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When a telco provides poor quality service somewhere, people have no choice but to pay them as price takers. When there are options, telcos have to provide bett
by christina97 2mo ago
When a telco provides poor quality service somewhere, people have no choice but to pay them as price takers. When there are options, telcos have to provide better service to win your business. Telcos with monopolies have always been rent-seekers. It happens time and time again that some newcomer comes up, and just the hint of competition gets Verizon/Spectrum/etc to suddenly build new tech and dig some trenches.
- blooalien 2mo ago^^^ Exactly this. I live in just such an area (one where Cable and DSL providers successfully bribed local officials to get fiber blocked so the two of them could split the city between them). They're both literally the worst Internet service providers I've ever had, but the only two choices besides insanely expensive celphone service providers.
- maxerickson 2mo agoSpectrum here rolled out fiber when other companies did. I'm pretty sure it is because it is the same subsidized last mile fiber and not because they were inspired by competition.