said by Thane_Bitter:As bad as the US broadband policy is at least (in some areas) you do have competition going on. Up here one of our most populous provinces (Ontario) has a very stagnant market. The only competition between the major players is which one can charge the most while offering the least service.
Further more your FCC is somewhat proactive in setting policy (though heavily influenced by lobbing), our equivalent, the CRTC would rather not make policy at all and "let the market decide"; a market which basically consists of two players with different technology (cable vs. DSL). This is not surprising because the CRTC is a retirement home for former Telecom executives, several of which have worked for both companies in the past.
The US carriers would love the CRTC, caps, force wholesalers slower speeds, throttling, deceitful up to access speeds, double billing for bandwidth usage are all fine so long as the carriers claim they need it, proof is not required.
CRTC is much better than the FCC. Canada has GAS, which means anywhere you can get ILEC DSL you can get CLEC DSL, since the ILEC's DSLAMs are unbundled. In the USA, CLECs are forced to colocate equipment at the CO, which means only a small portion of the USA can get CLEC DSL since they must be within range of the CO, and have copper available all the way back to the CO (not Fiber in the loop).
