From what I understand, you're mostly right. Although I don't know enough about Internet infrastructure to speak definitively on the topic, I believe it's hugely expensive to run fiber cable for any meaningful distance. Any new competitor would have to run their own cable lines, and this creates a pretty high barrier to entry. It'd be like running another power source or water pipe network to your house, which is why the concept of Internet as a utility makes sense. Another problem is that corporations either sue or lobby cities and states to prevent them from setting up municipal networks, in order to maintain their control of distribution. One major exception is Chattanooga, which built an excellent network and is now one of the fastest-growing cities in America. In many cases, cities can't do that due to lawsuits or regulations proposed by telecoms. So here we are, with crony capitalist regulations on one hand and other regulations to help offset their impact on another. Only now the offsetting regulations are gone.
believe it's hugely expensive to run fiber cable for any meaningful distance.
Yeah, I've seen that and it boils my blood. That's our money going to the telecoms to use on lobbyists to even further restrict our freedoms. I need a stiff drink.
Beyond any analysis of expenses or litigation, the real question is why is this the purview of the FCC? It shouldn't be. The FCC doesn't and ought not to make laws. Congress has decided that they'd rather not make laws on complicated topics, because it makes them look bad. We can change this by voting for people with a conscience.
Well, there is a bit of shorthand happening in this whole Net Neutrality debate. The FCC doesn't make laws. They make suggestions to Congress, who then enact the recommendations into law. The assumed outcome of any FCC regulation suggested by a Verizon shill who was appointed by Trump, and has been assisting in papering Congress' chambers with $100 bills from the ISP industry, is that Congress is bought-and-paid-for, and therefore any recommendations by the FCC will be rubber-stamped by Congress.
I'm not talking about how a bill becomes law; I'm talking about the functional role that rule and regulation making has taken over from actual legislation. Congress has collectively decided over the last several decades that they would rather delegate to the Executive branch than make hard choices. The FCC shouldn't be making choices about neutrality. Congress should. Three same can be said for all sorts of ways in which our lives are regulated. Citizens have close to no recourse for challenging regulations given the nature or Chevron deference. Our only recourse for challenging most law is via elections, and the FCC (and the whole alphabet soup) is only marginally responsive to election cycles. When Congress doesn't make choices, neither can we.