Los Angeles Times columnist: The #COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that it is time to treat high-speed Internet access as a utility. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-10-23/coronavirus-internet-is-a-utility [www latimes com]

He’s right, but we’ve failed to regulate existing utilities strenuously enough. Just changing the words on a form somewhere is not enough. We need tough and thorough oversight of “last mile” communication and information service providers (telephone, Internet), including geographical restrictions, restrictions on the kinds of businesses the same parent company can operate, restrictions on what services the carriers can directly offer (to prevent them misusing their privileged gateway positions cut off or interfere with services offered by competing entities.