Then you go out and vote. The absence of true competition is because the average Joe isn't quite clued into the underlying problem of why things are slow. I suspect this is Google's way of raising awareness.

It's not that simple. Comcast/Time Warner are monopolies in their area because we tax payers subsidized the laying of the lines. Verizon tried to expand FIOS to compete and took huge losses. My wife works for a fiber company, and seeing the numbers, it's basically impossible to make the investment worth it unsubsidized at at a price competitive with Comcast.

Agreed that fixing the root problem isn't simple. But citizens being pissed off en masse about their internet connectivity is a necessary precondition to any real change, and Google certainly seems to be trying to fan those flames.

Interestingly, this also puts ISPs at a severe disadvantage for ratings if they decide to do net neutrality violating throttling on youtube or netflix. I hope every bandwidth-heavy service starts publishing reports like this

Or, even better, a neutral 3rd party that reports throttling for many services/domains.

Like the FCC?

If you have the largest online advertising and marketing company in the world telling everyone that an ISP sucks... well, then guess what the ISP will do?

Either nothing, or lose customers.

In the absense of meaningful competition, they'll likely just laugh. Still, it's good to have someone call them out.

Which suggests that it would be in Google's interest to start fostering some competition.

Hrm....

They've been playing with that in the fiber-to-home space. But running cable is expensive.

I'm familiar with some wireless Internet providers in a few markets. The cool thing is that they can poach high-value, high-concentration subscribers first. Since the model is based on transmitters, typically rooftop installations, and the like, if they can hop onto a building, run Cat-6 throughout, and plug it in, they've got the whole building, plus can run local connections throughout the neighborhood, and beam line-of-site to other tall points. It's a pretty cool gig.

Thinking maybe you set that up in a few major markets as a competition play.

Well, if I were in the ISP business and looking to expand, areas with poorly rated ISPs would be interesting.

At least you will know whos fault it is and direct your hate when the posibility arises, (new videosite or new isp).

Frontier mysteriously got better after the FCC publicly shamed them, although it could have been a coincidence.