New US Broadband Projects Get $795 Million In Funding 174
snydeq writes "The Obama administration has announced nearly $795 million in grants and loans to 66 new broadband projects across the nation. The subsidies — to be doled out by the US NTIA and the US Rural Utilities Service — will bring broadband service to 685,000 businesses, 900 health-care facilities, and 2,400 schools, according to officials. The NTIA will award $404 million to 29 projects, and the grants will finance 6,000 miles of new fiber-optic lines. Most of the money will finance middle-mile broadband network projects. The RUS will award $390.9 million, with $163 million in loans and the rest in grants. Most of the RUS money is focused on last-mile broadband projects."
Public funding, private profit? (Score:4, Interesting)
So... $800 million. Alright. How does that compare to profits major telecoms acquired since they got their first boost in the 90s?
Any penalties for failure to meet goals? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there any penalty for the telcos (such that they have to pay this money back, with penalties) if they fail to meet the goals this time around?
Last time we gave them money we didn't get what we paid for, and they just shrugged their shoulders.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... and I'm tempted to steal a quote from someone else.
"It's Tuesday, get a rope!"
Seems Like New Age Rural Telephone Initiative (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope... (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope that this will affect us somehow.
I work in Silicon Valley, right by two major freeways (880 and 101... so not far out there) and just a couple miles from Cisco, and the best normal service we have is crappy AT&T DSL at 2Mbps down and 0.4 Mbps up.
Meanwhile, 5 minutes away, at my home, I have a 30Mb down 10Mb up connection.
I would like to be able to VPN into work without it crawling along, or without us having to shell out something expensive for business class service. We don't need guaranteed uptime or anything fancy, just a faster connection for day to day stuff.
There have been times where I've driven home to download a 3GB file because it was faster than waiting for it to happen at work.
I will be thrilled when >10Mbit broadband becomes the standard.
-Taylor
Re:STOP SPENDING (Score:5, Interesting)
Simple law
No cable(wire, fiber) plant owner may operate an ISP nor video nor phone service provider or vice versa. All cable plant owners must provide access on a non-discriminatory basis.
Re:So how much of this will the telcos steal? (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't get your point either. The manager at the Buffet doesn't come over to your table after you've paid and tell you that you're limited to 3 plates and if you go back for more you'll have to pay extra. If you have the room, you can keep going back for more right up to closing time. What you don't get to do is take any home, which is why they call the all you can eat.
soon (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes and no. We have natural resources, but the bureaucracy expense and unending red tape, the lack of speedy decisions, the sheer expense of supporting government workers for life at mostly higher than private sector pay..all of that would help to en-screw the US, especially when/if we lost exclusive world reserve currency status. When that happens, and it will, it's coming, that's it, the party is over, the US will de-evolve into second world status within a few short years, tops. We are just way too top heavy, way too many non producers who need high level incomes.
We have been having a super emergency disaster in the gulf, even with that impetus the fed response has been beyond dismal in speeding things up and cutting redtape to get stuff done. If something of this magnitude can't get them in gear and to get efficient..nothing will, absolutely nothing. It's just too far gone to fix, IMO, collapse is inevitable at this point. Economic, social, all of the above.
Right now we are down to maybe 1/5th of the adult population actually produces real wealth, they are supporting the whole thing. And that is only because the rest of the planet still takes greenbacks as something of worth. As soon as they want harder currency, even the 1/5th still producing wealth here won't be able to support everyone else, especially the millions of government workers. You can see it on smaller scales with most of the states now, they simply cannot function with a ten percent or higher unemployment rate. Governmental expense have grown too large, and you simply can't plop everyone at some 90% tax rate to make up for that. Our wealthiest state, California, broke as can be. This is supposed to be our bragger state, the best, with much higher incomes that most other places, especially for such a large population-broke, can't even cover what has already been spent in advance, let alone anything new.
I sincerely believe we are in the last days of a rapidly fading American empire. There are no more accounting tricks left they can use to cover all the looming debt and "entitlements" and pensions and so on, the real money simply doesn't even come close to existing for this, and what they pay the real producers of tangible goods here is already hovering at bankruptcy levels for those producers, very broadly speaking.
We may still have raw resources, but they will wind up being sold off cheap to cover our national debts, we won't be doing any value added work with them. Similar to some African nation for example, just sell what you have off cheap, wind up with a handful of really wealth people then a buncha peons.
My guess is china will wind up owning everything, they have really the only long range foreign policy of any of the major nations that's worth a flip, and are as protectionist as it gets to boot. It works-and has worked- for them just fine, just no one at high levels of globalist finance in the west says that out loud much, that would spill too many beans for them to easily explain away. We got sold down the river to make billionaires out of millionaires, they sold everyone the fairy tale that credit equals produced wealth equals money in the bank, then decided to fund and expand government based on that fairy tale. It just don't work that way, but it's too late to "not do that".
Just too far gone, man, that's it. I agree that we could be *theoretically* better off than greece, I just disagree that will happen, I think we will get worse, because we will become a serious armed threat to the rest of the planet as the economy implodes further, and eventually, they will take us out just like you'd shoot any mad dog. They will have no choice. Boom. Greece may go broke, but they won't be desperate and turn into some huge threat against other nations, the USA is different in that regard and judging by our track record of lashing out disproportionally..eventually we will get lashed right back in a major way.
That's the progression and timeline I see happening. Steps, in order: Continue with the fai