> The RBOCs promised they would roll out fiber, FCC and PUCs promised they would enforce
There was never a quid pro quo: deregulation in return for fiber. We deregulated for the same reason everyone else in the western world did: to attract private investment. And we got that in spades—about $1.5 trillion since the 1996 Act. The Internet—the wires and fiber and switches—as we know it was built almost entirely with private money since 1996.
Saying we “gave” ISPs money because we stopped controlling the prices they could charge is extremely disingenuous.
Who is "we"? Why does the rest of "the western world" (does that include Korea?) have competitive markets of higher speeds and lower prices than we do? Perhaps because they wisely use structural remedies rather than simply trusting incumbent monopolies to keep their promises?
You have read Kushnick. He has whole chapters that are little more than quotes from PUC testimony, RBOC press releases, annual shareholder reports, etc. The quid was most definitely pro the quo. Now who is "disingenuous"?
The stated objective of the 1996 Act was to foster competition. We had about five years during which the first hints of actual competition started to appear, which have steadily disappeared since then. Much of the investment you laud was misinvestment: witness the perennially low returns to building out long-distance fiber throughout the 2000s. Witness the steady consumption of investor-financed firms by the Daughters Bell. In what other industry would it be judged a success that lots of people spent lots of money, but they were eventually driven out of business by the monopoly anyway?
We—the American government. The rest of the world doesn’t have higher speeds and lower prices than we do. We’re in the top 10 in Akamai’s ranking of highest average connection speed, beating all the big economically diverse European countries (Germany, France, UK, Spain, Italy). We’re very close to Sweden in terms of % of connections above 15 Mbps in the same Akamai ranking. Our broadband—which is deregulated—compares a hell of a lot better to those countries’ than say our government-run transit.
We’re also pretty comparable in price, at least in many places. In the nation’s capital, gigabit fiber is about $80/month, roughly what it costs in London and cheaper than what it costs in Stockholm. Apparently Amsterdam doesn’t have FTTH except in small pockets: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amsterdam/comments/6pv96m/gigabit_i.... The recommended ISP there, for people who can get it, is about the same for 500/500 as gigabit in DC. Where European countries tend to do better is price points for lower service tiers. In London Virgin offers 50/3 for $43/month. If I couldn’t get 50/50 for $40 via fiber, my closest option would be $75 for 75/10 with TV and HBO. These are not categorical differences.
Broadband deployment is largely managed at the local level, so it varies from city to city. Cities that make it cheap and easy to build (Austin, DC, Houston, Atlanta), have options pretty comparable to London, Munich, Paris, etc. Cities that put up roadblocks to development suffer for it.
There was never a quid pro quo: deregulation in return for fiber. We deregulated for the same reason everyone else in the western world did: to attract private investment. And we got that in spades—about $1.5 trillion since the 1996 Act. The Internet—the wires and fiber and switches—as we know it was built almost entirely with private money since 1996.
Saying we “gave” ISPs money because we stopped controlling the prices they could charge is extremely disingenuous.