Originally Posted by
JeffHCross
Not an intentional equivocation. More just an attempt to get to my point while failing to use accurate terminology for this discussion.
The problem with this thought, in my head, is that the telecom industry has shown, time and again, that initiative is lacking. Is it regulation that prevents two cable companies from both offering services in a single area? Or that prevents a company from offering broadband service further down the street than they currently do? I don't know about the former; maybe it is, I'm not aware enough about regulation to say either way (I know there are franchise agreements, but don't have knowledge of the connection between the two). But the latter, I can't imagine that's regulation that's the problem. When a company already provides X service to a house, and either takes forever to provide X&Y, or simply declines to provide Y, that sounds like a business decision to me. And I'm not sure if I believe that, even with a "free" market, that decision would be any different.
Also, regarding your overall concept of Google competing ... I agree that they could, but I'll be surprised if they decide they want to. Verizon had a chance to be a game-changer, IMO, with FiOS, and they stopped expanding it two years ago.