You concede that higher levels of regulation increase regulatory costs. But you assume that as long as you make all regulation equally burdensome, the market will somehow fix things. But you're ignoring the fact that capital is fluid, and will flow out of regulated industries like telecom into less regulated industries. You can't invoke the market then ignore basic aspects of how the market works.
Places in Europe are also much more willing to outright subsidize telecom investment: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-w... ("Sweden has built one of the fastest and most widely deployed broadband networks in Europe because its government granted tax breaks for infrastructure investments, directly subsidized rural deployment, and, perhaps most significantly, required state-owned municipal utilities to create local backbone networks, reducing the cost for the local telephone company to provide service.")
Please explain how all other utilities and common carriers are effective in the US and able to receive sufficient capital investment to provide reliable service?
Having a near-monopoly reduces risk significantly.
Uh, please read the methodology of the linked article. Those aren't direct tax subsidies. It's a made-up number based on effective tax rates below 35%. By your logic, the government is heavily subsidizing Apple & Google, which pay much less than the 35% rate.
> Please explain how all other utilities and common carriers are effective in the US and able to receive sufficient capital investment to provide reliable service?
The one-time ARRA money is for jobs programs. The money is distributed to municipalities, and may or may not be used to actually build broadband anywhere.
> Sweden didn't even put 1 billion in.
Sweden putting in $900 million is like the U.S. putting in $27 billion.
> Uh, please read the methodology of the linked article. Those aren't direct tax subsidies. It's a made-up number based on effective tax rates below 35%. By your logic, the government is heavily subsidizing Apple & Google, which pay much less than the 35% rate.
Fine, we'll use your definitions. That's cool.
> Sweden putting in $900 million is like the U.S. putting in $27 billion.
Exelon: ~2.5 billion net on ~55 billion assets
Comcast: ~6.8 billion net on ~158 billion assets
And like any other market, Exelon isn't having trouble turning a profit from regulation but is losing money due to its own fuckups for failing to accurately predict what forms of energy are cheapest:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-09/business/ct-ex...
I'm sorry, but we just have to agree to disagree. Or are you planning to change goalposts?
Under your definition, Apple received an $18 billion subsidy between 2009-2011. What did the public get in return for that subsidy? Is that a dumb question? Yes, because your definition of subsidy makes no sense.
USF is not a subsidy to the telecom industry, because it is funded by a tax on the industry. It just shifts money from certain telecom customers to others.
> And like any other market, Exelon isn't having trouble turning a profit from regulation
Excelon is a terrible example of utilities turning a profit, because it really isn't one. When the energy industry was deregulated, the regulated electric monopoly in Illinois, Commonwealth Edison, divested itself of its generation capacity. This entity became Excelon, and it is not regulated S a public utility the way ComEd is.
Places in Europe are also much more willing to outright subsidize telecom investment: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-w... ("Sweden has built one of the fastest and most widely deployed broadband networks in Europe because its government granted tax breaks for infrastructure investments, directly subsidized rural deployment, and, perhaps most significantly, required state-owned municipal utilities to create local backbone networks, reducing the cost for the local telephone company to provide service.")