Susan Crawford argues that huge telecommunication companies such as Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T have divided up markets and put themselves in a position where theyre subject to no competition. How? The 1996 Telecommunications Act — which was meant to foster competition — allowed cable companies and telecoms companies to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly, allowing them to charge customers higher and higher prices without the kind of investment in internet infrastructure, especially in next-generation fiber optic connections, that is ongoing in other countries. Fiber optic connections offer a particularly compelling example. While expensive to build, they offer faster and smoother connections than traditional copper wire connections. But Verizon stopped building out fiber optic infrastructure in 2010 — citing high costs — just as other countries were getting to work.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:24:18 +0000
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