[Bloat] Re: [Starlink] [LibreQoS] Re: Re: Keynote: QoE/QoS - Bandwidth Is A Lie! at WISPAPALOOZA 2025 (October 16)

[Jim Forster <jim@connectivitycap.com>]

Sebastian — thanks for all that.  Again I find there is lots I don’t know,  That’s a relief, otherwise life would be boring,

  — Jim

> On Nov 9, 2025, at 10:27 PM, Sebastian Moeller <moeller0@gmx.de> wrote:
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> On 10 November 2025 05:48:38 CET, Jim Forster <jim@connectivitycap.com <mailto:jim@connectivitycap.com>> wrote:
>>> On Nov 8, 2025, at 1:11 PM, Sebastian Moeller <moeller0@gmx.de> wrote:
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>>> As a market realist (that is someone who accepts efficient market when he sees them, but does not naive believe in the fairy tales of the invisible hand of the market) I think that we would be often much better off with a competently managed/regulated monopoly than with duo- to oligopolies that are treated as if they were efficient markets... Infrastructure (and at least access networks are at least infrastructure-ish IMHO) is not something where the free market typically excels at.
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>> Yeah, I also don’t think there’s an efficient, fair, market here that gets us what we w. In some ways, the Digital Divide is an expected outcome of capital allocation decisions by deregulated companies in a sector that has economies of scale and network effects.
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> Indeed... I just note that the POTS network was much more comprehensive in its reach due to stricter regulation...
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>> At the same time, a "competently managed/regulated monopoly” may be as uncommon as Homo Economicus sitings are. 
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> Na, only if we put our aim for competence too high ;) . Over here electricity, water and street "networks" are dece
> ntly regulated infrastructure.
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>> Which example can you cite? NZ? UK? SE? And have they transitioned smoothly to new technology that would diminish the value of their existing infrastructure?  
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> Tricky... for infrastructure in general I believe there are loads of examples in Europe, for internet access networks it gets a bit trickier, but there are some examples of combining a single network with operator competition. (And that is my preferred model, monopoly network with regulated and fair access for operators, and then have as many operators as possibke offer their services over that network). But partial examples exist, e.g. the fiber network built in Amsterdam, or the point to point fiber network in switzerland where the incumbent built most of the ftth network and is regulated to physically unbundle individual lines to end customers, resultung in surprising competition of ISPs operating different technology over the same fibers (swisscom uses xgspon, salt.ch <http://salt.ch/> uses their own xgspin OLTs, init7 uses AON up to 25 Gbps). Sweden also seems to have a decent (albeit not regulated) separation between network operators and ISPs that offer services over these networks.
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>> I recall that in the US prior to the .com boom, the telco’s idea of broadband was ISDN or maybe DSL or SMDS. They wrote many papers, had lots of trials, but did not aggressively do broadband,  
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> Yes, I agree that the old model of a vertically integrated full service telco breed complacency and was not ideal either (even though the POTS network had better reach than the HFC networks).
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> : 'Everyone knew’ that the cablecos’ HFC would never work, and that they could not do digital and certainly not voice,  HFC worked, and DOCSIS was a big success. That pressured the telcos to start actually deploying DSL, but it was too late, and the cablecos have dominated US broadband for a couple of decades. 
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> The outcome in Germany was different... hfc networks only ever reached around 75% of households and never exceeded 10 of estimated 45 million access sites for broadband services, while DSL still serves almost 23 million (and reaches almost all 45 million).But yes on the technology side it likely was hfc's pressure that sped up dsl development.
> Now, the german market is a bit odd, as customers are neither terribly hungry for high capacity nor terribly price sensitive (the old ex-monopoly telco still serves most dsl customers in spite of being more expensive due to valid regulatory interventions).
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> Regards
>        Sebastian
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> P.S.: I understand that in this question there are of course multiple equally valid and justifyable positions one could take, this just happens to be mine. A couple of friendly ISPs for example reject this idea as they consider access networks to be a field where ISPs can differentiate and compete (some of them however proposed a regulated middle mile to be able to economically reach IXs and peering points to even the playing field).
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>> Jim
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> -- 
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.