What I want to know is why you have regulatory bodies pounce down on major corporations merging together because they will become a monopoly and therefore would be anti-competitive. But your telco's/cable providers etc can monopolize areas freely and then do bullshit like this story?
As for investing in a running their own lines, why couldn't they provide wholesale service to other ISPs. I guess they aren't required too, so why should they, when they don't have to compete.
Here in Australia we recently had Telstra split into Wholesale and Retail for this exact purpose. So that the wholesale arm can provide access to Telstras backhaul infrastructure to ISPs without price gouging to make Telstras retail plans look like good options. So its win win.
Well, except for Telstra, who now have to play on a level field with the rest of them.
