The article mentions that, "France has four major mobile and internet operators and nine low-cost offshoots. Britain has more than 50." I'd appreciate if somebody could explain something here because that doesn't seem to make any economic sense. Let's assume that France/Britain have absolutely rigid and perfectly enforced net neutrality. That means internet service providers can compete only on price/speed as everything else is supposed to be otherwise identical. 13 different companies, let alone 50? How? Users would simply pick the company with the lowest price for their desired speed. And the cheapest service is going to tend to be the largest due to economies of scale. The end result is a natural trend towards monopolization when companies are allowed to only compete on price/speed.
I mean you might decide to pass on a "low-cost" alternative in most industries as there is often an implied "low-quality" qualifier attached. But with strong net neutrality, this is not supposed to be the case. They state a speed, they state a price. Everything else is identical. So what gives? I find it disappointing that the NYT did not even bother to even consider this obvious question since it seems to cut to the core of this issue!
I mean you might decide to pass on a "low-cost" alternative in most industries as there is often an implied "low-quality" qualifier attached. But with strong net neutrality, this is not supposed to be the case. They state a speed, they state a price. Everything else is identical. So what gives? I find it disappointing that the NYT did not even bother to even consider this obvious question since it seems to cut to the core of this issue!