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The Conservative Party election manifesto promises to "require BT and other infrastructure providers to allow the use of their assets to deliver superfast broadband across the country."  France and Germany similarly have requirements for unbundling, duct sharing, and dark fiber access that go far beyond what the "progressives" at the FCC are willing to require. France, Mexico, and Canada are limiting how much new spectrum the incumbents can control, which is already bringing down prices in Canada. 

    While unbundling is one path to competition, that's probably no longer effective in the high speed wireline side in most of the U.S. Britain and France years ago used unbundling to encourage competitors and each has four wired networks covering more than half the country. In the U.S. only measures much stronger than in Europe are likely to produce viable competition beyond two players across most of the country. I base that conclusion on the opinions of top wall street analysts that a major wireline network could  not be financed. I've asked John Hodulik of UBS, Simon Flannery of Morgan Stanley, Glen Campbell of Merrill Lynch and several others. None of them think the money will be available. So if the FCC wants to use competition as a major tool, they need to go much further.

To get results, there's probably no choice but direct government action.  So far, Julius is talking "affordable broadband" but prices are going up. (Wireless is more complicated, although the most common opinion is that AT&T/Verizon will continue pulling away for everyone else. 300 megahertz of new spectrum may or may not be enough to make a difference.

     The conservatives make the unlikely claim "Establishing a superfast broadband network throughout the UK could generate 600,000 additional jobs and add £18 billion to Britain’s GDP." Figures like that are based on badly out of date "studies" mostly bought and paid for by the carriers looking for government favors. When independent economists like Shane Greenstein look at the data huge claims fall apart. I wish it were so easy to improve the economy.