Why is USA so dependent on a small amount of ISP's?

[Redtiger]

Hi,

Maybe this was already said but help me understand something....

In Europe, I can build my own company and buy a big bandwidth from a major ISP.

I can share by selling that bandwidth with whomever, of course I must build my own infrastructure (From the place of practice/company work point to the end user) and figure out all legal parts (Pay taxes, licences and authorisation, contracts with end-users etc....as any other company).

 

But that is what a lot of micro-companies are doing here, and this is happening in most countries inside Europe.

The difference is, when you buy a bulk package with a huge bandwidth and share it with let's say 200 users, putting down an infrastructure, you gain competition and you lower the costs!

And YES, you can make a profit! I have friends which started with 3-4 users inside their apartment blocks, extended to 250+ users in matter of a few months.

These companies are extending more and more, some of them become major players and have their own national infrastructure and international pairing with other major IPS'...

 

Why is this not an option in USA, Canda, Australia...?

 

[Not bragging, just comparing!] The last time I've checked, my country was 2nd place world wide on Internet speed... and we are not "all rich people" here, in fact we are far from that.. for a 1000Mbps connection you pay something like 18 Dollars (13.5 Euro).

And all this is possible only because.... well, if the price and quality is not right I have SOOO MANY options! The ISP's are forced to bring down the prices and to ensure quality in order to survive.

 

Equipment is lower in Price here?

NO! EU is known to have higher prices on electronics than USA, if a company as Digi Net (RCS&RDS) can have millions of users and sustain gigabyte connections to each end-user... the Equipment is, well at least professional and as expansive (Or even more because of added taxes) as what ISP's are using in USA.

 

So what is the reason?

Is taking authorisations more difficult in those parts of the world?

Is it so much more expansive?

Are people not likely to move to an unknown (Starter) company?

 

I see all this complains about net neutrality which I understand and empathised with, I am doing my best to help (Virtually) in any way I can, but I do not understand how come it got to this point?

How is a company able to change the rules of a game they are playing just to be sure they will be the winners.

The price for maintaining an already constructed infrastructure is not like adding fuel to an engine. Internet consumes nothing but electric power and of course, maintaining the current infrastructure (Because we cannot speak about Upgrades as long as the internet speeds remain the same since years or even got worse, and as we speak about a few ISP's i do not think the number of new subscribers is a concern for upgrading the network, from the looks of it, they are only raising the price/connection speed because the users do not have where to migrate to...)

 

This is more a question for my own knowledge and those interested, i really want to know how the system works over there.

In Europe we consume a lot of tech content created by you, the people from USA/Canda and Australia. I always her complains on this matter.

 

I remember the time when in my country there were two major Phone companies, Vodafone and Orange (Big players inside the EU).

They charged prices like 7c / min after 18:00 until 06:00am and something like 30c/min the rest of the time... All this until a new company come into the market and said "Fuck all of you, buy our pre-paid cards and with 3 Dollars / month you can speak 5000 Free Minutes inside our network without a contract, just recharge the pre-paid card once a month with 3 Dollars".

Well, since then Vodafone and Orange totally change their policy after they lost millions of users. Now we literally speak for free....It's an insignificant amount of money for thousands of National minutes (On all networks).

Imagine if they now still MAKE a profit, how much money they were making before?

 

 

 

[Norman_the_Owl]

Monopoly. It's hard to be a startup with people like verizon

 

Edit: greed would be a better explanation

[DavidTheWin]

Money behind the scenes

[mr.skyrim_pc]

Because its a monopoly. There is no way a new ISP could gain any ground.

[Bensemus]

Greed and a population that doesn't care or feels like they can't do anything.

[Guest]

Replace ISP with

Food manufacturers

Oil companies

Carriers

Corporations owning restaraunts

Stores

And it's all the same answer: someone is making too much money to allow more players in their space.

[Deletive]

Verizon is allowed to piggyback on our  4G networks in canada.

Canada can have the infrastructure to expand to higher speeds but we don't; We also have smaller companies and I think we have competition laws to allow smaller companies to piggy back but I guess some of the other companies find loopholes.

[1823alex]

Money under the table and Monopolies more like Oligopolies sometimes but look at this video below, it's mostly comedy but makes a lot of sense.

[TheSLSAMG]

Because its a monopoly. There is no way a new ISP could gain any ground.

Monopoly is the wrong word. A monopoly is dependent on there being but a single party for service, but there are a handful of major contenders in the US.

[Mooshi]

I could go into a long rant that Logan would be proud of, but it boils down to one thing, lobbyists.

[thekeemo]

Monopoly is the wrong word. A monopoly is dependent on there being but a single party for service, but there are a handful of major contenders in the US.

check above video

[WinNut]

greed and monopoly

[TheSLSAMG]

check above video

Which is why I said it's the wrong word. It's an oligarchy, as it involves multiple parties.

[cae]

Start ups would be drowned in infrastructure permitting alone. That exists through lobbying and all sorts of shady politics.

 

I think most people would enjoy Google Fiber service, but its expansion has been selective and slow. If it were profitable and feasible, I think Google of all companies would have jumped all over it. That tells me just how bad the situation is.

[Imabigmac]

I have no clue what roadblocks there are if you wanted to make a small start up like the ones you described here in Canada, I haven't done nor have i looked into so really this section is just guessing and my assumptions. However The small internet providers that do show up are often squeezed by the larger companies whether it be that they can't match price, incentives or just can't enough users because they are overshadow by again larger companies marketing campaigns. And if you take the largest ISPs in Canada and look at them they aren't just Internet providers but cable providers, Telephone and cellphone carriers at the same and so they often do really good bundle deals. 

 

Also the large companies fear that a smaller company may impede on its territory and because the infrastructure isn't public the smaller guy may not be allowed to use certain pieces of the current infrastructure. Here's an example that really did happen. A cable and telephone line was put in to connect a new public building. The operators of the new building paid money to SHAW (isp/cable in western Canada) But it turned out that the line the building was connected to was owned by Telus and so Shaw had to raise the fee for the new buildings operators in order to offset the added cost of paying Telus to use their lines. 

[CatCloud]

Monopoly is the wrong word. A monopoly is dependent on there being but a single party for service, but there are a handful of major contenders in the US.

offtopic: Hmm, is that afro of yours growing or is that the same picture you have used forever? I swear it was shorter but the expression and position is the same...... Hmmmm...

[JaeDee884]

In Australia most of our internet is Telstra, Telstra started out as a Government controlled business, so Australia was pretty open, then the government decided to sell it, and foolishly decided to sell the infrastructure with the business side.

Currently australia is (attempting) to develop a government run internet again with the NBN but its been bastardised and cut down from the original plan (wifi towers and Fibre to a fibre/copper combo and australia uses a lower gauge copper to the rest of the world.)

[TheSLSAMG]

offtopic: Hmm, is that afro of yours growing or is that the same picture you have used forever? I swear it was shorter but the expression and position is the same...... Hmmmm...

Nope, the same pic as I have used in the past

[handymanshandle]

It all comes down to money and control.

You see in the US we have this sort of thing called Crony Capitalism and a population that is rather discerned about how businesses can run and are ran.

Our politics are essentially businessmen in disguise. I mean seriously Republicans and Democrats here both are guilty of taking monetary gifts from businesses and businesses being able to spend astronomical amounts of money to try to get a politician in their back pocket. 

If I could move to any country it would be a toss up of either France, Sweden or Canada (Montreal though because if I leave the US I don't want to go to an English speaking place.)

[BurgerBum]

america big.

lay more infrastructer hard.

big money with isp.

low education=low 

low education mean isp can bullshit 70% of murica.

70% doesnt know just how bad it is.

30% outraged.

i am smurt.

[BurgerBum]

america big.

lay more infrastructer hard.

big money with isp.

low education=low 

low education mean isp can bullshit 70% of murica.

70% doesnt know just how bad it is.

30% outraged.

i am smurt.

holy shit i got more than one like on a post.

[Guest]

Long story short: Antitrust laws are failing because large corporations (which benefit from being large) are able to bend the will of the government enough to maneuver around aforementioned antitrust laws.

[felixbearpig]

Damn lobbyist

[Gofspar]

Price can also be determined by piering lines, for example PhoenixNAP is right next to me, so I can get discounted prices from Cogent, where as in UK you have LINX, so you get cheaper prices because you have all of your piers rather close.

 

I don't know if Im correct, just a guess.

[mr.skyrim_pc]

Monopoly is the wrong word. A monopoly is dependent on there being but a single party for service, but there are a handful of major contenders in the US.

Yeah I didnt know what word to put.