Further regulation might make it, more, difficult for new companies to jump into the industry. It's quite backwards as-is, but I don't see how more laws/regulation will improve things because most of the larger ISPs will just have a way to have loopholes in place to get around most of it.

This is such a meaningless argument. Do you even know what a "free market" is?

So we should rely on these "corrupt" politicians to fix this for us? My point was that the more consumers know/understand, the more pressure there will be to fix this, as well as innovation to combat it.

This is such a meaningless argument. Do you even know what a "free market" is? Have you even read an Econ 101 book?

What part of broadband has *no barriers to entry*, *perfect competition*, *near zero profit margins*, etc. etc.? It's a natural monopoly.

Education has nothing to do with this. You're using such a bizarre excuse to blame consumers for being stuck with a duopoly- cable or DSL.

Line-sharing has been shown to be the most effective regulation for spurring competition, capex growth, and lowering prices. The FCC's own commissioned study from Harvard's Berkman Center concluded line-sharing was the most effective tactic for the National Broadband Plan's goals.

The science says line-sharing is the best solution.

We would have much better results if consumers had a way to be educated properly. That's my theory on improving things.

Further regulation might make it, more, difficult for new companies to jump into the industry. It's quite backwards as-is, but I don't see how more laws/regulation will improve things because most of the larger ISPs will just have a way to have loopholes in place to get around most of it.

Consumers, as they are educated on what they are paying for, will be able to voice their opinion properly, which will help push for changes in the way service is managed.

I really don't see it any other way. I only say this because I have watched consumers be blindly mislead, when they easily could have prevented a provider from earning the business if they had asked the right questions and done the needed due diligence. It's amazing how many things become overlooked in this industry.

Educate the consumers, have them hold the companies accountable for their actions. The consumers are the ones paying them after all. Free market works, but only when the consumers know what's truly acceptable.

Why do you think companies take advantage of everyone? Because no one knows what's even going on. I'm not talking about the people on this site, we all know the opinions here, but if you honestly took a look at the majority of broadband consumers, you'd be surprised how little knowledge is there.

Don't you think consumers would have a larger impact if more of them understood how the service even worked?

This is how things got so screwed up to begin with. I've been watching companies taking advantage of people, and not because of regulations/laws/franchises/etc, but because they blindly allowed a provider to provide them crappy service.

Allow consumers to set a higher standard. Most people don't seem to even care because they don't truly understand it. Obviously on this site consumers have a better idea, but that's not the case with 99.99% of consumers outside of this site.

The solution is not to "regulate the hell out of everything" but do some/ANY regulation of these monopolies/duopolies that are monuments of corruption targeted toward the government entities that should do their job and are not doing it.

Punish the corps that ruthlessly find loopholes, close the loopholes. THAT is the government's job, not wait around and rubber stamp corps' written "laws" while waiting for their next job WITH the corps they were supposed to regulate in the first place.

Why not abolish also the EPA, FDA and all the citizen protecting agencies ? Abolish police, let the consumer do the "due diligence" about everything (poisoned water and food, have their own guns to protect against crime, drive half tracks on broken roads) since the government really should do nothing except collect taxes and use the money for wars to enrich the rich corporations even more.

"Educate" the consumer ? On what, how to get raped ? "Free market works" ? Really ? Where, in the world of regulatory capture ? How can the consumer "keep the companies accountable" when the consumer is screwed by binding arbitration and the government is NOT doing its job to punish monopolies and collusion agreements ?

Why do you think companies take advantage of everyone?

We would have much better results if consumers had a way to be educated properly. That's my theory on improving things.

Further regulation might make it, more, difficult for new companies to jump into the industry. It's quite backwards as-is, but I don't see how more laws/regulation will improve things because most of the larger ISPs will just have a way to have loopholes in place to get around most of it.

Consumers, as they are educated on what they are paying for, will be able to voice their opinion properly, which will help push for changes in the way service is managed.

I really don't see it any other way. I only say this because I have watched consumers be blindly mislead, when they easily could have prevented a provider from earning the business if they had asked the right questions and done the needed due diligence. It's amazing how many things become overlooked in this industry.

Educate the consumers, have them hold the companies accountable for their actions. The consumers are the ones paying them after all. Free market works, but only when the consumers know what's truly acceptable.