As a European, I have a hard time understanding what the US is doing and not doing regarding broadband regulations. As I do understand it from a distance, the ISPs had always argued and broadened their claims with regard to data that is accessible to the big platforms. There seems to be some "natural anti-alliance", with the parties involved seeking political alliances, which in turn provide the public attention or – more importantly – the lack thereof. (The idea of free businesses and public services being mutual exclusive, certainly doesn't help either.)
I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, the argument has been that broadband is expensive to roll out to non-urban areas. So they'll make exclusive agreements with municipalities, and/or take government money to complete the work.
From a customer's perspective, it seems they take the money and run to the bank. Where competition is low, and that's a lot of places, so is the quality of customer service and the provided speeds. Fees can be high, and for the last 20 years they've been trying to figure out how to get even more money by gutting net neutrality. They can be very aggressive on this [1], and there aren't really any significant repercussions. You probably don't want to fine a company out of existence, and any fine you do apply doesn't mean much if they get to keep their customers.
These ISP and content conglomerates have just gotten too big, and I think it's biting us in the form of tech monopolies that sit atop them.
The FCC is trying to redefine broadband to be 100 Mbps [2]. Almost certainly, the 2 republican commissioners will vote against that, and the democratic commissioners will vote for it. So it won't pass until the final FCC chair is filled, which Manchin is stalling in the senate [3].
Chances are it comes down to midterms. It's an important issue, the challenge is making it relatable to the public amidst other issues.
