For all the immensity of today’s electronic communications network, the system remains under the control of only a few thousand internet service providers (ISPs), the firms that run the backbone, or “pipes,” of the internet. Just a few ISPs supply almost all of the world’s mobile data. Indeed, because two-thirds of all ISPs reside in the United States, the average number per country across the rest of the globe is relatively small. Many of these ISPs hardly qualify as “businesses” at all. They are state-sanctioned monopolies or crony sanctuaries directed by the whim of local officials.
