Unsurprisingly, the study found that Americans routinely pay significantly more for broadband than their European counterparts, get slower speeds, and are routinely nickled-and-dimed through a variety of sleazy, below-the-line surcharges:More than a dozen ISPs were found to charge company-imposed fees—also known as junk fees—under names such as “network enhancement fee,” “internet infrastructure fee,” “deregulated administration fee,” and “technology service fee.” They can surprise consumers when they appear on monthly bills, and can enable providers to raise prices without seeming to violate marketing or contractual price commitments.What you’ll find instead is a bunch of overly cautious, causation-free rhetoric about how we really should fix the “digital divide” or “homework gap.” And a bunch of policies where the primary approach involves throwing millions in additional subsidies at the same regional monopolies that have spent the last 35 years demolishing any competitive new upstart that enters the telecom sector.It’s highly localized, open access fiber networks built by municipalities, cooperatives, smaller local companies, and regional utilities (see our recent report on this very subject).Not only do our policymakers not acknowledge that this is the path forward, they very often can’t even acknowledge that telecom monopolies exist, making it kind of hard to fix the problem.Re:it’s so funny because even the Democratic Commissioners heralded as being pro-consumer can’t candidly acknowledge in public comments that telecom monopolies exist and cause harm."