[governance] [JNC - Forum] On the death of neo-liberalism

bzs at theworld.com bzs at theworld.com
Thu Jun 2 03:46:41 EDT 2016


We broke up the AT&T monopoly in the US and now, for example, 4
companies (Verizon, AT&T barely related other than in name, T-Mobile,
Sprint) account for probably 90+% of the smart phone market.

"The top 5 wireless telecommunications facilities-based service
providers by subscriber count in the United States are:

  Verizon Wireless: 141.4 million (Q1 2016)
  AT&T Mobility: 130.4 million (Q1 2016)
  T-Mobile US: 65.5 million (Q1 2016)
  Sprint Corporation: 58.8 million (Q1 2016)
  U.S. Cellular: 4.9 million (Q1 2016)"

  source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless_communications_service_providers

I include #5 to show how it's less than 10% of #4 and compared to the
top 4 taken together #5 accounts for 1% market share.

For last-mile internet most people have a choice of Verizon or whoever
their regional telco is, Comcast, or a very few others also mostly by
region, two maybe three per region, other than some tiny players
(Hughes Satellite anyone?)

I suppose one could argue that having two or three choices is better
than just one but it doesn't strike me as some grand victory of market
competition.

Here in Boston if I want more than fairly stodgy DSL, a few mb/s, my
choice is: One. Comcast. End of choices. Other than commercial service
running closer to US$1,000/month, entry.

The word oligopoly comes to mind, with regional monopolies.

There's a bit more competition in wired office buildings in business
districts tho not often within one wired office building. It gets
complicated due to reselling etc., you might have a contract with RCN
which is just renting and reselling fiber from Verizon, for example.

We can imagine some sort of competitive market and how wonderful it
would be but there isn't much in existence largely due to the capital
requirements of cable infrastructure, rights of way, cell tower
licensing, legacy, cross-subsidization, etc -- the same old
problems. And of course protective regulation.

Perhaps it's different in other countries but I'm not even sure what
the point of this discussion is. We might as well be talking about the
virtues of unicorn racing which likely would also benefit from more
than one unicorn in the race. Who's to argue?

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | bzs at TheWorld.com             | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD       | 800-THE-WRLD
The World: Since 1989  | A Public Information Utility | *oo*

-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t


More information about the Governance mailing list