Fixing US Broadband Would Cost $100 Billion

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a new report from EDUCASE (pdf), it would cost $100 billion to wire the US with fiber optics and keep our infrastructure from falling behind the rest of the world. Specifically, they recommend what has worked in many other countries — government investment and unbundling — which are often criticized by free market groups, even though those policies have resulted in faster, better connections for smaller total costs. Ars Technica mentions in their analysis of this report that the President will be releasing a report on US broadband today, too."

yet more money

[LiquidCoooled]

yet more money which the US could afford if they stopped wasting it on playing war games.

What is it good for?

[spleen_blender]

How much do we spend yearly on the pentagon again?

Didn't they already get this money

[hansamurai]

Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't the cable companies, et al. already receive many billions of dollars from the government that they have seemed to squander away on their CEOs and crappy advertisements?

Re:Sorry for being captain obvious here

[timmarhy]

what distance can copper do 10gbs? 100meters? dont' make me laugh.

Iraq

[greg_barton]

Yes, it's appropriate.

Total Costs Must Account for Opportunity Costs

[CodeBuster]

which are often criticized by free market groups, even though those policies have resulted in faster, better connections for smaller total costs.

The same criticisms were leveled at the United States when the Soviet Union was, for a time, "ahead" in the space race, but when one considers the difference between the market and central planning (i.e. government control) it is easy to see how things can, in some instances be done more quickly by the command and control method rather than the market. It is sometimes easier to get things done when you can tell people what to do and force them to do it while disallowing any dissent or alternatives. However, one must be more careful about the total costs of central planning command and control vs the market approach. The Soviets had many firsts in the space race, but in return other parts of the economy suffered tremendously and people went without a lot of things, some of them necessities, so that additional resources could be poured into the government run space program. In the same fashion one must consider the opportunity costs [wikipedia.org] of government spending and control. If the government increases taxes or debt to build out the system quickly then that spending takes away from immediate or future alternative investments of those funds by the private sector. Generally speaking, the more often the government does this the more funds are diverted and the opportunity costs spiral ever higher as we give up increasing amounts of alternative goods and services in exchange for what may turn out to be a fast (hopefully, but even that is not guaranteed when one factors in innate government inefficiencies) but ultimately very costly rollout of better high speed networks, or faster progress in the space program, or whatever else the national attention is focused on at that moment. Beware when advocates of government spending proclaim lower total costs. They are frequently neglecting the opportunity costs in their analysis of the costs.

Socialized Internet Access?!!!

[mpapet]

Americans for the most part are perfectly willing to suffer for the "free markets" rationale.

-Mobile phones (multiple, incompatible networks)
-Health care
-Data infrastructure

In other areas, we are quite happy to nationalize,
Railway services
Interstate highways. "free" too.
Social Security (just try being the elected grinch that cuts that program)
and most recently, education with no child left behind.

Depending on your politics, some of these issues cannot be discussed with any civility whatsoever.
 

Re:Preview of President's report

[jmorris42]

> Tax breaks for the ISPs, particularly the telcos.

Tax breaks for any industry sucks. So I oppose these.

> A hands off business approach, let them do with the money (and the consumers, a.k.a. taxpayers)
> whatever they want.

This would be exactly right if not for one glaring problem. The government can't take a hands off approach to government created and controlled monopolies. In the US today, competition is defined as two government chartered monopolies fighting each other through a maze of government regulation. In one corner, weighting in at eight hundred pounds, is the Phone Company! A truly formidable government monopoly almost a hundred years old. And in the other corner, weighing in at six hundred pounds, is the new scrappy government monopoly, the Cable Company!

What needs to happen is a new breakup, but done right. Recognize where the monopoly actually exists and can't really be fixed. The last mile. Break that part of both the phone and cable company off and leave them government chartered monopolies. Utility companies who own and operate the physical plant from the end user, through the government granted right of ways to the central office/plant. But forbidden to offer ANY actual service over it, instead forced to sell access to all at non-discriminatory prices.

As for the thrust of this slashdot post, whinging for a government run Internet.... no fscking way! If you utopians think a government run Internet would be net neutral think again. A network run by the same assholes who gave us the DMCA in the first place is going to let 'yall sit around all day running bittorrent and happily building out ever more fiber for ya to do it on? Riiight.

Re:Preview of President's report

[imgod2u]

But the rest of us continue to pay taxes (and will probably pay more to make up for the lost in tax revenue)? It's constantly amazing how many people can actually argue with a straight face that the poor corporations should pay less taxes "because it's easier to make a profit" and that they, generously, will pass those profits onto you the employee. As if a corporation running business is actually more important than having employees working and consumers spending. Trickle-down economics is a load of crap our rent-a-legislators and their buddy rich folks use to convince the masses that, somehow, taxing the rich less than the middle class is actually beneficial.

Middle class spending (i.e. not being taxed to death) is what drives business and the economy. I will agree that taxing a corporate entity may not be the best solution as really, you should be taxing the shareholders. If this discourages all the traders on Wall Street they can go find other jobs just like everyone else and still pay taxes. Hell, it might leave only the prudent investors who aren't just looking to make a quick buck overnight but actually invest in businesses in the long haul behind. Then maybe we won't have this volatile gotta-raise-the-bottom-line mentality that corporate CEO's use to gain short-term profits but sacrifice any long-term business growth.

Re:yet more money

[Naughty Bob]

$100 Billion is an inconceivable sum.

It's also 10 Months in Iraq (and that's 10 months above and beyond the ongoing cost of maintaining the world's most powerful army, so doesn't include the costs the US would incur if all those soldiers/tanks/bombs were sat quietly at home).

Bargain. And remember, most of that money is flowing out of the US public purse, straight into the hands of... Bush's golfing buddies.

It's only the internet I suppose.

Re:Ummm...

[Daniel_Staal]

The market can't demand anything that isn't offered. In this case, there is essentially no compitition in most of the USA for internet providers. The way the market would demand something is by having people switch to faster providers, showing they are willing to spend the money for speed. In which case companies would then try to make their networks faster, to attract more customers.

But in the US, there is no one to switch to. So the market can't demand anything.

'Unbundling' as they call it in the article is always painted as anti-capitolistic, and as ending market forces. In fact, it is the opposite: It would allow market forces to work again, by giving people a choice of networks.

Of course they don't like it

[rgmoore]

Specifically, they recommend what has worked in many other countries -- government investment and unbundling -- which are often criticized by free market groups, even though those policies have resulted in faster, better connections for smaller total costs.

Of course the "free market" groups don't like it. They hate the idea of consumers getting more for less, because the lower cost is coming at the expense of corporate profits. That's because most of those "free market" people don't really want a free market at all. They hate government regulation when it keeps them from doing what they want, but they love it when it keeps new competitors from getting into the market. That's why they're so keen on local monopolies- the antithesis of free markets.

Re:Come on, this is BS...

[Anonymous Coward]

can easily be handled by other already deployed networks

Yeah! The hundred-year-old wiring in many of the east coast cities are perfectly adequate for the task of 100mbit transmission speeds!

Re:Preview of President's report

[Waffle Iron]

Why does anyone not own any stock in the company they work for??

Probably because they can see first hand how their company is run, and it's usually not pretty.

Re:Sorry for being captain obvious here

[click2005]

Also, fiber is likely to get cheaper as its used more, copper will go up in price as more of the world gets net connected and reserves fall.

From Wikipedia:

The Earth has an estimated 61 years of copper reserves remaining. Environmental analyst, Lester Brown, however, has suggested copper might run out within 25 years based on a reasonable extrapolation of 2% growth per year.

Re:What is it good for?

[TheWizardTim]

The most important part of the statement is taken from "1984" by George Orwell.

If you have $100 Billion to spend, and you build tanks, bombs and combat jets, you are helping the economy, but only a small amount. Once you use a bomb, it will not add value to the economy. When you build a combat jet, it will not add (much) to the future economy. A bullet shot, is worthless.

If you use that money to build a road, then people will use that road to go to school, work, and shopping. If you use that $100 Billion to build a network, people will read news, buy products, start businesses, and other net related acts. If you use that $100 Billion to build schools and pay for teachers, you get students the get better jobs, pay more taxes, add more to the economy.

I am not saying we should not fund our military. But saying that spending money on war helps the economy, well it does, but in the long run. By using that money to better the countries roads, power lines, water supply, hospitals, whatever, you will get a return on your investment.

If you borrow money to make a bullet, your money is lost forever. If you borrow money to build a road, then you will get your worth.

Printing money devalues the dollar

[Radon360]

If you put more currency into circulation, the value of it decreases. As the value decreases, things purchased with it become more expensive (inflation). Printing cash to get us out of the hole would do nothing more than crash the economy (the world's, since so many other countrys' economies are inseparably tied in with the US Dollar).

Economics has a way of biting every "get of debt quickly" scheme in the ass.

Re:What is it good for?

[realthing02]

What happens to all those people once the fiber is installed?

Just because you want fiber does not make it a better 'stimulus plan.' Besides, the bill has yet to pass Senate, so we could save a ton more... so optimistic, this one.

Re:What is it good for?

[spleen_blender]

Your ignorance in your statement is incredible. You don't know who I am or what I've done in the military. I am not going to further justify your assumptions on that topic.

However, on the topic of the money, if we did not go on imperialistic rampages throughout the world, we could spend much less on defense and have just as competent a force for when military action is required.

Asshole. :)

Re:What is it good for?

[h4rm0ny]

Well speaking as someone outside the US, wouldn't it show greater concern for your troops to not send them out to get shot at?

Re:Fool Me Once

[Lumpy]

I think there were subsidies to the telcos as well as tax breaks and incentives .... and what do have to show for it ??

Hidden Bandwidth caps, data manipulation, throttling, filtering, traffic shaping, release of our private info to the RIAA, less service quality, higher pings, higher latency, more jitter and finally. Promises they cant keep.

They spent that money, just not on what everyone though it was for..

It isn't an arms race!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

"Falling behind the rest of the world". What crap!

Keeping up to date with the cutting edge is far too complicated and expensive, which is why telecom has always happened in stages. Once installed, you're pretty much stuck in a time warp until there is a huge motivation for the next big upgrade.

Take a look at the telecom in Germany. They got bombed to crap during WW2 and then installed the latest telecom during the war recovery. Pulse dial phones. Cool!. The USA big upgrade happened later (1960s/70s) and was all tone based. In the late 1980s/early 1990s computer telephony really struggled in Germany because pulse dialling is far less reliable (it's very reliable at the exchange, but not at all reliable at the listening party) but DTMF worked pretty well.

This is the reason why Kenya has better cell phone coverage than USA.

Fixing US Broadband?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Is it really 'that' broken? Last weekend, we visited some relatives in rural North Carolina. Foothills of the blue ridge mts. Hardcore trailerpark Appalacia. Redneck central. (They aren't rednecks, they just live there)

Everything worked. Sat TV? Check. Cell phone? Check. DSL line for his MacBook/AirPort? Check.

By all rights, that should be one of the least connected areas around. But they were just as connected as anywhere else.

We can quibble about 5MBps vs 20 (or 50), or the price. But for 'beyond dialup'...I'm not so sure how 'broken' it is in the US.

Re:Preview of President's report

[ThePlague]

Also, it's putting all your eggs in one basket: the company fails, not only do you lose your job, you lose your investment. Didn't people learn anything from the dotcom era?

Re:bad idea

[greg_barton]

Okay first of all, if it's government run you know they're gonna spy on everyone everywhere with it.

As opposed to what's currently being done in the private sector?

When you have the president of the united states, in the state of the union address, demanding that private companies be exempt from current laws...are they really private companies anymore?

Re:Sorry for being captain obvious here

[statemachine]

While every statement in your post is true, please note that, AFAIK, acrylic fibre is not currently used for long-haul runs, nor any single-mode applications. It's just not as efficient as glass fibre as far as attenuation goes.

While I don't work for any long-haul installers, and your point about glass fiber is true (and likely always will be), I use plastic fiber all the time for single-mode applications. And for long intra-building connections, it works great. Plastic single-mode fiber would work just fine for individual hookups to a fiber-to-the-neighborhood type of drop. And if the hookup is less than 150m away, multi-mode fiber would also work and be cheaper (with cheaper transceivers and CPE).

Re:Preview of President's report

[Qzukk]

the company fails, not only do you lose your job, you lose your investment. Didn't people learn anything from the dotcom era?

Or the Enron era?

Re:What is it good for?

[ArcherB]

If you want a good picture of these noble heroes you idolize so much, might I suggest you head down to Fort Campbell and walk into any bar on 41A on any given night, or head down to Riverside Drive any weekend to see our brave professionals drunkenly hitting on 16-year-old girls?

And how is this different than heading down to 6th Street in Austin Texas and seeing the college frat-boys drunkenly hitting on 16-year-old girls? Or the geeks who are drunkenly downloading pictures of 16-year-old girls and wishing they could hit on them?

For the record, I've been all three (soldier, college student and geek), and I have not hit on 16-year-old girls since I was 17.

I remember back when I was 16, fast food restaurant managers hitting on my 16-year-old girlfriends. It's just how some guys are.

Re:Printing money devalues the dollar

[bberens]

The difference, IMHO, is short term vs. long term. A war creates a lot of jobs in the short term, defense contractors, military personnel, etc. Building 'cheap' communications infrastructure in the U.S. would positively affect every business in the country for decades.

Re:Total Costs Must Account for Opportunity Costs

[spazdor]

The Soviets had many firsts in the space race, but in return other parts of the economy suffered tremendously and people went without a lot of things, some of them necessities, so that additional resources could be poured into the government run space program.

People go without necessities in a free market all the time. The difference is that in a market economy, they can be blamed for their own plight. We starved plenty of kids in order to beat the Russians to the moon, it just wasn't so obviously the government's fault.

Re:What is it good for?

[c6gunner]

What I think the GP was trying to point out is that when you look at our annual defense budget, why does $100bn (which could and probably would be spread throughout the course of several years) seem unreasonable?

Because it IS the federal governments job to provide for the security and defence of the nation, while it is NOT the federal governments job to provide you with a faster way to download porn. Kapish?

Re:Sorry for being captain obvious here

[Gospodin]

That's truly the beauty of the free market. If copper starts to get scarce, the price goes up. This allows copper mining companies to invest more money to find new sources or extend existing ones. If that doesn't work, then the economics of recycling become more favorable. And if that doesn't work, then the economics of replacing copper with a cheaper alternative become favorable. Given all this, it's nearly impossible to actually run out of copper.

Beyond that, though, the price of copper declined significantly between 1970 and today. Granted, 1970 was a local maximum, but the current inflation-adjusted price is under half what it was then. We're not running out of copper any time soon.

Re:Socialized Internet Access?!!!

[infosinger]

Its interesting that the three unsatisfactory "free market" examples are heavily distorted by government regulation.

Re:Total Costs Must Account for Opportunity Costs

[spazdor]

You've never met me, but you know what planet I live on?

My point (hyperbole and all) is that the human sacrifices that command economies make are easily counted, because they all come out of one big portfolio. A free market is quite capable of failing to provide for people's needs, but to compare the two is very apples-to-oranges because the shortcomings of a market are taken a priori to be externalities.

Most simply, if we're going to count the Soviets' mistreatment of their citizens as part of the price of their space program, then we should count the fact that homelessness exists as part of the price of ours. Is that totally unreasonable?

Re:Been saying this for years.

[praksys]

In theory, such a system would let you call your cable company, tell them "Screw You!", hang up, call a different cable company and say "I wanna give you my money!", hang up, and in 5 minutes turn on the TV and watch with the new company.

Sounds great. What do you do if you're unhappy with the service you get from the giant state-owned monopoly that actually provides your cable connection? Vote libertarian?

Most of the stuff people don't like about cable companies in the US results from the lack of local competition. Replacing all the local monopolies with one big super-monopoly (run by the government!) is hardly going to make that stuff any better.

Can't blame it on distance

[Mr2001]

What I was saying is the US probably should be lagging behind other nations in growth and demand because the price-per-connection (due to the increased distance in many places) makes fiber lines very expensive to run and maintain.

This is a common red herring. If the problem were "increased distance" or population density, then urban areas like NYC would have high-speed broadband that's as fast as what you can find in Europe or Asia, and slow broadband would only be a problem in rural areas. But instead, it's a problem across the board. Even in densely populated parts of the US, broadband sucks.

Re:What is it good for?

[TheWizardTim]

Read 1984.

That is the point of having a "war economy". People need to work. They get mad when they are not working. So if you employ people making tanks, bullets and bombs, they are "happy" because they have a job. But a tank is not going to make a person's life better they way a new public transportation system would. Again, I am all for funding the military. But if we don't have to be at war, building a new subway system will do better for the public then a aircraft carrier. Building a 777 is better then a F-22. All will bring an economic gain, when you pay the workers and for the parts, but once finished the 777 or the subway will continue to greatly add value. Yes repairs and spare parts for the military will add to the future economy, but moving thousands of people from point A to point B for work for fun will do better.

Re:Sorry for being captain obvious here

[Monkeyboy4]

Wow. You just explained why free marketeers don't get real life. In real life, not an economic model, we can run out of copper. You can. I can. A country can. Those of us who do run out of copper will suffer from our copper loss. but this is okay in "economic free market land" because someone can still afford it, or will find a way to replace it more efficiently. Meanwhile, those who have no copper don't have a chance to rejoin the copper economy.

Free markets forget that real people need real goods and when teh market disrupts - a minor thing in the free market model - people have tragedies. Outlandish? Replace copper in the past section with water. Natural resource, scarce, of public concern. Not a free market issue. A policy issue. And policy is best handled by government, not by corporations.

Re:What is it good for?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have missed the point. Here it is:

It's NOT different. These are regular people, just like the kind you see anywhere else. They just happen to work for the military. They're not magically better than anyone else, they have all the same flaws you see in everyone around you.

So here's the recap:

Original poster put them on a pedestal.
Grandparent advises that they're just as fallible as you and me.
The point flies over your head.
Other idiots mod you up.

Re:What is it good for?

[ArcherB]

That's like saying you should yank the fire alarm just because it's there. Militaries exist just in case you really, seriously, undoubtedly need to go to war. They don't sit around as some sort of resource or plaything that you can just send into harm's way for the fuck of it.
--
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies.

My point was not, "We spent all this money building a military, may as well use it." My point was that people shouldn't bitch about soldiers being placed in harm's way; it's what they do. It is what they are trained to do. Believe it or not, it is what they WANT to do. Now I'm not saying that soldiers long to kill people, but when something breaks out, soldiers are chomping at the bit to be part of it. Nothing sucks more for a soldier to train for years to do a job, and when the time comes, he sits in the barracks while the company on the first floor goes to do that job. (Disclaimer, I was a soldier. I changed companies from A Co, where we were about to start testing on the brand new, super cool M1A2's, back to Bravo, who was going back to Kuwait.)

Now, of course, when you said They don't sit around as some sort of resource or plaything that you can just send into harm's way for the fuck of it. were you speaking of Iraq? I ask because of your sig, "In Repressive Burma...". I would find it odd that you would speak of "repressive Burma" and not realize that Iraq was just as bad or worse than Burma. In Burma, monks were placed under house arrest. In Iraq, Kurdish men women and children were gassed. It reminds of so many of those "Free Tibet" bumper stickers proudly placed next to the "chicken foot" peace sticker. I wonder, how do you free Tibet peacefully? I don't think you can. Just like we tried for 12 years and 17 UN resolutions to peacefully "Free Iraq". That didn't work out too well either. It took the US military about a month to do the same job. The stabilization will take a bit longer, of course, but it will be complete in much less time than it took the UN to fail.

Re:What is it good for?

[Stiletto]

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower