On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 6:54 AM dan via LibreQoS <libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

The obvious solution is to foster competition. Anywhere you overlay cable companies with fiber BOTH companies remain and compete against each other and the cable company increases upload speeds. If fiber was so naturally superior, the cable companies would be erased. I have MSP customers in multiple markets with competing techs and it's VERY nice to be able to get fiber and cable or terragraph and cable to a business for resilience. I cannot do that on single product dominated markets. The 'exchange' model above doesn't do it because of that single point of failure of the municipal fiber.

To say categorically that competition is the only solution disenfranchises the sparse edge where it doesn’t pay to have a *single* terrestrial incumbent, let alone two.

Yes, we will have StarLink, and perhaps eventually some competition to it (Bezos), but there is no escaping the reality that competition in the last mile destroys value.

Between StarLink densities and this utopia where both fiber and cable can afford to build (and maintain!) enough customers lie a giant wasteland — not enough customers for lines, too many for LEO. Fixed Wireless Access helps, but even in that context competition destroys value.

You can have subsidy (“Broadband for All” OR consumer choice, not both.

At this point I would hold up an Omnibus-podcast-like sign “Compatible With Marxism”, or “Not Compatible With Marxism”, but I’m not sure which.

$.02

Jeremy