Time-Warner Cable, Verizon, Comcat, Google Fiber... plenty of competition.
The issue with natural-monopolies is that when one company starts serving a neighborhood, it makes no sense for a 2nd company to start serving the same neighborhood. That's just wasteful.
So there are huge amounts of Verizon-only neighborhoods or Comcast-only neighborhoods out there.
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Other countries solve this by highly regulating the "natural monopoly" part. IE: If you are going to lay wires to a neighborhood, you become subject to strict regulations. (Ex: utility).
Then, they force you to provide multiple choices. The deregulation of power companies for example allows me to pick a blend-of-energy, or I can pay a little bit more for clean energy providers.
Similarly, if we turn Comcast into a government-regulated utility (aka: accept the fact that it will always monopolize a neighborhood), and then force it to supply multiple ISPs in its pipes, things would probably get better.
My county actually has this deregulation, but it doesn't seem to work in practice because Comcast is both cheaper and got better customer service than the other ISPs that run on Comcast's networks.
The argument for "treat ISP infrastructure like a utility" has always been that quality of service will improve and prices will drop if competition is introduced. It sounds to me like the regulations did exactly what would be expected when an actual market is allowed to form. How does this arrangement not work if you have good customer service and low prices from Comcast? Are you suggesting that the alternatives are somehow even worse than standard Comcast?
> Are you suggesting that the alternatives are somehow even worse than standard Comcast?
Arguably, it forces Comcast to have better customer service. Because they're actually competing in my area. I actually go with Verizon in my neighborhood though.
