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If 'Big Tech' Is an Antitrust Problem, Why Are We Ignoring Telecom?

573 points by fyoving 7y ago

derp_dee_derp 7y ago
this article is 'Big Tech' propaganda, specifically using "Whataboutism" to muddy the waters. Oh Techdirt. You used to have morals.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  It's a legitimate point, though, not mere Whataboutism. The Big Tech companies like Google have been a counter-weight to big Telecom (things like Google Fiber, Google Fi). To go after Big Tech without also going after Big Telecom is to reinforce the market power of Big Telecom.
  - Rooster61 7y ago
    > the lobbying power of Big Telecom. I think this is a bit more accurate.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Weren't Google Fiber and Google Fi just tests, not actual large scale investments? I mean, in that case, there are many counter-weights to Google - they just have 0% market share... I don't believe that Big Tech has or wants to be anything to counter the ISP monopolies. Sure, they don't want to pay for traffic twice, but that's about it - if net neutrality wasn't an issue, Google, FB & Co wouldn't care about telecom monopolies one bit. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd prefer a single large ISP that they can make data deals with to get a better tracking system up and running.
    - Robotbeat 7y ago
      I think Big Tech care about internet access (=more customers and/or more people to advertise to), so the extent to which Big Telecom has poor access in rural areas, it's in Big Tech's interests to offer some alternative. ...but perhaps you're right that beyond that, they don't really care if there's just one choice in major ISP in much of the US. At least, the incentive to care is not as strong.
    - wvenable 7y ago
      Nobody wants to be beholden to a single provider -- that's incredibly dangerous for a tech company. Google Fiber and Google Fi are just Google hedging their bets.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        > Nobody wants to be beholden to a single provider -- that's incredibly dangerous for a tech company. Eh, sure, but Google likes to make one big deal with Master Card to buy your cc transactions, they don't want to make a thousand deals with small local banks. As for Fiber & Fi, it looked to me as if Google was checking to see if they could easily and cheaply "disrupt" those markets. They saw that they could not and cut their losses.
        Robotbeat 7y ago
        As far as I can tell, Google has not divested their >$1 billion stake in SpaceX/Starlink.
        wvenable 7y ago
        You can only get one big deal if you have choice. If the only CC provider was Mastercard then no deal would be had for Google. It's quite possible that Fiber succeeded in accomplishing it's primary goal of stimulating broadband investment by incumbent providers.
        luckylion 7y ago
        > If the only CC provider was Mastercard then no deal would be had for Google. Why not? It's bonus money for MC, why wouldn't they be happy to sell Google access to your transaction data? They don't have to do anything but copy the data and hold their hands out for millions and millions of dollars. Why in the world wouldn't they make that deal? Privacy concerns? I have my doubts.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Absolutely whataboutism, and whataboutism that vastly misses on the scale of the issue: Telecoms are limited regional monopolies (and rarely are monopolies in urban enough of areas), tech companies are nearly unassailable global monopolies. The article aims to capitalize on the popular dislike of their ISP to distract from a far more pressing issue.
  - Rooster61 7y ago
    > and rarely are monopolies in urban enough of areas I challenge you to name urban areas in the US that are serviced by more than 3 ISP's. They absolutely do have monopolies in those areas, and more importantly, the ability to collude to set prices in various areas/divy up coverage area.
- wvenable 7y ago
  Whataboutism when dealing with the law is called Selective Enforcement.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post shallow dimissals here. Or flamebait. Or name-calling (in the sense that the site guidelines use the term). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
yeahitslikethat 7y ago
Because telecom companies' monopolies are easy to understand. Google doesn't have to run wires to everyone's house. In fact, they tried and failed. It's a lot harder than building a website.
- wvenable 7y ago
  They are easy to understand and the harm that they do to consumers is very real and easy to measure.
  - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
    Internet should be classed as a utility and regulated as such. Infrastructure and bits should be separate.
thrower123 7y ago
I don't think anybody ignores that telecoms is a big monopoly problem; people know intimately that they have one or if they are lucky, two real options in any given market. We busted up Ma Bell once long ago, and it has just coalesced back together. The capital costs and infrastructure tend towards it being a natural monopoly, so I don't think that we'll reasonably see a million telecom flowers bloom without putting the finger on the scale heavily. Software is so much more ephemeral, and we have a much healthier oligopoly of big players. Even the sick old man of computing, IBM, is doing better than Time Warner did trying to compete in cable.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  No the local monopoly was never busted - just use LLU
pjc50 7y ago
What happened to local loop unbundling? Is the problem that it didn't also apply to "cable"?
- jessaustin 7y ago
  The "problem" was that ILECs never followed the rules and regulators never punished them for that. If a CLEC wanted to add a customer, they got a schedule for 3 weeks, even though the ILEC would do it in less than a week if the customer were signing up with them. Anyway, the schedule was also a fiction, because the ILEC would come up with half a dozen reasons to delay it to 5 weeks. We're not talking about a technician visiting a customer's house. We're talking about a couple of switches thrown in a central office, an operation that would take less than a minute. How could anyone attract new customers in such a situation? That is why all CLECs went bust or were acquired for pennies on the dollar. In other nations, with functioning regulation, unbundling was considered unworkable so they required that a separate entity would own the local loop.
ixtli 7y ago
Spoilers: it's because our regulatory, legislative, and judicial infrastructure exists to defend monied interests. We're incapable of taking collective action that reduces private property accumulation, so no monopoly busting.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Google has been the largest spender in DC for a couple years now, I believe.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Goronmon 7y ago
    Only the last couple of years? Sounds like they have a lot of catching up to do then.
  - jonas21 7y ago
    I don't think that's true. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2019&indexType=s https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2019&inde... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2018&indexType=s https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2018&inde... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2017&indexType=s https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2017&inde...
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      2019 is far from a complete year. In both 2017 and 2018, Alphabet is the first listed corporation[0], which is probably the reason I see the claim made, most of the rest are associations. [0]If you ignore BC/BS, which is a "federation of 36 independent companies", though that is largely a way to deal with the law requiring health insurance be in-state. If you want to, I'd accept saying Alphabet is the second corporation on the list, if we're being real.
microdrum 7y ago
Because even Comcast, the most evil of the telecom companies, doesn't put out a web browser that seeks to permanently entrench its ad business. In fact, it lets me use any browser I want.
- wvenable 7y ago
  But Comcast doesn't provide browsers, they provide telecom services and if you're lucky you might be able to choose another provider in your area.
- Rooster61 7y ago
  > In fact, it lets me use any browser I want ...to connect to the gateway they specify, and pull reams of data from with nary a bat of an eye from Washington.
  - microdrum 7y ago
    But, again, they don't seem to use Comcast Business Layer A to entrench Comcast Business Layer B. They could put a tax on every call to Stripe API if they wanted. They don't. The worst thing they've done is throttle Netflix (very bad) and the market spoke and they were shamed publicly.
rayiner 7y ago
By any measure, telecom is a fairy concentrated market that creates antitrust concerns, relative to many other industries. But the comparison to telecom only highlights the market concentration in tech. There are four major wireless carriers, none with more than about a third of the market. Google has 90% of the search market. There are just two viable mobile OS competitors, and Android has 75% market share (50% in the US). Even within a given market, there is more competition in telecom. The big four cellular companies are nationwide. Verizon is just the sixth largest wireline carrier, has less than 40% market share across its FiOS footprint. That does not mean that telecom (or day health insurance) is a highly competitive market. It’s not. But at least search and mobile is even less competitive. It also matters what is happening going forward. Even in areas with no wired competition, wireless (cellular and satellite) exerts competitive pressure. 15% of high income households have abandoned wired internet for cellular only, and that number is growing. (There are more cellular-only households by a large margin than ones that use something other than Google search.) Meanwhile, there is no viable competition in sight for Google Search or Android.
- lg 7y ago
  aren't you conflating market share with the existence of competition? anyone has the choice to switch to bing today, but many people have no choice of telecom provider (cellular internet doesn't work for all the people in areas with bad cellular reception to begin with).
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > anyone has the choice to switch to bing today, but many people have no choice of telecom provider Do they though? I mean, bing exists, sure, but it's inferior and more expensive (by lacking quality). Hey, you can switch to satellite telephony/internet or connect two tin cans with a string if you really want to get off of your mobile provider. > cellular internet doesn't work for all the people in areas with bad cellular reception to begin with But the majority of US citizens have a choice, right, the population centers do have multiple carriers?
    - 7y ago
moosey 7y ago
The regulatory systems in the US since Reagan have been anemic, and if we believe in effective business competition there are probably very few industries that would have a good time if a new regulatory environment were put in place that is more... effective? I can't find the right word because I'm biased - I strongly believe in collectivism and strong regulatory environments. When I look at major industries: social media (sadly, IMO), telecom, health care, transportation, military, and more; what I see are industries that need regulation in order to meet the needs of society, but that is based on my point of view of the world. My guess is that the folks with capital and data, and thus power, view the situation very differently, and are more focused on their own needs than those of a more nebulous society that has needs. I believe that this can be seen in the practices of businesses throughout the United States. So, are "we" ignoring telecom? No, that headline is aggravating. Why isn't it "Antitrust issues in Telecom"? Because society has been trained to be enraged. Why? Because it serves those who already have power, and they disagree with me about how regulation should work.
- Loughla 7y ago
  It's the same across all government. You hollow out the function of actual, substantive work through 'necessary' budget cuts - like actual funding for IRS audits, any form of environmental regulation, or just education in general. Then when the low-hanging fruit is all those agencies can pick, which happen to have the largest impact on middle- to low-income families, it gives more fodder to cut and gut the agencies.
  - moosey 7y ago
    Under the current regime (post-Reagan is what I mean), there are government bodies that still receive lots of money, and those, as you say, that are getting hollowed. The main thing that I can point to that says that it is corrupt is the fact that white collar crime is largely ignored in the interest of much smaller fish. There are government agencies that I'd like to see gutted, though, like the prison system, the support of the weapons manufacturing industry by our military which I calculate as grotesquely unecessary, etc. There are others that disagree with me strongly on this issue. I'm not right, just opinionated.
untog 7y ago
Who is "we", exactly? No-one is ignoring telecom monopolies, it's something people complain about all the damn time. Spoiler alert: it's because the telecom industry has spent decades embedding itself at the top levels of organizations like the FCC, and it's gotten worse since the arrival of the Trump administration. Is that good? No. Should we change it? Yes. Does any of this have anything to do with regulating big tech? No. This stuff just feels like whataboutism to me. There's no reason we can't tackle both big tech and telecom. If wait turns then the telecom industry will just say "what about other utilities!". Those utilities will say "what about the defense industry!" or whatever the hell. "What about these bad guys!!" just feels like an attempt to deflect attention away from tech.
- 908087 7y ago
  Deflecting attention away from "tech" (advertising) corporations seems to be the main purpose of techdirt these days.
- adrianmonk 7y ago
  The allegation here isn't that the average person is ignoring it, it's that the administration is giving preferential treatment. The government is supposed to be representative of the people, so I think that's why they're calling it "we".
- stvswn 7y ago
  It's not really, because the two (telecom and big tech) are in a fight for dominance and focusing on one will benefit the other. It's natural to wonder about the influence of telecom when the Attorney General, under whom the DOJ's investigation is being conducted, was the general counsel of GTE/Verizon for 14 years and then served on Time Warner's board until last year, helping them to merge with AT&T. If you assume the antitrust division of the DOJ has limited resources, and that they were until recently focused on telecom, it's not "whataboutism" to wonder what's driving the abrupt shift to tech.
  - stvswn 7y ago
    and to be explicit, the "we" is the FTC and the antitrust division of the DOJ.
jjn2009 7y ago
I was forced this morning to have Comcast charge me $40 to install a cable to set up internet at my new place by an authorized technician. I hate Comcast SO much, and from what I can tell I don't seem to have another option, supposedly AT&T but the speeds are slow and their website says my apartment is not in service area.
- criddell 7y ago
  The quality of AT&T's service is going to vary depending on where you are. I have a gigabit connection from them that I pay $60 / month for (they lowered the price when I tried to leave). It's the fastest internet connection I've ever had.
  - pixelbath 7y ago
    It's a moot point if where you live does not allow anybody but a single exclusive provider for internet, which is nearly every apartment in the US.
_bxg1 7y ago
I would say the strongest example is wired telecom, which may not be a national monopoly but is certainly a local monopoly across nearly the whole country. The way the companies divvy up territory to avoid competition is probably what keeps U.S. prices so much higher than, say, Europe. I wonder if a case could be made for it being a cartel. But yes, cellular and satellite providers have started to provide a saving grace of disruption in that market. We'll see if it ends up being enough.
- treis 7y ago
  Look at profit margins though. Apple and Facebook are consistently 30%+ and Google is 20%+. Verizon, Comcast, and the rest of the telecoms are in the low to mid teens or worse. That's pretty close to the S&P 500 average margin. So while it appears that wired telecom is a monopoly they don't make money like monopolies. Compare Google Fiber with Google Plus. Google had people literally begging them to put Fiber in but backed off because they couldn't make (enough) money. Plus was a hugely important project for them but they canceled it because they couldn't beat Facebook. We've seen major tech companies take aim at the monopoly/duopoly product of a rival and they've all failed: Microsoft poured billions into Bing, Maps and mobile for little market share Google couldn't dent Facebook with Plus Amazon and Facebook's phones fell flat
  - notsureigetit 7y ago
    > Google had people literally begging them to put Fiber in but backed off because they couldn't make (enough) money. Was that the reason, or was it because the other telecom companies were lobbying to keep Google from accessing rights of way and expanding to other cities. (One failed example:[0]) In many jurisdictions, the cable and telecom companies are attempting to make it illegal for municipalities to install their own government-run internet because they really don't want to compete. It's ridiculous. [1] Had Google been allowed to compete like in other industries, they probably would have crushed the telecom companies. But they weren't allowed to. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Reactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Reactions [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-lawmaker-has-proposed-banning-municipal-broadband-networks/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-la...
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
I've yet to see a telecom company tell anyone who they are allowed to communicate with or deny anyone service because they don't approve of their ideological views. That might only be tangential to antitrust issues but engaging in overreach is a good way to get the public against you which in turn makes it much easier for the government to come after you.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  And yet I've had to deal with telecom companies placing incredibly low data caps, overcharging for bullshit reasons, throttling consumer bandwidth when visiting certain sites or using certain protocols and more. If Facebook decided to ban me tomorrow for whatever reason, I still have access to the rest of the internet. If my ISP decided to charge another $100 a month to access the internet, there would be nothing I could do to fight it. You'd have to make an argument that site access is a right, which throws out moderating a platform for abuse or spam entirely.
barbecue_sauce 7y ago
Telecom is probably one of the industry groups lobbying for antitrust legislation/investigation against Google and its ilk.
lokimedes 7y ago
Economics 101 states that wasteful duplication of infrastructure is one of the few acceptable exceptions from the free market thesis. Natural monopolies should nevertheless be regulated to avoid suboptimal services. What’s more interesting is the recent suggestions of seeing industries with a monopolistic business model such as social media as natural monopolies. Perhaps we should regulate Facebook rather than argue for breaking up telecoms?
- Can_Not 7y ago
  My street literally has a minimum of 6 companies that provide garbage collection services to me and my neighbors.
w8rbt 7y ago
You should have seen it when it was just AT&T. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Well to most people the internet is Big Tech. And the big tech internet is arguably corrosive. The only thing Telecom does is hinder people from getting more internet cheaper, faster. Conclusion: Big Telecom is a net good.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
actually though, if you break up Big Tech who will have the money to pay Telecom for preferential broadband access?
tzs 7y ago
Telecom is a different kind of problem, and it is not clear that antitrust can effectively address it. From a comment of mine a couple days ago when someone here raised a similar question: > Wouldn't it make more sense to break up broadband ISP monopolies first? Probably not for the Department of Justice. Some problems with that approach: 1. If you are trying to address the issue of limited choice in ISPs, I don't see how breaking them up addresses that. If you split an ISP that has a monopoly in a state, say, into separate ISPs for, say, each county...you've just gone from having one monopoly to having several monopolies. The limited choice is because there is only one cable coming into my house, and splitting up the company that owns that cable doesn't change that. Addressing that probably requires something like making the last mile data transport a regulated utility that ISPs operate on top of. That would probably require Congressional action and a new President to do nationwide or to allow states to do individually. 2. Competition among ISPs in a region can vary dramatically city to city, and even neighborhood to neighborhood. I've not extensively researched this so maybe this is wrong, but the impression I've gotten is that an ISP's prices in a region tend to be pretty similar between those places within the region where they are the only choice, and those places within the region where there are alternatives with similar performing alternatives. That could make it hard to show that the ISP is abusing its monopoly in those parts of its territory where it does not have competition. 3. Aside from rural areas that only have DSL via the phone company, in most places there are multiple ISPs available. It's pretty common to have both cable and DSL, and in many cities there is also a fiber option. There's also wireless options, ranging from the regular consumer service of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and the various MVNOs that are built on those networks, and many places also have wireless available that is not based on the cellular networks. You might argue that, say, cellular wireless is not really a viable option to Comcast or Charter or whoever the cable company is in a given area, due to the vast difference in speed. But you will have to actually make the argument. You won't be able to just say that they speed difference makes them different markets. You'll have to actually look at how people are using these various services and show that they really are not comparable. I think that the factors in #2 and #3 make it almost impossible to win an antitrust case against a major ISP as a whole. The DoJ would have to bring smaller cases alleging monopolization in specific regions, tailored to the specific way the factors in #2 and #3 play out in that region. Having to do this region by region, or even city by city in some regions, would make this a very long, expensive pursuit. (And where they win, there is still the question of whether or not there is an effective remedy they can apply). Thus, it is probably better for the DoJ to leave this issue to Congress to deal with via legislation.
drawkbox 7y ago
Telcos and ISPs are the bigger threat by far in a fixed local monopoly physical market that is hard to enter. Telecom/ISPs are afraid of antitrust, being labeled a utility and competition, they work overtime to throw the blame onto Big Tech starting way back with net neutrality and Netflix share of the market. It wasn't Netflix using the data it was the users. Since then ISPs have been funding mud slinging against Big Tech so they can compete with them on ads by removing privacy protections and content so they removed net neutrality against the will of everyone [1]. Maybe 5G will shake up the telcos and ISPs controls they have bribed to put in place using regulatory capture. The attack on Big Tech is partially funded by them just like oil companies pushed anti-nuclear energy along with opposition to green tech. Big Oil funded many of the anti-nuclear campaigns, probably even had some sabotage involved [2]. ISPs aren't even using the market to get ahead with good products like Big Tech, they are using bribes and regulations that keep them in their false monopolies and fixed markets. ISPs share fixed local monopoly markets by putting one good ISP and a bunch of smaller ones that don't compete like a Game of Thrones. FCC reports find almost no broadband competition at 100Mbps speeds, even at 25Mbps, 43 percent of the US had zero ISPs or just one [3]. For a modern broadband innovative market this is unacceptable, there are industries of the future that rely on fast network we can't even get going due to the feet dragging and rent-seeking local monopolies of the ISPs/telcos. The one time innovators, the ISPs/telcos, have become local monopolies directly harming innovation and network growth, they now have data caps, net neutrality add-ons (like Cox Elite Gamer), content options and privacy protections removed to discourage and reward broadband providers for NOT growing but nickel and diming people [1]. I remember in the 90s when broadband, cable, ISPs, telcos were innovative and the leaps from landline to other sources was amazing. They were innovative then, run by engineers and product people. Now they are rent seekers, holding back innovation, run by HBS style MBAs where everything is a resource and every dime extracted with minimal reasons to innovate or expand without rent-seeking controls in place. Imagine if water, electricity or other utilities were this toll road like, we'd live in less quality of life. The network is a utility and platform to innovate and build on, not extract the value and slow innovation [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/fcc-announces-plan-abandon-net-neutrality-and-isp-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/fcc-announces-plan-aba... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-fossil-fuel-interests-bankrolling-the-anti-nuclear-energy-movement/#7bf1c5587453 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-f... [3] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/fcc-report-finds-almost-no-broadband-competition-at-100mbps-speeds/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/fcc-r...
Reedx 7y ago
In one sentence: It's not as much of a threat to traditional media, therefore we don't hear about it as much.
schnable 7y ago
Not a full defense, but telecom is already heavily regulated while tech companies are not regulated at all.
- fatjokes 7y ago
  That's a pretty strong argument against regulation then, given what a terrible consumer experience it is.
  - ripdog 7y ago
    It's just bad regulation, performed by incompetent or corrupt governments. Down here in NZ we have excellent telecoms regulation performed by competent government. Specifically, copper/fibre last mile lines are owned by companies which are prevented by law from acting as ISPs, and similarly required to wholesale lease access to their lines to any ISP which wants to use them, at a regulated price (or lower). The result is a hyper-competitive ISP market where I can choose from dozens of ISPs (almost) anywhere in the country. Combined with a few hundred million in government investment, and I can get gigabit fibre almost everywhere in the country from a world-class ISP. I have basically no complaints about my ISP, and it's all thanks to government regulation.
  - schnable 7y ago
    Mostly it's outdated.
chantelles 7y ago
Because there is not antitrust investigation there is only making the 4 pillars come to heal and become part of the NSA.
40acres 7y ago
I think this is a poor take. Since Bork, anti-trust regulation has been an afterthought in Washington. The fact that DOJ, the same agency that bloodied Microsoft, is looking in another big tech company is very big news. DOJ lawyers aren't dumb, digging into BigTech will bring a lot of bodies to the surface and the culture of anti-trust regulation will change, eventually BigTeleco and BigAg will be next.
- draw_down 7y ago
  I would love to agree with that, but I suspect the difference in regulatory outcomes is down to lobbying and relationships, not that some new era is about to dawn in Washington.
kakkksaknmdm 7y ago
I can invest some money right now and become a local ISP. Unless I'm ready to sink $500 billion, I cannot be Google. This is how big of a problem it is. I would recommend any founder to delay startups and let anti trust probes and hopefully splits happen. Otherwise what happened to Snap, will happen to you.
zadkey 7y ago
Because "Regulatory Capture" (google it) and because they have better lobbyists and have been greasing politicians for a much longer time.
calimac 7y ago
Telecom is not blacklisting subscribers phone lines as Facebook et al has been. Facebook account bans brought what they had been doing with biased algorithms since 2016. Antitrust protects all freeedoms not just money
airstrike 7y ago
Comparing software businesses with traditionally asset-heavy business such as wired telecom is disingenuous. I hate Telecom monopolies as much as the next guy, but the comparison is so inaccurate to the point of being useless. What's next? Comparing 'Big Tech' to Utilities?
rolltiide 7y ago
In the book "The Chickenshit Club" There is some psychology amongst the regulators that results in them not fining or sanctioning large players because they don't want to make them go bankrupt and further consolidate the market. You can have a monopoly in America, as long as you don't do anticompetitive things to get there, and don't do anticompetitive things while you are there from within your company. (protip: the trick is to change the laws and regulations to favor advantages you have and make it impossible for new entrants)
FatDrunknStupid 7y ago
Telecom agreed years ago to allow backdoors - tech is, sometimes, fighting back. Once they give in we'll hear very little more. Just a theory....
gtfratteus 7y ago
Because telecom companies aren't censoring their political opponents.
fatjokes 7y ago
Because Big Tech siphons ad dollars from traditional media? I'm being glib, of course, but I can't help but wonder if that isn't one big reason.
gerdesj 7y ago
ENUM anyone? https://www.nominet.uk/search/enum https://www.nominet.uk/search/enum - ha! (There used to be a page on the Nominet site about ENUM but now the ITU doc: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/inr/enum/Documents/ENUM/ENUM%20Approvals-2018-12-01.pdf https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/inr/enum/Documents/ENUM/ENUM%20... can't even spell Nominet correctly) I should explain: In simple terms, ENUM allows you to turn a phone number into a SRV record that points at a PBX via a DNS lookup. The ITU allocates the zones to registrars, the zones neatly map to country codes - its a great idea. However, as you can imagine this is not very popular with big telecoms who are used to charging by the second/minute and location by distance which is obviously bollocks when you turn a circuit switched network into a packet switched one that no longer routes calls via satellites to cross the Atlantic (eg). OK pricing and tech for "POTS" has come a long way since I were a lad but it is still a nice little earner over letting us lot do our own thing. You can also imagine that Google, Facebook int al would also suffer a collective coronary should us lot be able to do our own comms without them. I'm fairly sure that you (for a given value of you) can't remember the last time you used a "landline" but if ENUM was available it might have been a few minutes ago and not logged externally and charged as though it was 1970 sigh
grellas 7y ago
'Big Tech', unlike Telecom, has made itself friendless, having alienated pretty much everybody along the political spectrum, and that is a dangerous place to me with a field subject to such legal vagaries as antitrust law is. I am not talking here about lobbyists or about legal technicalities but rather about the visceral reaction we all can have as human beings to the basic question: do I sympathize or even relate to these people? At inception, Google, FB, et al. were seen as innovative, dynamic, helpful to average people and the like. Sadly, those days are long past and all too many people are instead inclined to reach for the nearest garlic clove in hopes of warding them off.
pnw_hazor 7y ago
Telecoms are not ignored, compared to Big Tech they are highly regulated.
jtmb 7y ago
If I were more cynical, I would say that the antitrust concerns are being focused on in big tech in part due to the perception of anti-conservative bias or de-platforming, and the telecoms, other than in the case of owning CNN, have no such perception associated with them.
diveanon 7y ago
I don't think whataboutism is a valid argument against antitrust regulations for big tech.
fiatjaf 7y ago
Checkout https://althea.org/ https://althea.org/ if you're interested in decentralized internet structure. This is NOT vaporware. The theory behind it is simple and solid. It works and is happening right now. The fact that is uses shitcoins doesn't make it a scandal or get-rich-quick scheme.

573 points by fyoving 7y ago

this article is 'Big Tech' propaganda, specifically using "Whataboutism" to muddy the waters. Oh Techdirt. You used to have morals.

Robotbeat 7y ago
It's a legitimate point, though, not mere Whataboutism. The Big Tech companies like Google have been a counter-weight to big Telecom (things like Google Fiber, Google Fi). To go after Big Tech without also going after Big Telecom is to reinforce the market power of Big Telecom.
- Rooster61 7y ago
  > the lobbying power of Big Telecom. I think this is a bit more accurate.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Weren't Google Fiber and Google Fi just tests, not actual large scale investments? I mean, in that case, there are many counter-weights to Google - they just have 0% market share... I don't believe that Big Tech has or wants to be anything to counter the ISP monopolies. Sure, they don't want to pay for traffic twice, but that's about it - if net neutrality wasn't an issue, Google, FB & Co wouldn't care about telecom monopolies one bit. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd prefer a single large ISP that they can make data deals with to get a better tracking system up and running.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    I think Big Tech care about internet access (=more customers and/or more people to advertise to), so the extent to which Big Telecom has poor access in rural areas, it's in Big Tech's interests to offer some alternative. ...but perhaps you're right that beyond that, they don't really care if there's just one choice in major ISP in much of the US. At least, the incentive to care is not as strong.
  - wvenable 7y ago
    Nobody wants to be beholden to a single provider -- that's incredibly dangerous for a tech company. Google Fiber and Google Fi are just Google hedging their bets.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > Nobody wants to be beholden to a single provider -- that's incredibly dangerous for a tech company. Eh, sure, but Google likes to make one big deal with Master Card to buy your cc transactions, they don't want to make a thousand deals with small local banks. As for Fiber & Fi, it looked to me as if Google was checking to see if they could easily and cheaply "disrupt" those markets. They saw that they could not and cut their losses.
      - Robotbeat 7y ago
        As far as I can tell, Google has not divested their >$1 billion stake in SpaceX/Starlink.
      - wvenable 7y ago
        You can only get one big deal if you have choice. If the only CC provider was Mastercard then no deal would be had for Google. It's quite possible that Fiber succeeded in accomplishing it's primary goal of stimulating broadband investment by incumbent providers.
        luckylion 7y ago
        > If the only CC provider was Mastercard then no deal would be had for Google. Why not? It's bonus money for MC, why wouldn't they be happy to sell Google access to your transaction data? They don't have to do anything but copy the data and hold their hands out for millions and millions of dollars. Why in the world wouldn't they make that deal? Privacy concerns? I have my doubts.
ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Absolutely whataboutism, and whataboutism that vastly misses on the scale of the issue: Telecoms are limited regional monopolies (and rarely are monopolies in urban enough of areas), tech companies are nearly unassailable global monopolies. The article aims to capitalize on the popular dislike of their ISP to distract from a far more pressing issue.
- Rooster61 7y ago
  > and rarely are monopolies in urban enough of areas I challenge you to name urban areas in the US that are serviced by more than 3 ISP's. They absolutely do have monopolies in those areas, and more importantly, the ability to collude to set prices in various areas/divy up coverage area.
wvenable 7y ago
Whataboutism when dealing with the law is called Selective Enforcement.
dang 7y ago
Please don't post shallow dimissals here. Or flamebait. Or name-calling (in the sense that the site guidelines use the term). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

yeahitslikethat 7y ago

Because telecom companies' monopolies are easy to understand. Google doesn't have to run wires to everyone's house. In fact, they tried and failed. It's a lot harder than building a website.

wvenable 7y ago
They are easy to understand and the harm that they do to consumers is very real and easy to measure.
- yeahitslikethat 7y ago
  Internet should be classed as a utility and regulated as such. Infrastructure and bits should be separate.

thrower123 7y ago

I don't think anybody ignores that telecoms is a big monopoly problem; people know intimately that they have one or if they are lucky, two real options in any given market. We busted up Ma Bell once long ago, and it has just coalesced back together. The capital costs and infrastructure tend towards it being a natural monopoly, so I don't think that we'll reasonably see a million telecom flowers bloom without putting the finger on the scale heavily. Software is so much more ephemeral, and we have a much healthier oligopoly of big players. Even the sick old man of computing, IBM, is doing better than Time Warner did trying to compete in cable.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
No the local monopoly was never busted - just use LLU

pjc50 7y ago

What happened to local loop unbundling? Is the problem that it didn't also apply to "cable"?

jessaustin 7y ago
The "problem" was that ILECs never followed the rules and regulators never punished them for that. If a CLEC wanted to add a customer, they got a schedule for 3 weeks, even though the ILEC would do it in less than a week if the customer were signing up with them. Anyway, the schedule was also a fiction, because the ILEC would come up with half a dozen reasons to delay it to 5 weeks. We're not talking about a technician visiting a customer's house. We're talking about a couple of switches thrown in a central office, an operation that would take less than a minute. How could anyone attract new customers in such a situation? That is why all CLECs went bust or were acquired for pennies on the dollar. In other nations, with functioning regulation, unbundling was considered unworkable so they required that a separate entity would own the local loop.

ixtli 7y ago

Spoilers: it's because our regulatory, legislative, and judicial infrastructure exists to defend monied interests. We're incapable of taking collective action that reduces private property accumulation, so no monopoly busting.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Google has been the largest spender in DC for a couple years now, I believe.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Goronmon 7y ago
  Only the last couple of years? Sounds like they have a lot of catching up to do then.
- jonas21 7y ago
  I don't think that's true. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2019&indexType=s https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2019&inde... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2018&indexType=s https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2018&inde... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2017&indexType=s https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2017&inde...
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    2019 is far from a complete year. In both 2017 and 2018, Alphabet is the first listed corporation[0], which is probably the reason I see the claim made, most of the rest are associations. [0]If you ignore BC/BS, which is a "federation of 36 independent companies", though that is largely a way to deal with the law requiring health insurance be in-state. If you want to, I'd accept saying Alphabet is the second corporation on the list, if we're being real.

microdrum 7y ago

Because even Comcast, the most evil of the telecom companies, doesn't put out a web browser that seeks to permanently entrench its ad business. In fact, it lets me use any browser I want.

wvenable 7y ago
But Comcast doesn't provide browsers, they provide telecom services and if you're lucky you might be able to choose another provider in your area.
Rooster61 7y ago
> In fact, it lets me use any browser I want ...to connect to the gateway they specify, and pull reams of data from with nary a bat of an eye from Washington.
- microdrum 7y ago
  But, again, they don't seem to use Comcast Business Layer A to entrench Comcast Business Layer B. They could put a tax on every call to Stripe API if they wanted. They don't. The worst thing they've done is throttle Netflix (very bad) and the market spoke and they were shamed publicly.

rayiner 7y ago

By any measure, telecom is a fairy concentrated market that creates antitrust concerns, relative to many other industries. But the comparison to telecom only highlights the market concentration in tech. There are four major wireless carriers, none with more than about a third of the market. Google has 90% of the search market. There are just two viable mobile OS competitors, and Android has 75% market share (50% in the US). Even within a given market, there is more competition in telecom. The big four cellular companies are nationwide. Verizon is just the sixth largest wireline carrier, has less than 40% market share across its FiOS footprint. That does not mean that telecom (or day health insurance) is a highly competitive market. It’s not. But at least search and mobile is even less competitive. It also matters what is happening going forward. Even in areas with no wired competition, wireless (cellular and satellite) exerts competitive pressure. 15% of high income households have abandoned wired internet for cellular only, and that number is growing. (There are more cellular-only households by a large margin than ones that use something other than Google search.) Meanwhile, there is no viable competition in sight for Google Search or Android.

lg 7y ago
aren't you conflating market share with the existence of competition? anyone has the choice to switch to bing today, but many people have no choice of telecom provider (cellular internet doesn't work for all the people in areas with bad cellular reception to begin with).
- luckylion 7y ago
  > anyone has the choice to switch to bing today, but many people have no choice of telecom provider Do they though? I mean, bing exists, sure, but it's inferior and more expensive (by lacking quality). Hey, you can switch to satellite telephony/internet or connect two tin cans with a string if you really want to get off of your mobile provider. > cellular internet doesn't work for all the people in areas with bad cellular reception to begin with But the majority of US citizens have a choice, right, the population centers do have multiple carriers?
  - 7y ago

moosey 7y ago

The regulatory systems in the US since Reagan have been anemic, and if we believe in effective business competition there are probably very few industries that would have a good time if a new regulatory environment were put in place that is more... effective? I can't find the right word because I'm biased - I strongly believe in collectivism and strong regulatory environments. When I look at major industries: social media (sadly, IMO), telecom, health care, transportation, military, and more; what I see are industries that need regulation in order to meet the needs of society, but that is based on my point of view of the world. My guess is that the folks with capital and data, and thus power, view the situation very differently, and are more focused on their own needs than those of a more nebulous society that has needs. I believe that this can be seen in the practices of businesses throughout the United States. So, are "we" ignoring telecom? No, that headline is aggravating. Why isn't it "Antitrust issues in Telecom"? Because society has been trained to be enraged. Why? Because it serves those who already have power, and they disagree with me about how regulation should work.

Loughla 7y ago
It's the same across all government. You hollow out the function of actual, substantive work through 'necessary' budget cuts - like actual funding for IRS audits, any form of environmental regulation, or just education in general. Then when the low-hanging fruit is all those agencies can pick, which happen to have the largest impact on middle- to low-income families, it gives more fodder to cut and gut the agencies.
- moosey 7y ago
  Under the current regime (post-Reagan is what I mean), there are government bodies that still receive lots of money, and those, as you say, that are getting hollowed. The main thing that I can point to that says that it is corrupt is the fact that white collar crime is largely ignored in the interest of much smaller fish. There are government agencies that I'd like to see gutted, though, like the prison system, the support of the weapons manufacturing industry by our military which I calculate as grotesquely unecessary, etc. There are others that disagree with me strongly on this issue. I'm not right, just opinionated.

untog 7y ago

Who is "we", exactly? No-one is ignoring telecom monopolies, it's something people complain about all the damn time. Spoiler alert: it's because the telecom industry has spent decades embedding itself at the top levels of organizations like the FCC, and it's gotten worse since the arrival of the Trump administration. Is that good? No. Should we change it? Yes. Does any of this have anything to do with regulating big tech? No. This stuff just feels like whataboutism to me. There's no reason we can't tackle both big tech and telecom. If wait turns then the telecom industry will just say "what about other utilities!". Those utilities will say "what about the defense industry!" or whatever the hell. "What about these bad guys!!" just feels like an attempt to deflect attention away from tech.

908087 7y ago
Deflecting attention away from "tech" (advertising) corporations seems to be the main purpose of techdirt these days.
adrianmonk 7y ago
The allegation here isn't that the average person is ignoring it, it's that the administration is giving preferential treatment. The government is supposed to be representative of the people, so I think that's why they're calling it "we".
stvswn 7y ago
It's not really, because the two (telecom and big tech) are in a fight for dominance and focusing on one will benefit the other. It's natural to wonder about the influence of telecom when the Attorney General, under whom the DOJ's investigation is being conducted, was the general counsel of GTE/Verizon for 14 years and then served on Time Warner's board until last year, helping them to merge with AT&T. If you assume the antitrust division of the DOJ has limited resources, and that they were until recently focused on telecom, it's not "whataboutism" to wonder what's driving the abrupt shift to tech.
- stvswn 7y ago
  and to be explicit, the "we" is the FTC and the antitrust division of the DOJ.

jjn2009 7y ago

I was forced this morning to have Comcast charge me $40 to install a cable to set up internet at my new place by an authorized technician. I hate Comcast SO much, and from what I can tell I don't seem to have another option, supposedly AT&T but the speeds are slow and their website says my apartment is not in service area.

criddell 7y ago
The quality of AT&T's service is going to vary depending on where you are. I have a gigabit connection from them that I pay $60 / month for (they lowered the price when I tried to leave). It's the fastest internet connection I've ever had.
- pixelbath 7y ago
  It's a moot point if where you live does not allow anybody but a single exclusive provider for internet, which is nearly every apartment in the US.

_bxg1 7y ago

I would say the strongest example is wired telecom, which may not be a national monopoly but is certainly a local monopoly across nearly the whole country. The way the companies divvy up territory to avoid competition is probably what keeps U.S. prices so much higher than, say, Europe. I wonder if a case could be made for it being a cartel. But yes, cellular and satellite providers have started to provide a saving grace of disruption in that market. We'll see if it ends up being enough.

treis 7y ago
Look at profit margins though. Apple and Facebook are consistently 30%+ and Google is 20%+. Verizon, Comcast, and the rest of the telecoms are in the low to mid teens or worse. That's pretty close to the S&P 500 average margin. So while it appears that wired telecom is a monopoly they don't make money like monopolies. Compare Google Fiber with Google Plus. Google had people literally begging them to put Fiber in but backed off because they couldn't make (enough) money. Plus was a hugely important project for them but they canceled it because they couldn't beat Facebook. We've seen major tech companies take aim at the monopoly/duopoly product of a rival and they've all failed: Microsoft poured billions into Bing, Maps and mobile for little market share Google couldn't dent Facebook with Plus Amazon and Facebook's phones fell flat
- notsureigetit 7y ago
  > Google had people literally begging them to put Fiber in but backed off because they couldn't make (enough) money. Was that the reason, or was it because the other telecom companies were lobbying to keep Google from accessing rights of way and expanding to other cities. (One failed example:[0]) In many jurisdictions, the cable and telecom companies are attempting to make it illegal for municipalities to install their own government-run internet because they really don't want to compete. It's ridiculous. [1] Had Google been allowed to compete like in other industries, they probably would have crushed the telecom companies. But they weren't allowed to. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Reactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Reactions [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-lawmaker-has-proposed-banning-municipal-broadband-networks/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-la...

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

I've yet to see a telecom company tell anyone who they are allowed to communicate with or deny anyone service because they don't approve of their ideological views. That might only be tangential to antitrust issues but engaging in overreach is a good way to get the public against you which in turn makes it much easier for the government to come after you.

fzeroracer 7y ago
And yet I've had to deal with telecom companies placing incredibly low data caps, overcharging for bullshit reasons, throttling consumer bandwidth when visiting certain sites or using certain protocols and more. If Facebook decided to ban me tomorrow for whatever reason, I still have access to the rest of the internet. If my ISP decided to charge another $100 a month to access the internet, there would be nothing I could do to fight it. You'd have to make an argument that site access is a right, which throws out moderating a platform for abuse or spam entirely.

barbecue_sauce 7y ago

Telecom is probably one of the industry groups lobbying for antitrust legislation/investigation against Google and its ilk.

lokimedes 7y ago

Economics 101 states that wasteful duplication of infrastructure is one of the few acceptable exceptions from the free market thesis. Natural monopolies should nevertheless be regulated to avoid suboptimal services. What’s more interesting is the recent suggestions of seeing industries with a monopolistic business model such as social media as natural monopolies. Perhaps we should regulate Facebook rather than argue for breaking up telecoms?

Can_Not 7y ago
My street literally has a minimum of 6 companies that provide garbage collection services to me and my neighbors.

w8rbt 7y ago

You should have seen it when it was just AT&T. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

Well to most people the internet is Big Tech. And the big tech internet is arguably corrosive. The only thing Telecom does is hinder people from getting more internet cheaper, faster. Conclusion: Big Telecom is a net good.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

actually though, if you break up Big Tech who will have the money to pay Telecom for preferential broadband access?

tzs 7y ago

Telecom is a different kind of problem, and it is not clear that antitrust can effectively address it. From a comment of mine a couple days ago when someone here raised a similar question: > Wouldn't it make more sense to break up broadband ISP monopolies first? Probably not for the Department of Justice. Some problems with that approach: 1. If you are trying to address the issue of limited choice in ISPs, I don't see how breaking them up addresses that. If you split an ISP that has a monopoly in a state, say, into separate ISPs for, say, each county...you've just gone from having one monopoly to having several monopolies. The limited choice is because there is only one cable coming into my house, and splitting up the company that owns that cable doesn't change that. Addressing that probably requires something like making the last mile data transport a regulated utility that ISPs operate on top of. That would probably require Congressional action and a new President to do nationwide or to allow states to do individually. 2. Competition among ISPs in a region can vary dramatically city to city, and even neighborhood to neighborhood. I've not extensively researched this so maybe this is wrong, but the impression I've gotten is that an ISP's prices in a region tend to be pretty similar between those places within the region where they are the only choice, and those places within the region where there are alternatives with similar performing alternatives. That could make it hard to show that the ISP is abusing its monopoly in those parts of its territory where it does not have competition. 3. Aside from rural areas that only have DSL via the phone company, in most places there are multiple ISPs available. It's pretty common to have both cable and DSL, and in many cities there is also a fiber option. There's also wireless options, ranging from the regular consumer service of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and the various MVNOs that are built on those networks, and many places also have wireless available that is not based on the cellular networks. You might argue that, say, cellular wireless is not really a viable option to Comcast or Charter or whoever the cable company is in a given area, due to the vast difference in speed. But you will have to actually make the argument. You won't be able to just say that they speed difference makes them different markets. You'll have to actually look at how people are using these various services and show that they really are not comparable. I think that the factors in #2 and #3 make it almost impossible to win an antitrust case against a major ISP as a whole. The DoJ would have to bring smaller cases alleging monopolization in specific regions, tailored to the specific way the factors in #2 and #3 play out in that region. Having to do this region by region, or even city by city in some regions, would make this a very long, expensive pursuit. (And where they win, there is still the question of whether or not there is an effective remedy they can apply). Thus, it is probably better for the DoJ to leave this issue to Congress to deal with via legislation.

drawkbox 7y ago

Telcos and ISPs are the bigger threat by far in a fixed local monopoly physical market that is hard to enter. Telecom/ISPs are afraid of antitrust, being labeled a utility and competition, they work overtime to throw the blame onto Big Tech starting way back with net neutrality and Netflix share of the market. It wasn't Netflix using the data it was the users. Since then ISPs have been funding mud slinging against Big Tech so they can compete with them on ads by removing privacy protections and content so they removed net neutrality against the will of everyone [1]. Maybe 5G will shake up the telcos and ISPs controls they have bribed to put in place using regulatory capture. The attack on Big Tech is partially funded by them just like oil companies pushed anti-nuclear energy along with opposition to green tech. Big Oil funded many of the anti-nuclear campaigns, probably even had some sabotage involved [2]. ISPs aren't even using the market to get ahead with good products like Big Tech, they are using bribes and regulations that keep them in their false monopolies and fixed markets. ISPs share fixed local monopoly markets by putting one good ISP and a bunch of smaller ones that don't compete like a Game of Thrones. FCC reports find almost no broadband competition at 100Mbps speeds, even at 25Mbps, 43 percent of the US had zero ISPs or just one [3]. For a modern broadband innovative market this is unacceptable, there are industries of the future that rely on fast network we can't even get going due to the feet dragging and rent-seeking local monopolies of the ISPs/telcos. The one time innovators, the ISPs/telcos, have become local monopolies directly harming innovation and network growth, they now have data caps, net neutrality add-ons (like Cox Elite Gamer), content options and privacy protections removed to discourage and reward broadband providers for NOT growing but nickel and diming people [1]. I remember in the 90s when broadband, cable, ISPs, telcos were innovative and the leaps from landline to other sources was amazing. They were innovative then, run by engineers and product people. Now they are rent seekers, holding back innovation, run by HBS style MBAs where everything is a resource and every dime extracted with minimal reasons to innovate or expand without rent-seeking controls in place. Imagine if water, electricity or other utilities were this toll road like, we'd live in less quality of life. The network is a utility and platform to innovate and build on, not extract the value and slow innovation [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/fcc-announces-plan-abandon-net-neutrality-and-isp-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/fcc-announces-plan-aba... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-fossil-fuel-interests-bankrolling-the-anti-nuclear-energy-movement/#7bf1c5587453 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-f... [3] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/fcc-report-finds-almost-no-broadband-competition-at-100mbps-speeds/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/fcc-r...

Reedx 7y ago

In one sentence: It's not as much of a threat to traditional media, therefore we don't hear about it as much.

schnable 7y ago

Not a full defense, but telecom is already heavily regulated while tech companies are not regulated at all.

fatjokes 7y ago
That's a pretty strong argument against regulation then, given what a terrible consumer experience it is.
- ripdog 7y ago
  It's just bad regulation, performed by incompetent or corrupt governments. Down here in NZ we have excellent telecoms regulation performed by competent government. Specifically, copper/fibre last mile lines are owned by companies which are prevented by law from acting as ISPs, and similarly required to wholesale lease access to their lines to any ISP which wants to use them, at a regulated price (or lower). The result is a hyper-competitive ISP market where I can choose from dozens of ISPs (almost) anywhere in the country. Combined with a few hundred million in government investment, and I can get gigabit fibre almost everywhere in the country from a world-class ISP. I have basically no complaints about my ISP, and it's all thanks to government regulation.
- schnable 7y ago
  Mostly it's outdated.

chantelles 7y ago

Because there is not antitrust investigation there is only making the 4 pillars come to heal and become part of the NSA.

40acres 7y ago

I think this is a poor take. Since Bork, anti-trust regulation has been an afterthought in Washington. The fact that DOJ, the same agency that bloodied Microsoft, is looking in another big tech company is very big news. DOJ lawyers aren't dumb, digging into BigTech will bring a lot of bodies to the surface and the culture of anti-trust regulation will change, eventually BigTeleco and BigAg will be next.

draw_down 7y ago
I would love to agree with that, but I suspect the difference in regulatory outcomes is down to lobbying and relationships, not that some new era is about to dawn in Washington.

kakkksaknmdm 7y ago

I can invest some money right now and become a local ISP. Unless I'm ready to sink $500 billion, I cannot be Google. This is how big of a problem it is. I would recommend any founder to delay startups and let anti trust probes and hopefully splits happen. Otherwise what happened to Snap, will happen to you.

zadkey 7y ago

Because "Regulatory Capture" (google it) and because they have better lobbyists and have been greasing politicians for a much longer time.

calimac 7y ago

Telecom is not blacklisting subscribers phone lines as Facebook et al has been. Facebook account bans brought what they had been doing with biased algorithms since 2016. Antitrust protects all freeedoms not just money

airstrike 7y ago

Comparing software businesses with traditionally asset-heavy business such as wired telecom is disingenuous. I hate Telecom monopolies as much as the next guy, but the comparison is so inaccurate to the point of being useless. What's next? Comparing 'Big Tech' to Utilities?

rolltiide 7y ago

In the book "The Chickenshit Club" There is some psychology amongst the regulators that results in them not fining or sanctioning large players because they don't want to make them go bankrupt and further consolidate the market. You can have a monopoly in America, as long as you don't do anticompetitive things to get there, and don't do anticompetitive things while you are there from within your company. (protip: the trick is to change the laws and regulations to favor advantages you have and make it impossible for new entrants)

FatDrunknStupid 7y ago

Telecom agreed years ago to allow backdoors - tech is, sometimes, fighting back. Once they give in we'll hear very little more. Just a theory....

gtfratteus 7y ago

Because telecom companies aren't censoring their political opponents.

fatjokes 7y ago

Because Big Tech siphons ad dollars from traditional media? I'm being glib, of course, but I can't help but wonder if that isn't one big reason.

gerdesj 7y ago

ENUM anyone? https://www.nominet.uk/search/enum https://www.nominet.uk/search/enum - ha! (There used to be a page on the Nominet site about ENUM but now the ITU doc: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/inr/enum/Documents/ENUM/ENUM%20Approvals-2018-12-01.pdf https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/inr/enum/Documents/ENUM/ENUM%20... can't even spell Nominet correctly) I should explain: In simple terms, ENUM allows you to turn a phone number into a SRV record that points at a PBX via a DNS lookup. The ITU allocates the zones to registrars, the zones neatly map to country codes - its a great idea. However, as you can imagine this is not very popular with big telecoms who are used to charging by the second/minute and location by distance which is obviously bollocks when you turn a circuit switched network into a packet switched one that no longer routes calls via satellites to cross the Atlantic (eg). OK pricing and tech for "POTS" has come a long way since I were a lad but it is still a nice little earner over letting us lot do our own thing. You can also imagine that Google, Facebook int al would also suffer a collective coronary should us lot be able to do our own comms without them. I'm fairly sure that you (for a given value of you) can't remember the last time you used a "landline" but if ENUM was available it might have been a few minutes ago and not logged externally and charged as though it was 1970 sigh

grellas 7y ago

'Big Tech', unlike Telecom, has made itself friendless, having alienated pretty much everybody along the political spectrum, and that is a dangerous place to me with a field subject to such legal vagaries as antitrust law is. I am not talking here about lobbyists or about legal technicalities but rather about the visceral reaction we all can have as human beings to the basic question: do I sympathize or even relate to these people? At inception, Google, FB, et al. were seen as innovative, dynamic, helpful to average people and the like. Sadly, those days are long past and all too many people are instead inclined to reach for the nearest garlic clove in hopes of warding them off.

pnw_hazor 7y ago

Telecoms are not ignored, compared to Big Tech they are highly regulated.

jtmb 7y ago

If I were more cynical, I would say that the antitrust concerns are being focused on in big tech in part due to the perception of anti-conservative bias or de-platforming, and the telecoms, other than in the case of owning CNN, have no such perception associated with them.

diveanon 7y ago

I don't think whataboutism is a valid argument against antitrust regulations for big tech.

fiatjaf 7y ago

Checkout https://althea.org/ https://althea.org/ if you're interested in decentralized internet structure. This is NOT vaporware. The theory behind it is simple and solid. It works and is happening right now. The fact that is uses shitcoins doesn't make it a scandal or get-rich-quick scheme.