The main reason it's "easy" in France (and UK, and other places) is that the big name's network are required by law to let you use the end point. That exists in the US on the phone lines (legacy telephone regulations). But not on anything else (no cable or fiber).
The regulations are on the books, and through the mid-2000s UNE-P was a somewhat-viable business model. However, the ILECs figured out that they can sabotage the fulfillment process with no repercussions. When your new customers can't get their service actually started, and the only thing you can tell them is "Verizon is being mean to us", you're not long for the business. That's why the only remaining CLECs are "facilities-based", i.e. they don't use the UNE-P program.
This is why I'm not so hopeful for a similar program on the data side. I've seen the kind of bullshit the incumbents pull, and I greatly doubt the FCC will ever prevent that. I don't think investors are dumb enough to fall for the 1996 bait-and-switch again, so any effective program like this would have to include strong structural protections for competitive ISPs. My understanding is that the most effective such programs in Europe have done that, e.g. forbidding the network owner from selling to retail customers.
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The main reason it's "easy" in France (and UK, and other places) is that the big name's network are required by law to let you use the end point. That exists in the US on the phone lines (legacy telephone regulations). But not on anything else (no cable or fiber).
The regulations are on the books, and through the mid-2000s UNE-P was a somewhat-viable business model. However, the ILECs figured out that they can sabotage the fulfillment process with no repercussions. When your new customers can't get their service actually started, and the only thing you can tell them is "Verizon is being mean to us", you're not long for the business. That's why the only remaining CLECs are "facilities-based", i.e. they don't use the UNE-P program.
This is why I'm not so hopeful for a similar program on the data side. I've seen the kind of bullshit the incumbents pull, and I greatly doubt the FCC will ever prevent that. I don't think investors are dumb enough to fall for the 1996 bait-and-switch again, so any effective program like this would have to include strong structural protections for competitive ISPs. My understanding is that the most effective such programs in Europe have done that, e.g. forbidding the network owner from selling to retail customers.
Yes, that's very true.
Sabotaging fulfillment is yet another problem in re-using lines, which is another reason folks aren't in a rush to reuse lines in the US.