You know what's worse than shopping for your ISP in a market served by a cable/teclo duopoly? Getting your internet from a cable monopolist who faces no competition at all.
Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai — a former Verizon exec — says that we can count on ISPs to voluntarily refrain from abusing their natural monopolies to degrade service to their customers in order to maximize their profits.
In the 15 years between 1997 and 2012: 72,000 small US manufacturers shut down; as did 108,000 local retailers and 13,000 community banks (fully half of America's complement of small banks!). The number of US startups has dropped by 50% since 1970. — Read the rest
Christopher sez,
— Read the restA lot of people were frustrated in 2011 when the North Carolina General Assembly passed a bill written by Time Warner Cable to revoke local authority to build community-owned networks. A new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Common Cause explains how Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and CenturyLink bought their bill.
