Episode Details

What if the government owned every fiber line and cell tower, and every carrier simply rented space on the state's pipes? This week we dig into a listener's provocative proposal to centralize physical telecom infrastructure while keeping the retail market fully competitive. We trace the idea back to its real name — open-access networks — and examine the three-layer model that forbids the infrastructure owner from selling services at all. From Israel's regulated unbundling to New Zealand's structural split of Telecom into Chorus and Spark, we explore whether centralizing the physical layer actually delivers the fairer, cheaper competition it promises — and why the free-market alternative in Australia ended in what one minister called renationalization. Episode #316618 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/316618