[governance] UK monopoly power, was SHOULD BANDWIDTH BE METERED?

[J.A.K.Cave at warwick.ac.uk]

Just a quick note - BT hasn't had a wholesale broadband monopoly for some
time now. This is a *big* difference between the US and the UK. Not only
do we in the UK have a lot of retail ISP choices, but with the advent of
LLU those resellers are getting their transport from many independent
wholsesale providers. Perhaps that's one reason why things like net
neutrality play differently (and less stridently).

Capacity isn't huge and speed remains an issue - but its not down to
monopoly.

J.



On 15 Apr 2008, John Levine wrote:

> >Yes, since BBC introduced its laudable service, a regular/low price DSL
> >connection isn't sufficient anymore at least in my area to watch videos
> >on the net.
>
> My understanding is that this is really an argument between BT and
> other British ISPs about BT's pricing, since BT remains a de-facto
> monopoly for wholesale net access in the UK.
>
> Issues of monopoly power and what to do about it go back to the 19th
> century if not beyond.  It's certainly an important topic, but I don't
> see that it's one on which this group has any particularly deep
> insights.
>
> In this particular case, I'm surprised that the other ISPs don't make
> arrangements to mirror the Beeb's streaming content on their own
> networks.
>
> R's,
> John
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