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> IMHO the best way to do this is to force telcos to give each other access to their infrastructure at a reasonable price.

I believe this is what we in America had with dial-up and DSL up until about 2005, when DSL was reclassified as a title I information service. I seem to recall having a hell of a lot more ISP choices/competition in those days.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling



Yeah, you had lots of competition among DSL ISPs that got loops at cut-rate wholesale prices, along with wholesale prices so low it killed any incentive to invest in DSL networks. See: http://www.pff.org/events/eventpowerpoints/022207BrusselsCom...


Yeah but they just plain don't like to invest in infastructure period. It is an expense which takes a long time to pay off and publicly traded corporations are heavily pressured to short-termism.


On the other hand Pacific bell/SBC routinely sold consumer internet plans at under the wholesale cost. So the wholesale costs were also too high.




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