> how involved are cantons in telecom regulation, access issues (back haul) etc.?
They aren't. I also wouldn't compare a Swiss canton to a US state - Switzerland in total is about as large and about as populated as an average US state - which is true for most
many European contries. So IMO it's a better comparison to just look at Europe as a whole and you'll probably find much more regulatory grind for the carriers. And yes, of the three Swiss carriers only one is domestic only, so the others deal with this vast landscape of regulations just fine.
So to conclude I don't see how regulations are the problem - the US with a more centralistic system than Europe as a whole should do better there. My suspicion is that because the US regulations can be influenced at the federal level, it's just much easier for Big Corp. to pour lots of money into lobbying to get their way. In European countries you (a) don't get as much ROI and (b) the political system doesn't lend itself as much to it because there is a more diverse party landscape in almost all European nations, so you would have to deal with more people to get a majority. This is why I think that the US needs two things politically:
1) a switch to a more proportional election system in order to break gerrymandering and the two-party system.
2) decentralisation for industry regulations.
Both these would lead to more difficult lobbying and it has better political representation as a nice 'side effect'.
They aren't. I also wouldn't compare a Swiss canton to a US state - Switzerland in total is about as large and about as populated as an average US state - which is true for most many European contries. So IMO it's a better comparison to just look at Europe as a whole and you'll probably find much more regulatory grind for the carriers. And yes, of the three Swiss carriers only one is domestic only, so the others deal with this vast landscape of regulations just fine.
So to conclude I don't see how regulations are the problem - the US with a more centralistic system than Europe as a whole should do better there. My suspicion is that because the US regulations can be influenced at the federal level, it's just much easier for Big Corp. to pour lots of money into lobbying to get their way. In European countries you (a) don't get as much ROI and (b) the political system doesn't lend itself as much to it because there is a more diverse party landscape in almost all European nations, so you would have to deal with more people to get a majority. This is why I think that the US needs two things politically:
1) a switch to a more proportional election system in order to break gerrymandering and the two-party system.
2) decentralisation for industry regulations.
Both these would lead to more difficult lobbying and it has better political representation as a nice 'side effect'.