Major Carriers Shun Broadband Stimulus 190
jmcharry sends word that as the deadline looms for requesting broadband grants from the $4.7 billion available in stimulus funding, Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are conspicuously absent from the list of applicants. Quoting the Washington Post: "Their reasons are varied. All three say they are flush with cash, enough to upgrade and expand their broadband networks on their own. Some say taking money could draw unwanted scrutiny of business practices and compensation, as seen with automakers and banks that have taken government bailouts. And privately, some companies are griping about conditions attached to the money, including a net-neutrality rule that they say would prevent them from managing traffic on their networks in the way they want. ... Yet those firms might be the best positioned to achieve the goal of spreading Internet access to underserved areas, some experts say." Reader Michael_Curator notes that while the major carriers may be holding back, there were still enough applications to slow government servers to a crawl, resulting in a deadline extension.
The Real Reason.... (Score:2, Interesting)
They're holding out for more cash later on.
Re:No way (Score:5, Interesting)
The "Real Reason" (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what their real reasoning is, but you can be assured that it is not because they want to be responsible and expand with their own money.
The real reason is because these grants are a Faustian Bargain: there are never-ending strings attached to government money. And it's not just the net neutrality issue. If you take that money, there's a whole host of demands the government can make. I work in aviation, and have seen some of this stuff in action with FAA grants, where you accept money for a project, and then there are costly consequences years down the road.
Re:they don't want real broadband... (Score:1, Interesting)
You obviously missed the memo. Your connection is already tapped.
Its pretty damn hard to suck as bad as Comcast/AT&T/Time Warner and the other cable co's/telco's for consumer retail service.
Squeal like a pig (Score:5, Interesting)
Some say taking money could draw unwanted scrutiny of business practices and compensation, as seen with automakers and banks that have taken government bailouts.
Ha! You mean like finding out how profitable broadband really is and how that caps and traffic shaping would be largely unnecessary if the carriers spent the money doing the upgrade? Money we all know they have. Or would that be finding out how a few people at the top of the corporate pile are enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else? Extracting revenue without adding any real value and justifying it by saying their compensation packages are "in line" with industry norms?
Hard to figure out which one of those topics they're not interested in having become public knowledge. It would probably be wise to select "All of the above". And probably a couple more we don't know about.
Maybe we need a public broadband option? The our Congresscritters could start raking in millions of lobbyist money from the major carriers. It would give those hordes of fat, old people screaming at public health care meetings a new opportunity to get free bus rides and box lunches. And then they could accuse Obama of trying to take over the internets.
Re:No way (Score:3, Interesting)
Does it matter why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The Real Reason.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps we have a communication problem here. From TFA, "And privately, some companies are griping about conditions attached to the money, including a net-neutrality rule " From the summar, "And privately, some companies are griping about conditions attached to the money, including a net-neutrality rule "
It seems pretty clear, from that, as well as a myriad other articles on the intartubez, the monopolies aren't even slightly interested in implementing net neutrality. They want one thing only, and that is as much money as possible for the use of the tubez, on top of extravagant rates attached to the infrastructure underlying the tubez. (cable, telephone, satellite, fiber - you name it, they want us to pay for it a few hundred times over)
My hope is (Score:4, Interesting)
that all of that stimulus money goes to local governments, and small companies. (not necessarily "small business" per se, but small companies) The government shouldn't be rewarding monopolies. Let's see real competition for a change.
I hated to see multi-billion dollar banks being bailed out, I hated seeing the big 3 automakers being bailed out - but I will actually LIKE seeing 20 million homes in America finally getting that "last mile" of real broadband. My 256k for $75/month sucks almost as much as 56k did. Latency is just as bad as 56k, and, of course, I seldom actually SEE 256k - generally, it's somewhere between 170 and 230.
Broadband? God, I'd LOVE to be able to watch a Youtube video about a new Linux operating system, and not hear the son yealling "LAG!" at the top of his lungs!
Stimulate me, Congress!!
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:they don't want real broadband... (Score:1, Interesting)
I live in Canada, and I have never met anyone who had ever left the country to seek medical treatment.
I do, however, have an uncle who made a mad rush to the Canadian border after being injured in the US so that he could seek treatment here.
Certainly one person's experiences don't count as irrefutable data, but I find it hard to believe that there are "massive numbers" of Canadians seeking treatment outside of the country.
Captcha: baffled
Re:The old anti-neutrality arguments don't work (Score:1, Interesting)
Ah, Freedomworks. The same astroturf organization behind many of these "spontaneous town hall protests" etc. Astroturf as in "funded by large corporate interests", of course.
I'll give them credit for one thing--the first posts on their site in reply to the article point out what utter BS it is, and they've left them up.
BTW, one reason that this is total BS is simple right of way issues. Could anyone lay broadband networks as easily and cheaply as an established telco can? Of course not, because about the first thing you have to have is a place to put it, as in right-of-way. Telcos and cable companies have that. Others don't. Getting it requires bribing politicians and all the other stuff that telcos and cable companies already did years ago with all the government subsidies they've been getting. Therefore, as the original poster points out, their arguments against network neutrality are crap just on this basis alone.
Nice (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice rant, man, +5 "right on, preach it"!
If these big telco skunks were really interested in running something decent out here in rural land, instead of milking 100 year old repurposed telegraph wires or whatever that chintzy stuff hanging on the poles is, they could and would have done it years ago. They ain't interested, low hanging fruit only. And even the chintzy stuff they had to get ordered to provide, they sure were never going to do it on their own. And because they took all that loot in the 90s and burned everyone, they should have their big fat pipes seized immediately and nationalized.
I am not in favor of too much government or that sort of action as a general rule, but it is obvious as all get out we will as you say fall further and further behind the rest of the planet if we let things sit as they are with those companies, so a lesser of two evils approach is needed in their collective cases. The internet now is a utility, like roads, water, sewage, electricity delivery etc, and should be treated as such. I would prefer it to be run like a big public non profit co-op.