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Big Telecom Comes Out On Top In $65 Billion Upgrade (axios.com) 101

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
The White House-backed infrastructure bill now moving toward Senate approval divvies up $65 billion in broadband funding in ways that largely please the big cable and telecom companies. Axios reports: The bipartisan infrastructure bill would devote funding to both broadband deployment and adoption.

The deployment side includes:
- $42.45 billion in grants to states to be used for broadband projects with speeds of at least 100/20 mbps, to be first spent in locations without high-speed internet.
- $2 billion each to support a rural broadband construction program called ReConnect run by USDA and to the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program from NTIA.
- $1 billion in grants to build so-called "middle mile" infrastructure to connect local providers to the larger internet access point.

On the adoption side:
- $14.2 billion to provide a $30-a-month voucher to low-income Americans to pay for internet service, replacing the current $50-a-month Emergency Broadband Benefit program but increasing the number of Americans who will be eligible and giving consumers more choice on how to spend the benefit.
- Requiring that providers who receive money from the state grants offer a low-cost plan, although the bill does not specify a price.
- $2.75 billion for digital inclusion grants, such as projects to improve digital literacy or online skills for seniors.

Why telecom likes it: The bill doesn't include measures that President Biden championed as part of his early infrastructure proposal, the American Jobs Plan. The bill will prioritize funding broadband in areas that lack high-speed service, so existing providers will largely avoid the threat of a government-backed competitor, and the money will be available to a larger pool of providers than just those who offer fiber service. While municipal broadband projects could still receive funding, those networks will not be prioritized when the money is allocated, as Biden's plan originally proposed, and the bill will not eliminate state laws that restrict municipal broadband projects.
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Big Telecom Comes Out On Top In $65 Billion Upgrade More

Big Telecom Comes Out On Top In $65 Billion Upgrade

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  • Too big to fail... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by S_Stout ( 2725099 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @09:34PM (#61682491)
    Imagine having a monopoly, guaranteed huge profits every quarter, and then when you have to spend money on infrastructure, you get the taxpayers to do it! And then you jack up their cost and throttle them for the hell of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      I wonder how much this funding will go to 5G equipment made in China? Yeah, some of those companies have been banned but there are many others.

      • The real question would be how much American Products and Services the Chinese will be buying from the US, with all the money they got with us Buying the 5G equipment. If they make so much money selling 5G equipment to the US and the rest of the world, they may need to expand or create new factories, and housing communities, in which they may want to get American Caterpillar Brand construction equipment. Hire fancy skilled Architects from the US, who really specialize in these sort of things, deal with US b

    • Government funding always comes with strings attached. The real question are the extra requirements (which are often in the details of getting the grant) worth it or not. Being that the infrastructure bill was a bi-partisan bill, it means no one is really happy with it. Where it isn't progressive enough for the progressive nor conservative enough for the conservatives. So I expect there is a lot of extra stuff on these requests that may not make this as profitable to these companies as it may seem outrig

  • Starlink (Score:1, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 )

    $42 BILLION for rural broadband? Why not just give half that amount to SpaceX as either investment or advance subscription payment so they can get Starlink up there faster (and maybe even improved)? If they invest $20 billion in SpaceX, the global revenue dividends could more than pay for rural broadband for millions of households.

    Yeah I get it, you guys hate Elon Musk cause he's African American (that's seriously the only thing I can think of) and SpaceX .. but the fact is they are delivering .. Starlink a

    • because it's much cheaper, cleaner and more efficient to run cables down here than making a swarm of sky junk that will need fossil fuel burning rockets to maintain until the end of time.

      SpaceX just sounds cool, it's not smart.

      • OK, how much fossil fuel do you think it takes to maintain orbit? Or, how much fuel do you think is in one of them satellites? How about the fossil fuel needed for driving an excavator around and support crew to bury cables (which have mined materials btw)?

        • You're confused. The spacelink satellites have 5 to 7 year life and then are deorbited. A rocket puts 60 at a time in orbit and there will be thousands in orbit.

          Meanwhile, an excavator will put down a cable good for decades. There is no comparison, starlink is massive pollution source.

          • It's not just one excavator though. You need armies of them, why do you think it costs $40 billion, plus an annual $14 billion a year subsidy?

            • Doesn't matter, they'll make something that will last decades and use much less fossil fuel than thousands of rockets launching hype blocks over those decades.

              It's a no brainer. And by the way Musk is the tard that bought bitcoin as we immediately laughed at him here for negating the carbon savings of his cars, and then a week later or whatever he realizes he did something stupid and carbon polluting. He'll do anything to push his product even if it's dirty and polluting.

      • Yea, run cables in rural areas that have 5 people per square mile- especially in the mountains- really cheap.... you're not anywhere near as smart as you think you are.
    • Have you been on the crack pipe again? Elon Musk being african american is about as ridiculous as Senator Warren claiming Native American. Nerd? Check. Hot headed? Check. Mouth sometimes writes checks their company cant cash? Check. African American? Bitch please!

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by backslashdot ( 95548 )

        He's born in Africa, his parents were born in Africa. So were his grandparents as far as I know. He immigrated here, he's a US citizen .. therefore an African American. Or are you arguing that immigrant US citizens are not American? What's in dispute here?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          He's born in Africa, his parents were born in Africa.

          To be more accurate his parent (singular) was born in Africa. His father was born in South Africa but his mother is Canadian. His mother did grow up in South Africa but she was born in Saskatchewan, Canada.

      • You're flat out wrong, kiddo, which makes your over the top rant look even sillier.

    • Who's "you guys"? I'd do it but people are already complaining about the money he's getting (yes the irony). Viasat even tried, and failed to stop him.

    • Why not just give half that amount to SpaceX as either investment or advance subscription payment so they can get Starlink up there faster (and maybe even improved)?

      Maybe they should wait until Starlink can actually provide service to the areas in question. Where I live, Starlink has been saying "coming soon" for a few years now. First it was "late 2020" then "early 2021" and now is "mid to late-2021".

      I'm in an area that has seen many rural broadband initiatives over the years. So far none have panned o

      • But Starlink already has 100,000 subscribers, so somebody is getting it. Yours is delayed a year or two it's not the end of the world. They need time to lauch more satellites. They have a system that works, I am sure if they had a few billion to spend they would get things up there much faster.

        • But Starlink already has 100,000 subscribers

          There are about 19 million people in the US without access to broadband.

      • I'll see your personal anecdote, and negate it with this one:

        I'm on a zoom call with someone who lives up in the mountains in Colorado right now, and he's on a nice stable Starlink connection.

        • I'm on a zoom call with someone who lives up in the mountains in Colorado right now, and he's on a nice stable Starlink connection.

          That's terrific, but Colorado is over 1500 miles away from where I live and Starlink still does not offer service in my area.

          And, it's not exactly an anecdote to say Starlink doesn't provide service where I live. It's a simple, provable fact. A data point. If you go to Starlink and put in my zip code, you could see for yourself.

          I hope Starlink really gets off the ground and o

          • You seem to have missed my point. Your personal experience is not the experience of everyone. They're still launching satellites. They already have a shitload [satellitemap.space] up and are still launching more.

            Your latitude is what is important for service right now. There is quite a bit of Starlink availability above the 45th parallel currently, and with each launch it creeps southward. My friend is in Durango, CO where there is a downlink station, which is why he has service at a lower latitude than you - he happened t

            • Your latitude is what is important for service right now.

              Durango's latitude is 37 degrees North. My latitude is also 37 degrees North, so I don't know exactly what the holdup with Starlink, but I'm watching the website closely for news of availability here. I'm way over near the Appalachian Trail, so probably that downlink station is what's making the difference.

              At the moment, my only options are HughesNet, which is horrible service with download speeds approaching dialup (when the weather is good, that i

    • Because Starlink's a scam [youtube.com]

      TL;DR; tear downs indicate the dishes are $1500-$3000 and are being sold for $500. They'd need to make the money back from monthly fees, but they'd need more satellites for that, and the cost of building launching those satellites is so high they can never make back from monthly fees. The equipment will need to be replaced before that happens.

      It's the same scam as Solar City. It's a pyramid scheme where he needs the cash from new customers to keep enough coming in to get the

      • So how long before they can make a lower cost transceiver, and how much lower will the cost be? Those are the real questions.

        • For starlink to be a viable company. Watch the video. The technology is completely impractical because there's better technology. Specifically running the wires we already know work. The only tricky part is that every time we give money to the cable companies and telephone companies to run the wires they just pocket it and never run the wires. The solution is for the government to run the wires themselves and tell the cable and telephone companies to get bent.

          The only reason we don't do that is we can't

      • "established car companies" are not paying him to make EVs so they don't have to. Established car companies are paying him for credits he acquires because they continue to not comply with what local governments require of them.

        Also, the old trope of "Tesla is only profitable because of carbon credits" is officially bullshit, since their last quarterly results would have still been a profit of $600M without any carbon credit sales at all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Technicallly he's a Caucasian South African-Canadian-United Statesian (triple citizenship).

    • I was in the same position 6 months ago, and I got my Dishy in May. I was one of the first in my area. If you've signed up and there is no other provider in your area, I'd say your chances are good, as they are expanding. Good luck.

  • More money more money more money. Also, in this bill is a not very well published thing about starting to track how many miles you drive, so they can tax you based on your mileage, in hopes of getting you to switch to a "more green" vehicle. Boy, that shouldn't have ANY impact on the trucking industry eh?

  • While municipal broadband projects could still receive funding, those networks will not be prioritized when the money is allocated, as Biden's plan originally proposed, and the bill will not eliminate [emphasis mine] state laws that restrict municipal broadband projects.

    So in other words those that have municipal broadband will have a competitive advantage over those states that didn't repeal those laws.

  • the bill will not eliminate state laws that restrict municipal broadband projects

    That would have been great. Damn.

  • *As I enjoy my high speed government rolled out fibre internet*

  • Every time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by logjon ( 1411219 )
    Every damn time they do this, the telcos pocket the cash, the CEOs raid it, and they don't deploy the shit they're supposed to deploy. Every. Damn. Time.

    • You missed a step. It goes like this:

      Cash injection sponsored by the government. Make a big announcement about how the money will be spent to fix broadband issues or install new broadband. Increase charges to customers "to help make that happen." Then pocket the cash from both the government AND the new fees added to everyone's bill. CEOs raid it as "bonuses" for increasing profits without increasing spending. And . . . keep bitching to government that they don't have the funds to accomplish what they

  • By not forcing a minimum of 300-1,000/100 you reward technology that will be obsolete before installation is finished. Anything that incentivizes coax over PON is just sad.

    • By not forcing a minimum of 300-1,000/100 you reward technology that will be obsolete before installation is finished. Anything that incentivizes coax over PON is just sad.

      You're assuming that the big telco CEOs have any intention of using any of that money to actually build infrastructure. Don't worry, I doubt any money will be "wasted" on laying coax.

      • You know they are just going to use the money on Hookers and Drugs....

        • You know they are just going to use the money on Hookers and Drugs....

          They already have more than enough money for that. My bet is that they'll "spend" it on something they're already doing but bump up the price substantially, you know, a bit like money laundering & then use the offset to buy back shares or something like that. All we know is that all of a sudden, the big telcos will be scrambling to find "ways" to use all that money the govt is shoveling at them. So, who voted for this corporate welfare?

          • There's never "more than enough" money for hookers and drugs. When you have more money, that's just higher-class hookers and better / more drugs!

            Oh, and sharing the hookers / drugs with the politicians that made it happen. Don't forget that part.

    • A colleague was explaining how happy he is with his 100/10 cable internet. He said "100mb is fast!". No, 100mb is NOT fast and 10mb upload is a joke. Meanwhile I'm using 1000/1000 fiber. The sad fact is that people are so used to shitty speeds in America that 100/10 is considered fast. It's sad.
  • Telecoms will ass-rape us for service even with Free Government Money.

    • Very true. We've been paying them for decades to do rural broadband and yet the only thing we got was more fees. I think they spent the money on billing system upgrades.

  • Another subsidy for billionaires (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @02:37AM (#61683101)

    For example: "$14.2 billion to provide a $30-a-month voucher to low-income Americans to pay for internet service" seems to be something for poor people, BUT think it through...

    This provides a voucher to a low-income person, who can only use it for one thing: internet service. The low income person turns around and passes the voucher to some rich telco that provides junky service. The bad telco gets the money, and while the low income person does indeed get net access - but it certainly does not cost the telco as much to provide it as the voucher is valued. Indeed, the telco can cap the service if he wants to (as cell phone companies often do with their "unlimited" data plans while suffering no regulatory blowback). This is very different from medicine where the government low-balls doctors and clinics all the time when they care for the elderly, paying them less than the care costs, and expecting them to shift the remaining costs over onto their other patients who pay out of pocket or with private insurance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Broadband needs to be a utility. Private companies can provide it if they want to, but only at utility prices and only if they provide at least gigabit fibre.

      • I personally would have been ecstatic beyond words if they would have put a single sentence rider on this thing: "to qualify for these funds, you must accept common carrier status under Title 1 of the Communications Act of 1934."

        Let's see if those asshats at Comcast and Spectrum bite on that one: do the right thing and get access to $60B of network infrastructure funding, or continue being subscriber-surly dickwads and miss out on that 8-figure sum of cash up for grabs to your competition.

    • This could have been an amendment to net neutrality or a series of amendments over time. But we are here now so my point?

  • All central offices in every town in the USA has DWDM and multiple fiber connections. This all sounds like Pork so that the political "friends" get a nice payback for going all in for some politician or political party.

    The last mile is kinda done for rural america because Starlink is here and works.

    If you want your cable TV company, Electric coppany or Telco to survive the onsalught of Starlink you better keep your customers happy and do what you said you were going to do 2 decades ago... Fiber to the hom

  • The only difference between the Republicans and Democrats when it comes to spending is that the Republicans spend a lot of money to line the pockets of big corporate donors to benefit their executives and shareholders, and Democrats spend a lot of money to line the pockets of big corporate donors to benefit their executives and shareholders.

  • I bet I'll still be paying way too much for my shitty Charter connection

  • In my area, our electric coop applied for and received some of the original rural broadband cash. They built fiber to each home in their area and their service is the best I have had. My point? Start targeting rural electric coops for this sort of thing rather than trying to work with huge telecoms that will never reach some of the homes in rural areas simply because getting right-of-way permissions can be challenging.

    • This is what the electric COOP in my area did as well. I just moved and all I could find about internet service at the new place was that it could get cable service. Imagine my surprise when I went out to the electric COOP's website to take over service and noticed a little blurb about trying out their fiber service. They are still actually in the process of rolling it out and so it's not available everywhere that they provide electric service, but I lucked out and had it up and running in short order. The

  • We need to quit doing this. If we are going to pay for this, lets instead put the $ into installing utility based fiber. IOW, have the local municipal do this esp for the poor. They need the internet less, and more of a connection to local schools, businesses, etc. which a municipal gives. Once that is built, it becomes dirt cheap to pay for maintenance from home to CO, as well as the admining of it. Ideally, the costs would simply be rolled in with local municipal billing
    It is just insane waste of $ to

  • Just like every other major federal government spending plan, this money will not accomplish any of the goals it sets out to achieve. Oversight will be almost non-existent, and in another 5 or 10 years we will be back to square one talking about how we will need another major spending bill to fix the problem that this bill was supposed to solve.

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