Cities will sue FCC to stop $2B giveaway to wireless carrier
This article is off the reservation. 5G is the best hope for actual competition in broadband. By dramatically decreasing deployment costs (compared to wireline), it will enable several competing providers in places that have <i>de facto</i> monopolies today. Putting up red tape is not the way to go about fostering competition.<p>There are differing views on the appropriate level of regulation for uncompetitive markets and natural monopolies. But almost nobody sane would prefer a regulated market to an actually competitive one. Deregulation of industries like trucking, air freight, and airlines, where there are several competing providers, has proven to be a massively positive thing compared to how things were in the 1930s-1960s. 5G offers that possibility here--the possibility to abandon hairy questions about <i>how</i> to regulate because competitive obviates <i>the need</i> to regulate. Opposing that is madness.