Fixing US Broadband Would Cost $100 Billion 484
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."
bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes the US is probably lagging behind some other countries, we are much more spread out and thus it requires more $$ for the same service, but I don't see a reason for the government to step in and "fix" something that isn't broken and is improving by itself already.
It seems the only reason this is proposed is so we can be "number 1" again. Kind of ridiculous honestly.
Re:Preview of President's report (Score:5, Interesting)
It also just happens to be fairer: you get taxed in proportion to what the government is keeping the poor people from taking away.
Only 100 Billion??? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's like $8/month per tax payer spread over a decade. At that level of cheapness every ISP would be running fiber to the curb, I would have 20 fibers running in front of my house already. Heck, they telephone or cable company could just charge some exorbitant amount for plain old telephone service or cable tv, like $10/month, and pay for this thing!
If they had thrown out a figure of 10 trillion dollars I would have been the first on the bandwagon telling my government that they must spend the money now, but a 100 billion is just not a believable sum. I'm sure you could wire up a small portion of the population living in densely populated areas for that amount and then use a small tax on those connections to slowly reach rural populations, but then you have to convince rural states that the investment is still a good idea and that the project won't stall after that first 20% is covered.
Also 100Mbps? If you're building it now you should set the speed at 10Tbps and then try to upgrade it later when faster speeds are cheaper. The short distances you are dealing with in fiber to the curb allow for multi-mode fiber which gives you a bit more leeway for expansion, but you still need the network design and the physical fiber itself to allow for the future speeds you will want to introduce.
Instant Payback Economic Stimulus (Score:4, Interesting)
And that labor and equipment expense would make US labor and equipment compete to get it, and improve their quality offering, which makes them more competitive overall. It would jerk lots of talent and productivity away from lots of less productive efforts, like pursuing BS defense and "homeland security" contracts that wind up sending lots of profits overseas, lots sunk into rich pockets that pay either little/no taxes (especially the corporations), or even ship those profits offshore.
And it would boost America's workforce of exactly the kind of skills and products the rest of the world is looking for now. That are already associated with the "America" brand, since everyone still remembers we invented the Internet.
And then of course we'd have all the economic value of actually using that broadband infrastructure to produce even more, to make even more money with it (including designing and deploying the next $100B in broadband buildout).
It's as if the US invested $billions in the auto industry back during the Great Depression. Which is exactly what we did, by joining WWII which demanded $billions in cars, trucks, tanks, planes, and ships. But this time we're not going to send them all out to be destroyed, and to destroy the territory we'd capture when we win. Instead we'd increasing the value of everything we got to buy with our increasing profits, and bringing the world together instead of blowing it apart.
Congress is about to pretend to stimulate the economy with about $65B sent out in little $600 checks to every taxpayer. Who will mostly spend it on gas and Chinese-made TVs and crap. If they were really visionary, and really wanted to boost the economy, they'd make local governments and corporations match that expense only 1:2, and actually rebuild this country as the 21st Century is so clearly begging us to do.
Re:What is it good for? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a third generation military brat. Dad is career Army, so was my grandfather. And, having grown up around Army bases for the first 18 years of my life, I'd have to say that is actually not too far off. There are a lot of good people in the Army, it's true. But most of them are obnoxious kids who were too stupid to go to college and too irresponsible to hold down a civilian job. Sorry to spoil the "noble heroes of freedom" horseshit image that everyone who's never had to live around these pricks seems to have.
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?
Been saying this for years. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
The really interesting thing this go-round is that the technology now exists -- the Verizon FIOS boxes are pretty much exactly what I had in mind, give-or-take. Now we just need some kind of opening that up to competition and we've got it. (with appropriate broad-market penetration and upgraded backbone, naturally).
I'm not sure there's an easy way to convince Verizon to do that, but I suppose that there could be a government agency that'll take over "ownership" of the lines, and then they simply contract back to Verizon (or someone else) for maintenance of it. To pay Verizon back for all the investment they've made, maybe they have "free" bandwidth on the system for, say, 10 years, after which they pay whatever their competition is paying.
In the meantime, the new agency continues to deploy FIOS-like services as widely as possible, Verizon is no longer saddled with the cost of expanding the infrastructure, competition flourishes, angels sing, and the US resumes its rightful place at the top of the geek pyramid.
Never happen. We as a country are way too tied to the "let the market decide" way of doing business, and it's shoved us backwards in the Cellular Phone world, and now in the broadband world. Sometimes we're really our own worst enemies.
That is the fun part about this (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What is it good for? (Score:5, Interesting)
The boats are safe in the harbor, but that is not what they are made for.
Reclaim the universal service fund (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't agree with the government investment part. That would be better handled by reclaiming the universal service fund. It was corrupted in the '90s to support computers for schools and libraries, but that's not what it was originally for. Originally, the USF was used to pay for the additional cost when a telephone company installed a rural telephone but charged the rural user the same price as the city user. It worked well for telephone service and would work fine for fiber-to-the-home broadband if it was allowed to do so.
Besides, everything the US Government does costs 5 times as much and works half as well as comparable operations by small business. Haven't you figured that out yet?
Isn't it possible ... (Score:3, Interesting)
... just possible, that the reason we're behind in broadband is because there isn't enough demand? Sure, in all those other countries the government stepped in and built something and now we're "behind". So what? I love a fast internet connection as much as the next guy, but I'm not ready to have the government make YOU help pay (via taxes) for the build out to my rural neighborhood. Nor am I ready to help pay for the build out to the old farmer down the road who doesn't even have a computer. People who want government to step in where business isn't "getting the job done" should ask themselves first WHY business isn't getting the job done. If you see fast internet as a NEED, then I guess you have a case, but I don't see it that way. Sounds like people are upset that we're not "keeping up with the Joneses".
Re:Total Costs Must Account for Opportunity Costs (Score:4, Interesting)
Would you prefer, then, to compare the achievements of the Soviet space program against the achievements of those American space flights which were strictly entrepreneurial in nature and did not receive any federal funding? If not, we're still talking apples and oranges.
The FCC? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right that Bush wasn't president from 1994-2000; however, the US was at the forefront of technology and internet access at that time. After the tech bust in 2000 (self-evidently obviously not Bush's fault since he wasn't president yet) there was the opportunity to invest in infrastructure and prepare for the eventual economic recovery. Instead Bush gave out tax cuts right and left. Nice idea for stimulus except that he gave mostly to the richest who, contrary to the revisionist history of the Reagan era, do not trickle those funds efficiently down to the working class. He then stacked the FCC, SEC, and many other agencies with party hacks who didn't know the first thing about the real world, only their ideology.
So yeah, basically Bush takes a fair amount of blame here. Sure he had help, but that doesn't excuse him. Sure he had other things to do, but that doesn't excuse him.
Other things he had to do:
* Put someone competent in charge of FEMA
* Read the reports from various agencies and his predecessor about some guy named Osama
* Protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
Instead he spent time funneling money to his cronies and vetoing bipartisan child health care bills.
So now we have an infrastructure that is woefully behind and will take $100 billion to fix. Hurray us! Japan, South Korea, and other countries have faster speeds available than *anywhere* in the US. This isn't even an argument about per capita speeds or the fact that we've got a larger population over a larger area. Our fastest simply ain't that fast.
It's true that Congress takes its share of blame too. Lucky for my argument, it's been a Republican-controlled Congress since '94 and until very recently. There's been record government spending during Bush's tenure when he never vetoed a Republican bill (other than stem cell research funding) and yet we're still behind. Do the math.
Dark Fiber? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sorry for being captain obvious here (Score:1, Interesting)
Do you really disagree that people who could previously afford to buy copper will not be able to once the demand raises the price? Do you really disagree that they will not be able to use copper if they are unable to pay for it?
Sounds like you don't understand real life either. An abundance in, say, China does me no good. In fact, that would rather weaken the American strategic position. My neighbor's abundance does me no good. This is fundamental to capitalist economics, where I have no claim to my neighbor's property. Hell, it's just common sense. If he's using it, I can't (even if he'd share!).
Moreover, increases in research, development, or exploration spending (presumably due to rising prices) do not mean that any more copper would ever be found. Research, development, and exploration don't work that way. Even if there was a direct link, there's no reason to assume that investments would be made. Look at OPEC's steadily rising oil prices, while they actively limit how much the member countries can export.
Jesus christ, did Ayn Rand make you illiterate, or did you have to be illiterate to "read" her books to begin with?
Re:What is it good for? (Score:3, Interesting)