I was catching up on my podcasts when I came across this.
Planet Money: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/09/301028037/across-the-atlantic-glimpse-an-alternate-internet-universe
Thoughts? Would the ISP situation (via cable, at least) be better or worse had the FCC ruled differently back in 2002?
probably, maybe, maybe not.
In my country internet lines are considered a public infrastructure & internet service providers are competing in an open market.
I have 16 isps to choose from, if i leave out lte, tv-coax & satellite i still have 9 different isps that offer internet over fiber.
But with all those "what would have been" debates, there is no way to know since the US isn't the EU. Maybe US-companies could have found another trick to build monopolies.
I think that the US has an overarching systemic problem of political and institutional corruption.
You're not going to get any of your problems solved, as long as you can't stop the legalized corruption. Every problem and dysfunctional structure has somebody who is profiting, & getting insanely rich. Naturally these people will fight tooth and nail to keep their cash-cow going. And with all that legalized corruption it's plenty easy.
If you ask me the big companies where going to get their monopoly one way or another. If i were an US citizen i would join a grass-routes initiative to get money out of politics. As an example: wolf-pac.com