What would it take to disrupt the oligopoly of limited carriers in the USA? I feel this type of behavior will continue with minimal repercussions. Maybe a slap on the wrist.

FCC, whether intentional or unintentional, through their controlled access to wireless spectrum has made it near impossible for smaller players to disrupt them.

I know "MVNOs" exist but they just resell the spectrum/network from the big 3 carriers in the USA.

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thfuran 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Infrastructure like this is pretty much the textbook example of natural monopoly. We just need to decouple the tower infrastructure from the consumer service providers. And, of course, have actual privacy protections.

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Spooky23 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Now that the president has king-like powers, a different governing coalition as the MAGA breaks up or we have some sort of conflict that resets some of the politics.

The government can break up the phone companies into regional carriers. The market doesn't have the power to do anything, as the government controls the spectrum allocation.

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tm0 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

EchoStar/DISH-owned Boost Mobile is the fourth carrier, cleaved off of Sprint by Ajit Pai and co during the T-Mobile/Sprint merger process; DISH now claims it is able to provide coverage to 70% of the population in the US.

The problem is EchoStar/DISH are saddled with debt and Boost still uses its agreements with AT&T to throw at least some customers on AT&T coverage instead of its own.

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jacquesm 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A very large amount of capital, a substantial fraction of which you will be wasting on lobbying and financing the parties that managed to get spectrum allocated before you thought of this.

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xyst 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

So next step is: breaking up the big 3, then.

If you have to lobby, then may as well attack them head on. Unfortunately, I think the current administration will _not_ help with this.

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xp84 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Don’t underestimate how cheap it actually is to buy politicians. A lot of Trump’s “big donors” who received billions of dollars worth of windfalls from his moves last term, were donors of a few million. Congress, too. Politicians are a very cheap investment compared to say, laying fiber covering a single metro area.

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Spooky23 a day ago | parent | next [-]

People don't realize this. At the State level, policy lobbying can yield concrete legislation for <$250k. For companies selling stuff, ~$60k/year gets you intros to civil service and some administration leadership.

In my city, I gave my local alderman $750 when he first ran. I have the guy's cell phone and the dude will fill potholes himself if I text him.

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Nextgrid 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Don’t underestimate how cheap it actually is to buy politicians

But if your idea becomes an extinction-level threat for a well-funded industry, surely they will also try to buy the politicians, getting into a bidding war with you, throwing their entire war-chest at the problem if necessary (knowing that thanks to their monopoly they have effectively forever to get it back).

	▲	xp84 a day ago \| parent [-]
		No dispute there, though sometimes the industry that could be negatively impacted by those bribes doesn't realize until it's too late. An example of this is "everyone who uses aluminum as a raw material for manufacturing" which is not an organized lobbyist group, which has been screwed over by tariffs during both Trump terms, despite being bigger in market cap and number of jobs impacted. Probably not the case with telecoms though -- they seem to have fully bought all the needed politicians already, so you're right on that front.

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scyzoryk_xyz 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

An "oh shit" moment where folks find themselves in a concentration camp because of data leaked from their devices would probably do the trick.

Now I don't actually have the knowledge but isn't something like the FCC partially there to ensure that this sector continues evolving in the same direction as any ol' utility?

Anyhow, I'm writing this from the EU where we actually have effective GDPR regulation. Fines for crossing that line are more than just wrist slaps. Outside of that somewhat similar on that oligopoly telecom front.

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Nextgrid 3 days ago | parent [-]

> effective GDPR regulation. Fines for crossing that line are more than just wrist slaps.

Yeah the GDPR is only effective on paper. In practice, the enforcement of it is near non-existent. It is and has always been more profitable to breach the GDPR than comply with it.

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scyzoryk_xyz 2 days ago | parent [-]

Please provide source on this. Profitable how? Always when? Enforcement nonexistent?

It's enough that the internal legal team keeps an eye on compliance to have had an enormous effect in itself.

I'm sorry but no. Every day I encounter something related to GDPR here in the EU. Companies big and small would not do all this if enforcement were "near non-existent"

	▲	Nextgrid 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Source: all those websites with annoying "cookie banners" where it's easier to accept than to decline. The GDPR does not approve of that (it should be as easy to consent as it is to decline, otherwise the consent is void for GDPR purposes). Not to mention a lot of them aren't even implemented properly and personal data is leaked to third parties before any consent is given. But everyone does it and keeps doing it (there's an entire ecosystem of those "consent management platforms" that include built-in features to breach it, including per-country variations so you can vary your non-compliance depending on the ferocity of that country's DPA and your risk-appetite). And this is just the tip of the iceberg - I've seen things inside organizations that are not compliant either, but there's no point even talking about those if even the basic and obvious things like online consent flows not being enforced. Here's a report from Noyb exposing the reality on the ground, quite a contrast with the tech-bros' fear-mongering: https://noyb.eu/en/data-protection-day-only-13-cases-eu-dpas...