Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

My top desire is that the FCC go back and do what Congress actually asked for in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to make fiber and hybrid loops part of the require unbundled network elements offerings.

This infrastructure is so heavily subsidized. The FCC in 2002/2003, with some prompting from the courts, allowed fiber to be effectively an monopoly offering. Contrary to the law that Congress had passed!

> Elimination of ILEC unbundling obligation for new fiber-to-the-home loops. In order to encourage ILECs to invest in new broadband-capable facilities—fiber to the home in particular—the FCC ruled that ILECs need not provide such facilities on an unbundled basis to competitors.

https://www.dwt.com/insights/2003/02/splintered-fcc-modifies...




Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't oppose anything at this point that hurt AT&T, purely out of spite, since I'm from California, where their allergy to capex (besides Wireless) has allowed our cable companies (mainly Comcast, Spectrum, and Cox) to simply set prices, bandwidth caps, and service levels for Internet at whatever they feel like. But anyway, I think if you wanted to force AT&T to compete by offering FTTP more widely, mandating that they have to sell access wholesale to others, like they do with DSL, would not be the way to do it. They've deployed basically no fiber in the past decade, and they'd deploy zero if they thought it likely their competitors would exploit the infra they built instead of them gaining retail customers.

Even if they were taken over tomorrow by leadership that weren't crooks, they're already in a terrible position to compete as it is -- in the 20 years since they did anything, Comcast and the others have gone from the ~10Mbps connections they once offered, to 1 and even 2Gbps in many places, so I assume in nearly all the areas AT&T doesn't serve with fiber, the incumbent cable co has about 95% market share already. Tough to break into that. even though customers hate the cable companies, they know AT&T is just as slimy -- and nobody wants to set aside a day to wait for an internet installer.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: