Natural monopoly of telecom infrastructure fosters "capitalism without competition"

Biden added, “Let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation. Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want and treat you however they want. And for too many Americans that means accepting a bad deal for things you can’t go without. So, we know we’ve got a problem, a major problem. But we also have an incredible opportunity.”

https://gizmodo.com/heres-whats-in-joe-bidens-sweeping-executive-order-on-c-1847262645

The problem is not all segments of the economy are competitive markets, defined as those having many sellers as well as many buyers with both sellers and buyers having relatively equal access to information on cost and quality. Telecommunications infrastructure because of its high costs of competitor entry, protracted return on investment and first mover advantage is one of those. It functions as a natural monopoly like other utilities. 

Many wish it to be a competitive market and offer more choices and lower costs. But that's unrealistic, wishful thinking. A presidential executive order cannot change the underlying economic structure. It won't end rent seeking market conduct by investor owned providers that tends to arise in natural monopolies -- capitalism without competition.

This is why fiber to the premise infrastructure owned by entities under less pressure to generate profits is needed as a public option since market forces cannot ensure it reaches every American doorstep at affordable costs -- a component of the Biden administration's proposed American Jobs Plan.  

Public option advanced telecommunications infrastructure is NOT market competition

This piece by Bloomberg Law repeats the common misconception that advanced telecommunications infrastructure owned by nonprofit consumer cooperatives and public sector entities equates to market competition with incumbent investor-owned providers. 

It’s wrong on two counts. First, advanced telecommunications infrastructure is by definition not a competitive market in which many sellers compete for the business of many buyers. It’s a natural monopoly because high-cost barriers to entry and first mover advantage keep out would be competitors.

Second, consumer cooperatives and public sector providers aren’t formed to gain market share from other sellers. They are created in response to sell side market failure because in a natural monopoly, there isn’t sufficient incentive for multiple sellers to enter the market and compete. That leaves buyers without options and at the mercy of monopoly providers. Government and cooperative owned networks are formed to provide a public option to remedy private market failure.

Why is properly framing government and consumer cooperative owned networks important? It’s very important from a public policy and regulatory perspective. Incumbent providers complain public option providers constitute “unfair competition” because they don’t have to reward investors and enjoy income tax exemptions. The playing field isn’t level, they complain. But it was never a level competitive playing field in the first place, rendering the incumbents’ position moot.

Distinguishing between edge content provider market power and natural monopoly of telecom distribution infrastructure

The Tech Antitrust Problem No One Is Talking About | WIRED: 

After years of building political pressure for antitrust scrutiny of major tech companies, this month Congress and the US government delivered. The House Antitrust Subcommittee released a report accusing Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook of monopolistic behavior. The Department of Justice filed a complaint against Google alleging the company prevents consumers from sampling other search engines. The new fervor for tech antitrust has so far overlooked an equally obvious target: US broadband providers. “If you want to talk about a history of using gatekeeper power to harm competitors, there are few better examples,” says Gigi Sohn, a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy.

When it comes to antitrust, it's important to distinguish between FAANG edge content providers and commercially owned and operated advanced telecommunications infrastructure. The major difference is the former isn't a natural monopoly. However, landline telecom infrastructure that connects to customer premises functions as a natural monopoly due to high capital cost barriers and long duration return on investment that tends to keep would be competitors out. Moreover, competition among multiple sellers isn't economically rational as Investopedia describes:

Multiple utility companies wouldn't be feasible since there would need to be multiple distribution networks such as sewer lines, electricity poles, and water pipes for each competitor. Since it's economically sensible to have utilities operate as natural monopolies, governments allow them to exist. However, the industry is heavily regulated to ensure that consumers get fair pricing and proper services.

In other words, competitive market forces cannot function to ensure access and value in a natural monopoly market. Both are frequently missing in advanced telecom distribution infrastructure, with uneven access due to sell side market failure.  

Antitrust assumes competition is possible and thus is intended to check a seller from attaining too much market power and promote competition. But it's an impossible undertaking in natural monopoly market like advanced telecom distribution infrastructure where competitive market forces don't come into play.

A "free market ethos" does not apply to advanced telecom infrastructure

Online school forces America to confront the digital divide: What went wrong over the years? How did the birthplace of the internet become a nation where broadband is unavailable to large chunks of the population, keeping students from taking part fully in modern education and their parents from taking advantage of the modern economy? Big investments have been made in the internet in the U.S., but not uniformly or with an eye to expanding connectivity as far as possible. It’s not a task that private industry cares to take on, nor is it one that the public sector can solve on its own—not in a country with such a strident free-market ethos. (Emphasis added)

This is a false dichotomy. Advanced telecommunications infrastructure tends toward natural monopoly and not a robust competitive market. As much as some would like it to be, high cost barriers to entry and first mover advantage don't permit that to be the case.

FCC head Ajit Pai grossly mischaracterizes telecom infrastructure as competitive market

Pai Explains Commission's Coronavirus Philosophy - Radio World: But I also think that the market creates powerful incentives for companies to do the right thing. If your company doesn’t step up for you, or even worse, engages in bad behavior, consumers will be much more likely to turn to the competition in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

Pai's right. But only when it comes to competitive markets. Telecommunications infrastructure isn't one due to high cost barriers that keep out potential competitors and first mover (incumbent) advantage that make it a natural monopoly or duopoly. It's simply not economic to have multiple lines running to a home to deliver Internet protocol-based telecommunications services.

I’d also argue that the general regulatory approach that we have in the United States have applied to the broadband marketplace gave us much stronger infrastructure in the first place, as it gave companies the incentives to invest in resilient, robust networks that could withstand unprecedented consumer demands. (Emphasis added)

This requires some explaining on Pai's part. With competitive market forces absent and no regulatory requirement to meet market demand by requiring they provide fiber connections to homes asking for them, legacy telephone companies lack incentive to invest in replacing their decades old copper lines with fiber. Only fiber to the premise #FTTP can assuredly support "resilient, robust networks that could withstand unprecedented consumer demands."

Why "broadband competition" is a misnomer

Tell The Story We Know: Broadband Competition is Too Limited | Benton Institute for Broadband & Society: This is a familiar story, known to the members of CLIC but not given sufficient attention generally. The Benton Institute’s “Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s” calls for an ambitious goal. That every person in America have the ability to use High-Performance Broadband by the end of this decade. To achieve that goal requires success in each of four building blocks: more deployment, greater competition, emphasis on affordability and adoption, and empowerment of community institutions. The competition story needs to be told: We can expect people with only one choice to pay monopoly prices, and people with only two choices to pay the higher prices typically charged by duopolies. People with three or more choices typically pay less. Clearly, people who can barely afford to pay a competitive price, say, low-income Americans, are particularly vulnerable to artificially high prices.

Problem with reliance on competition is telecom infrastructure naturally tends toward monopoly. It favors first mover incumbents and high cost barriers make it impractical for a competitive market to exist. All providers face high labor costs for deploying infrastructure, giving none a cost advantage such that it could drive another out of business with ultra low pricing or serve a larger customer base.

That naturally high concentration and few providers also means buy side market forces cannot hold down prices over the long run. Providers know end users have little or no real choice to vote with their wallets and go with another. Particularly in the U.S. where large investor owned corporations own both the infrastructure and the services provided over it, making the equivalent of an electronic toll gate. Pay the toll or you don't pass.

It also makes little sense to have multiple premise fiber connections from different vendors. We don't have that for electric power connections for the same reason: it's economically inefficient and impractical. One fiber connection will do just fine now and for the foreseeable. Preferably publicly or consumer cooperatively owned open access fiber.