In my small island community, I participated in a municipal committee whose mandate was to bring proper broadband to the island. Although two telecom duopolies already served the community, one of them had undersea fiber but zero fiber to the home (DSL remains the only option), whereas the other used a 670 Mbps wireless microwave link for backhaul and delivery via coaxial cable. And pricing? Insanely expensive for either terrible option.

Our little committee investigated all manner of options, including bringing municipal fiber across alongside a new undersea electricity cable that the power company was installing anyway. I spoke to the manager of that project and he said there was no real barrier to adding a few strands of fiber, since the undersea high voltage line already had space for it (for the power company’s own signaling).

Sadly, the municipality didn’t have any capital to invest a penny into that fiber, so one day, one of the municipal counselors just called up a friend who worked for a fiber laying company and asked them for a favor: put out a press release saying that they were “investigating” laying an undersea fiber to power a municipal fiber network on the little island.

A few weeks later, the cable monopoly engaged a cable ship and began laying their own fiber. Competition works, folks. Even if you have to fake it.

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bestouff 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No it doesn't, and you just proved it. You managed it because you could fake you had leverage. But without that you were slaves of theses companies, and that's the general rule.

	▲	littlestymaar 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This. Businesses aren't usually “competiting” in the way microeconomics think they do. Every business owner knows that a race to the bottom with other businesses in their market is going to ruin each other's life and they don't usually engage in this kind of practice (with the notable exception of people with lots of capital to wipe the competition out of the market then do a rug pull after the fact). The goal of a business is never to capture their competitors market share, it's to make a decent profit at the end of the year so that their shareholders (or themselves, depending on the size and ownership structure) get the revenue they expect.

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joe_the_user an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It seems incorrect to call this competition.

I'm glad you got your broadband but what happened sounds much more like American politics than ordinary market processes. And in this political environment, corporations can engage in a variety of other tactics than placating a squeaky wheel - they can outlaw competition, buy off officials, pay for shrill media hit pieces and so-forth.