is fiber almost everywhere at very low cost. Even along rail and major roads.
It seems incorrect to call this competition.
I'm glad you got your broadband but what happened sounds much more like American politics than ordinary market processes. And in this political environment, corporations can engage in a variety of other tactics than placating a squeaky wheel - they can outlaw competition, buy off officials, pay for shrill media hit pieces and so-forth.
Either side of the spectre lies enshittification:
- more competition comes with margin squeezing and cheapest source for service or goods
- less competition brings the monopoly, the dream of any capitalist (owner, not user).
Either way comes enshittification, and there's no middle balance, it drifts towards one of the sides always.
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