If I had to pick out common criticisms, Openreach can take their time if you have to deal with them directly (getting a line installed in a new office or apartment can take a few weeks), and there seems to be very limited innovation in the last mile - even in London it's hard to get more than 20mbps, and many people in rural areas are stuck with a crappy DSL line at 2mbps or so.
That's exactly what I'd expect. Make infrastructure a low margin utility and a true monopoly and you'll get utility-grade results.
If everyone here (as I do) hopes they'll have gigabit speeds to their homes in a few years, you have to plausibly explain how those upgrades happen in a utility infrastructure regulatory world.
The same way they happen with unregulated providers: some government actor has to step in and provide incentives.
We've already seen that expecting multiple last-mile physical providers everywhere is impossible due to cost reasons and the fact that land lines are a natural monopoly, therefore you'll have to manage it as such in the face of absence of normal market pressures.
It's still a better scenario than the current situation in the US
German here – we have one company owning most of the lines, it gets subsidies from the government, but is in turn forced to make their lines available for everyone.
Also the government just forces ISPs to provide specific speeds in specific areas.
And we have many small ISPs which provide their own network, most of the time they are the same company that also provides water and electricity, and these ISPs compete heavily with the government-owned ISP.
Also right now ISPs have to upgrade rural areas first, so in many rural areas you can already get 200mbps to 500mbps for 50€/month, while I'm in the city and can only get it from next year on.
Overall: It is possible to create competition and still have governmental regulated fast internet.
> If everyone here (as I do) hopes they'll have gigabit speeds to their homes in a few years,
Unless you already live in a very densely populated area[0], I don't think there's any reasonable chance of that happening for most people, whether we go the Title II route or not.
Title II is better than the alternative, but having gigabit speeds for most households is quite a ways off no matter how we do it.
[0] And even then - I live in Manhattan and several buildings on my block have FiOS, but mine does not (thanks to TWC's exclusive agreement with the building owner).
> [0] And even then - I live in Manhattan and several buildings on my block have FiOS, but mine does not (thanks to TWC's exclusive agreement with the building owner).
This is a problem with MDUs and why the big telecoms have dedicated sales teams assigned to make these kinds of deals. The more likely scenario is that Verizon was working on getting these kinds of deals set up, then they halted FiOS expansion and stopped adding new buildings before they got to yours.
I don't think contractual exclusivity is legal, but a building owner does have to set up agreements with a company like Verizon or TWC to allow them access to the building, provide a contractual basis as to who owns what wiring, etc. So if Verizon doesn't reach out to the building and set that up, FiOS isn't going to be offered.
> The more likely scenario is that Verizon was working on getting these kinds of deals set up, then they halted FiOS expansion and stopped adding new buildings before they got to yours.
Actually, no, they are still adding new buildings in NYC, but only on the condition that they provide both television and Internet service to the building. (For a short period of time they did Internet-only out on Long Island, but they've stopped that).
I got very far up the Verizon chain and found out a lot of information about this, which is why I know the specifics here.
In my case, I requested that Verizon figure out whether they wanted to provide service to my building (they did) and that they then contact my building (they did), at which point it turned out that TV (not Internet) for the building could only be provided by TWC.
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Verizon uses this as an easy excuse to avoid expanding their service (since 2010 or 2011, Verizon has been very half-hearted about FiOS and doesn't really seem to care about expanding FiOS as much as they care about appearing to care)[0].
> I don't think contractual exclusivity is legal,
No, but they've found creative ways to get around it, and it's certainly not something that's widely enforced.
[0] My evidence in favor of that comes more from my experience dealing with them in New England.
Hopefully not gas-delivery grade results. 5-10% of methane delivered via mains in the UK is lost to atmosphere. Similar leakage rates are found in the US, sometimes much worse. The main (heh, no pun intended) source of these leaks are cast iron pipes that are over 100 years old.
And unlike the Internet, when those things fail, things literally explode.
That's exactly what I'd expect. Make infrastructure a low margin utility and a true monopoly and you'll get utility-grade results.
If everyone here (as I do) hopes they'll have gigabit speeds to their homes in a few years, you have to plausibly explain how those upgrades happen in a utility infrastructure regulatory world.