This is the best, and most 'efficient', option.

LOL no, I haven't said anything close to being anything like this. I can't even imagine how you can imagine that I did.

This is the third best option. BTW, the same big business $$$ lined up against #1 is equally lined up behind #2.

This is functionally the same as #1, except that the city outsources the operation of their municipal network. In practice the city would put out for bid a monopoly franchise, but that franchise would be for a open-carrier network than any ISP, CATV,etc. can 'plug into' on even footing.

This is the second best option.

BTW, this was part of what happen during the infamous Cali electrical deregulation. The sound part (as far as it went). Transmission was separated from generation. For a while you could buy your electricity from multiple generating vendors. But regardless of who generated the electricity you bought, it was transmitted wholesale by a private monopoly, and transmitted retail by either a city without a franchisee (ex: LA, Sacto), or a monopoly franchisee (ex: PGE, SDG&E).

Enron, etc, gamed the flawed other parts, the 'market' and 'spot' parts, of the overall deregulation scheme.

Im for municipal/federal dollars for broadband rollout, particularly in rural areas, but you can't make a blanket statement that its the most efficient option in all cases.

The franchisee is usually responsible for building out the network. But they are re-reimbursed by the rate-payers on basically a cost-plus basis. The title is held by the city. In the case of a renewal/change of a mature fully-built out franchise, it is exactly a long term lease of the installed infrastructure.

It's going depend on exactly what you mean by 'efficient'. I'm talking in the sense an engineer uses the term. Not in the Econ sense, which effectively degenerates into maximizing privatized profit.

If you were starting with a 'blank slate', the most 'efficient' solution is open-access WiFi gear up on the poles, and no cable drops to most individual structures.

Well, duh? But that doesn't make any difference. It's like airlines charging a"fuel surcharge".

It might be common knowledge to you & me, but it's not commonly known in general how this shiz works. I just wanted to clarify that the shareholders weren't buying, and don't have an equity position, in the poles & gear hanging from the poles, etc. in the public R/W. Or in retail utility easements on private property, for that matter.

Bonds are sold with a ratepayer revenue stream earmarked to retire them... and that's the same when the city crews install the poles (ex: LA's DWP), or when the vendor crews install the poles (ex: SD's SDG&E).

I don't under this comment at all. Such surcharges aren't related to capital improvements, or equity positions.

OK, I think at this point ITT we got a consensus that, in general, monopolies on linear infrastructures are a 'bad thing'. To bring about this new, better, non-monopoly reality, implies several important things...

1. Significant portions of the profits that shareholders of these private companies, like Comcast, are derived from their monopolistic practices. New and additional governmental regulations are needed to, relatively speaking, "screw" these shareholders out of significant portions of their current profit streams.
   
   
2. Residential landlords need to continue to be "screwed" by governmental regulations out of their previous profit streams derived from enforcing a monopoly situation upon their tenants.
   
   
3. New and additional governmental regulations are needed to "screw" non-residential landlords just like residential customers are now "screwed".
   
   
4. New and additional governmental regulations are needed to prohibit the States, and their local jurisdictions, from putting monopoly franchises out to bid. This would have the effect of "screwing" these jurisdictions out of a significant revenue stream (almost always the largest non-tax revenue stream, and typically their third largest revenue stream behind sales and property taxes).
   
   
5. Taxes would necessarily need to be raised to replace the monopoly based revenue streams currently collected by the States, and their local jurisdictions.

Just to clarify: I'm 100% against these kinda monopolies too. In the limited context of working within the current US legal system... I'm 100% for these new and additional governmental regulations, and increased taxes (but I still won't vote).

I have a couple of side issues that I feel also need to be discussed... but before I do, are we ITT in fact largely in agreement with the above ??

http://bgr.com/2014/08/20/why-is-comcast-so-bad-15/

Yeah but if 20% of their evaluation relies on them upselling how does his statement seem plausible?

Not mad, just lol'ing at the ineptness of this company from soup to nuts.

You seem mad that I'm pointing this out. Do you work for them?

Yes I am in favor of screwing rent seekers out of their rents.

Its fine to laugh at, but on a 1-10 scale of offensiveness its like a 0.01 in an industry that posts a bunch of 9s and 10s.

1) yes
2) don't really care
3) no
4) maybe
5) maybe

Comcast shareholders get no love.

Care to elaborate here?

BTW I made a pretty bad typo in my #3 above. It should have read 'needed to "screw" non-residential landlords just like residential customers landlords are now "screwed"'.

The canonical example is a rental condo: There are three 'hops' standing between the switching centers and the end customer: (a) the franchisee or city, (b) the HOA, and (c) the landlord. The point here is if any one of these three 'hops' can impose a monopoly, the end user will be subject to this pernicious monopoly situation.

Why do you "don't really care" in the case of residences (including mom & pop's home), and say "no" in the case of non-residences (including mom & pop's business)?

Again, care to elaborate?

To clarify my #4 further, these new and addition governmental regulations would also have to prohibit local jurisdictions from implementing a monopoly directly, in addition to letting a monopoly franchise.

To quibble my #5, I was assuming in this point only we're talking about changes that are revenue neutral to the local jurisdictions. The goal of lowering the revenue base of local jurisdictions in general (and the fact prohibiting monopoly franchises does that in particular) is a whole different discussion than the nuts-n-bolts of implementing non-monopoly linear infrastructure.

Nobody answered this question, but I think it's important. And my answer is "maybe"

My points #1 to #5 are how to implement a non-monopoly situation... and they assume that is the consensus goal ITT. Well, it seems I was wrong, and we don't have a consensus that monopolies of this kind actually are a 'bad thing' (see below). So let's back up to that issue first. Would LetsGambool, or JayTeeMe, like to perhaps elaborate on a pro-monopoly stance ??

Unhappy Customer: Comcast Told My Employer About Complaint, Got Me Fired

Cable companies are an incredibly natural monopoly. They have intense up front capital costs and significant fixed costs after setup... and very few variable costs. In an unregulated environment it would make very little sense for any cable company to come in and build out a city with their own wires (and without regulation they would 100% have to build a new physical infrastructure... the owner of the existing wires would never allow an upstart to use their infrastructure for obvious reasons) to immediately enter a price war with a large competitor that is very well situated to insure that the ROI on their construction is negative.

Like nearly every business that has become a regulated government monopoly the natural state of affairs in the private sector would have been monopoly. This goes for power companies, cable companies, and water companies. Utilities all share the same natural monopoly situation... the government stepped in to regulate them because of the kind of abusive behavior that unregulated monopolies put onto people back in the days before they were regulated. For examples look up the common business practices of railroads around the turn of the 20th century. It was VERY bad for everyone who didn't actually own a railroad.

All of the natural monopoly stuff is pure bull****. Sorry man.

Lol ikes

Lol hue, this thread has gone over this. It's not a natural monopoly when the government subsidizes your costs and keeps your competition out

Yea it's been over a few times. The two times you and PVN tried to laugh Missiledog out of the threads he, for once, made a coherent and interesting arguments showing he actuality knew more about telecom markets than some Austrian cum Reason readers absurdly think they know.

throwing around a lot of industry jargon doesn't make dumb arguments suddenly correct.

The fact that government has done things which contribute towards the monopolization of the industry doesn't seem to contradict the reasons BoredSocial gave for there being also "natural" factors, i.e the high cost of entry.

Given the requirement of building infrastructure that physically has to cross both public and private property owned by a ton of different people, it wouldn't seem surprising that the monopolization ends up being both a matter of natural factors and regulation.

There are "natural" factors and plenty of high cost entry industries. Yet none of them manage to become "natural" monopolies without the "help" of the government. That ends that handwave wn. Monopolies in cable/internet providers is due to government regulation, not things like the high cost of entry.