And from the article, the telecom industry receives billions in corporate welfare. A common argument against cutting it off is that telecom is capital intensive infrastructure, and if you cut their govbux you're blocking poor people from being able to communicate, we all deserve the right to communicate. But if that's your take, how can you also hate the protectionist laws? Telecom are given a monopoly because it doesn't make sense to, say, have N sets of telephone poles or power lines from each provider.
In some countries there is sometimes a cable & data connection owner and then a separate service provider. Laws regulate that the cable provider must let other companies provide connections to customers over their cables. The service provider pays the cable owner for a bulk of data that its customers use. The cable owner can't charge more than it charges itself when it acts as a service provider.
Not sure if that made sense! I pay company B but my fibre connection is provided by Company A. If I want to change to Company C I start a contract with C and the only thing I change is the cable modem.
