Re:free lunch (Score 1)

"Competition, not private ownership, is what provides the benefits found in modern economies." Not entirely. Competition is "king" when variety and rapid evolution is the desired outcome. Standardization is "king" when ubiquity and rapid adoption is the desired outcome. Hamburgers and cars work well in a competitive environment. Communications work best in a standardized environment. After working in the telecom industry for 6 years, my humble suggestions are: -- The CRTC and FCC need to become Open Standards organizations that create access loop and throughput standards - eg. Generation 1 - 56K, G2 - 1.5MB, etc. (of course with more detail). -- The wire centers (central offices) need to be divested to the local municipalities to be run as non-profit access sites available to all ISPs, Phone & TV providers. -- The access loops need to be divested to the home/building owners. eg. You own a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house with G2 communications. -- Independent, private contractors can contact house owners to upgrade their infrastructure - eg. from G2 to G3 for $12K. They can recoup the cost in the price of the house when it is sold as the house owner "owns" the communications infrastructure to the public wire center. -- The communications providers will have access to all the customer loops in a wire center and can offer different services depending the generation of the access loops. Anyway, the point of all of this is that competition is not always the answer. You need to have standardization first.