Telecomm Price Pressure was Announce The Vintage Computer Forum 1109

Well, yes and no. You are mixing together two different parts here.

The core of every network are the fiberoptic cables, mostly financed during the dotcom boom. Less than a pecent of available capacity on these are in actual use. There is a huge buyer's market on core capacity all over the developed world.

The critical portion is what Phone People call the "last mile", and the internet folks call the "first mile"; the connection from the property where the end-user is staying to the nearest concentration point.

This is where monopoly issues raise their ugly heads. Especially in the US this has stalled the Internet buildout. This is a real issue; expect the access to telecommunications to enter into the equation together with plumbing, sewage and electricity when setting the market price on real estate.

Actually, the poles are pretty monopolised by the incumbents, but the towers have a real market in antenna space.

There are lots of options to bypbutt the incumbents on this "first-last" mile. Inside buildings you can build using commoditiy switches and cabling at costs way below what the phone co charges. Again, the Internet model of do-it-yourself locally.

WiFi is about DIY monopoly bypbutt.

Not really. A lot is DIY. A lot of old phone style infrastructure is either going to be disused or used to provide IP. Just like the US rail network where the fiberoptic cables are now far more important than the trains.

-- mrr