Would You Pay an Internet Broadband Tax? 601
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Internet Tax Freedom Act? The whole point was to prevent the government from ever taxing the Internet. But that's the proposal from the FCC — and backed by companies like Google, AT&T and Sprint. Would you pay a buck or two extra for fast access — or vote for someone who thinks you should? 'If members of Congress understood that the FCC is contemplating a broadband tax, they'd sit up and take notice,' said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the tax."
Sure why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will it subsidise it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just Maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
without broadband access DO NOT want high-speed internet
hahahah!!!! thats rich.
They want it. They just do not want to live in a city... You are confusing living like that, with living 50 years ago.
They just do not like cities. They usually do however like modern things. Its worse than that though. There are *many* who want it. But will never get it because of lack of infrastructure. Also what you and I consider high speed, and what that survey considers high speed are 2 different things.
Re:only 4% of Americans are stuck with service (Score:4, Interesting)
Another Slow Service user here. I did play a numbers game and pick my plan, I have something pretty low, (too lazy to detail it, maybe 1mbit?).
However I carefully considered my internet habits and discovered I can live with 5 seconds of buffering, and overall the $20 or whatever per month saved is worth more to me than having a "better experience". Generally, you can "spend for experience" until you go broke.
Misc Tips: I have a Verizon Dry Loop. That means it's Data Only. No Phone. But who needs a "landline"? $400+ saved per year. (Guess). Meanwhile, I have an AT&T GoPhone, that charges per minute, not per month. Another $700/year saved there. Here's the fun part. Get a VOIP service (I like Magic Jack Plus) and plug it in, and then you have a landline after all! Whee!
So instead of spending cumulative $150+ per month, I think I spend $40 per month tops.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
tl;dr - Why are folks in rural areas entitled to amenities of cities when they don't have the population density to support them?
Because the city slickers think they're entitled to the amenities of rural areas, like, say, food, and transportation across rural areas via roads.
The other part of the argument is unlike medical and museums, you don't have much of an internet without the monopoly granted easements across rural property for buried fiber...
So we'll make a deal... stop eating our food, rip up the roads between the cities, and rip out the buried optical fiber, and you can keep your internet access to yourselves.
Re:Universal service. (Score:5, Interesting)
Their experiment in being Wall St. with glaciers didn't work out so hot, though... (to their credit, however, they (relatively speaking) just washed their hands of the issue and told people to fuck off, rather than working on the theory that if we just pandered a little harder to the people who fucked up in the first place, they would deign to fix the problem...)
Re:s/Social Security/the Military (Score:4, Interesting)
Foreign deployments are not legitimate. We need the Coast Guard and the army. The nuclear sub fleet and their nuclear deterrent can be transferred to the coast guard, and the army focuses on maintenance of the land based nuclear deterrent, with the air force folded in there as well. Security of shipping lanes can be handled by a renewed merchant marine (ie allow merchant ships to be armed to whatever extent they like).
You don't need a big standing army when you have nukes. With no big armies anywhere, wars of all descriptions become less likely. A small special forces would be enough to deal with non-state threats.
You need a military to absorb the % of the aggressive young male population and kill some of that off, and develop some discipline and maturity in the survivors. (Alligator control [google.com] is just not big enough to take all of them). Kind a Kipling-esque view and a bit curmudgeonly, but fits the observed facts much better than we need to spend $$$ and $$$$ and $$$$$ for "national defense".
Re:Universal service. (Score:2, Interesting)