god i love monopolies

of course not technically a monopoly, but in many areas they of course have monopoly.  there will never be fios in this part of pittsburgh, for example, as it currently stands.

Is that 'cuz satellite is a right bitch to spell correctly?

The article was about traffic tampering on Internet service - Internet service is usually a duopoly of cable companies and telcos in most areas.

"We beseech thee, sweet Baby Jesus: tell us how to properly define the market, that we might apply the Rule of Reason in thy name."

Well, prior to regional monopolies being granted by the government (both state and federal), services that required wiring often ended up looking like this (and this isn't even a problem spot - this is a normal pic):






There were huge problems with companies cutting the competitions wires, honest problems as a result of wiring confusion, etc.  And of course the eyesore that is convoluted wiring.  People just started waking up one morning and saying WTF!  Yep, even at the turn of the last century, WTF! was uttered in mass by this mess.

Government to the rescue - we'll grant regional monopolies to get this under control, offer better prices (based upon a guaranteed market share, vs. the cost wiring up the whole region and only getting X% of the market - or so it was argued), and simplify life.

Cable companies were a bit different - local municipalities usually handled their 'exclusive rights' territory.  They did use the same argument though - we can offer better pricing and service if we have a guaranteed market.  Not to mention, the local municipalities often found some money in their accounts as a result of granting such exclusive rights.

So, here we are with a duopoly for intertubes service and integrated services (tv, phone, intertubes).  We asked for it, hell - practically demanded it.  But decades later we're starting to see the problems with such monopoly control.  This of course does not discount the real problems that were solved with said monopolies - they were plenty, and they really were solved.  We're just living with the flip side of monopolies now - they simplified things tremendously; but they have also limited consumer choice and technology progress at the same time.


And yes, this IS the short version 

Sweden, wtf ??

Can l just show you a picture of my house, where I can have 10Mb/s service