The cabling is a natural monopoly. Who is allowed to service you over it is not. Thats why many countries have some degree of unbundling of service and provision of wires, eg I can get many providers of ADSL here over the same phone lines that are owned by a monopoly provider. Alas not for fibre though yet (UK).
Why would Verizon want to spend 10 million wiring up your neighborhood and potentially not get you as a customer in an area where Comcast has already spent 10 million to do so? Also why should Comcast be forced to let competitors use their infrastructure they've spent massive amounts of money on building and maintaining?
Little bit from my sibling response and a little bit more from the fact that they drained the ratepayers, government (through tax credits and accelerated depreciation), and the USF to the tune of $200 billion to provide universal broadband access (which they didn't do.)
We paid for the network, anybody selling transit across it should be able to use it.
If service is provided over Verizon or Comcast lines, they would still get paid for that. If they provide internet over their lines, they would get paid more. (Unless they operate their wholesale system like AT&T did, with wholesale access prices above retail prices including internet... grumble)
Not really. The unbundling is restricted (you have to use BT equipment) and there is no price cap that BT can charge. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/02/bt_fibre_eu/ from the time. Eventually we will get full LLU. Ofcom does claim http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2013/04/25/uk-broadband-competitio... there are 80 providers of fibre, but the terms are not attractive that I can find. I dont mind paying a bit more for non BT but not if its capped and has the same congestion as BT as its on their equipment...
