Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Maltby
When has the government provided service ever been able to compete with
what a free market can provide? They only survive where they have an
effective monopoly. Would there be 4G without the competitive market?
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4G is the exception to the rule. Cell phone towers are insanely cheap to build compared to laying telephone or power line.
Quote:
The phone/cable companies portion out their existing bandwidth based on
who will pay for it (a tiered system). That means that there is an incentive
for the development of faster and greater bandwidth offerings, to as many
as will pay for it. There is also some profit to be made providing for the very
many who are willing to be satisfied with a lessor service, at a lower cost.
Overall, and historically the most used/asked for high end features eventually
are offered to the lower tiers, in a competitive free market environment. Not
so in a bureaucratically run government "service", there is no incentive. All are
equal in the government's eyes, all will get the same mandated "service". "One
Size Fits All", it's only "Fair", right?
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See, here's how it works out in the country. When you phone up a cable provider to ask how much it'd cost to get high-speed internet, they quote a figure that's much higher than you'd get in the city. They give you a horse and pony show about how much it would cost them to extend service, and then hang up the phone on you if you aren't willing to pay the price they dictated. Now, if you and your whole municipality were to get together, they might have to change their tune, or as we're seeing here just go to congress and try to get a law passed prohibiting you from getting together to negotiate.
Ever wonder why rural areas in other parts of the world don't have electricity or clean tap water? This is exactly why. Companies have to be *forced* to build infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit them and only them. You have to have the government back there, holding a gun to their head if necessary, to make sure that citizens can have access to basic services. Otherwise they'll to restrict as much as they can to a privileged rich few and try to claim that the cost of extending those services to others is too great.
To make the analogy of building a road, the companies have built huge interstate highways, but are refusing to link up smaller towns and then trying to prevent those towns from building their own roads and bridges.
Then again, I'm quoting functionality here and you're coming from a theoreticial and ideological standpoint.