NYC Internet Plan Aims To Provide All New Yorkers With Broadband Access (cnet.com) 64
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: New York City unveiled an ambitious plan Tuesday to bring universal internet access to its 8.5 million residents by partnering with private internet service providers, a move Mayor Bill de Blasio says will help close the digital divide. The Internet Master Plan would create partnerships between the city and ISPs to facilitate permitting processes and developing infrastructure, such as fiber optic cables.
The announcement doesn't mean New York will be creating its own internet service, which cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee, have done in order to attract young people and businesses. Instead, the mayor's office is hoping public-private partnerships will help address a problem that's dogging cities around the country. Market research shows almost a third of US households don't have broadband connections reaching even 25 megabits per second. Chattanooga's service, by contrast, is 40 times faster than that. More than a third of Bronx residents don't have broadband at home, and nearly half of all New Yorkers living in poverty lack home broadband access, the mayor's office said. What's more, 1.5 million New Yorkers have neither a home broadband connection nor a mobile connection on a phone or other device. That prevents residents from accessing job and employment opportunities, and holds back the economy, the mayor's office said.
The announcement doesn't mean New York will be creating its own internet service, which cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee, have done in order to attract young people and businesses. Instead, the mayor's office is hoping public-private partnerships will help address a problem that's dogging cities around the country. Market research shows almost a third of US households don't have broadband connections reaching even 25 megabits per second. Chattanooga's service, by contrast, is 40 times faster than that. More than a third of Bronx residents don't have broadband at home, and nearly half of all New Yorkers living in poverty lack home broadband access, the mayor's office said. What's more, 1.5 million New Yorkers have neither a home broadband connection nor a mobile connection on a phone or other device. That prevents residents from accessing job and employment opportunities, and holds back the economy, the mayor's office said.
Is he still running (Score:1)
for President?
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Because ranting and raving about the wealth inequality really comes across from a billionaire literally trying to buy off the country.
I do not understand democrats.
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Republicans aren't ranting and raving about wealth inequality and taxing the 1% to support their programs.
How can you stand against "money in politics" and thinking hat "billionaires should pay their fair share" then immediately turn around and support a billionaire trying to buy the country?
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Isn't that just virtue signalling?
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Who Bloomberg? I hope so. He's one of two candidates for US President that make any sense whatsoever.
Pretty sure rosdee is asking about Bill de Blasio, not Bloomberg. And no, de Blasio isn't still running. Guess his persistent refrain of "there's plenty of money; it's just in the wrong hands" didn't resonate.
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I mean, a connection without something to connect it to is pretty useless.
Hmm..I'm guessing that means free training on how to set up and use them too?
whew...things get expensive fast.
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I have no answers for you. Are you sure you're replying to the post you think you're replying to?
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I remember about 20 years ago a bunch of politicians sitting talking to a small group about buying everyone computers for the exact reasons stated in this OP.
Oh god the virtue signalling as they fell all over each other to applaud harder in an emperor's new clothes sort of way.
"What good is electricity to the home?"
"Senator, in 20 years, you'll be taxing it."
In other words, you'll be preening in front of the voters about it.
Is this actually a problem? (Score:3)
"1.5 million New Yorkers"
Wow, amazing - that's almost the same as the population of the NYC elderly!
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"1.5 million New Yorkers"
Wow, amazing - that's almost the same as the population of the NYC elderly!
Handing this over to "public-private" partnerships sounds like a hell of a lot larger problem, especially in NYC where corrupt business practices are expected.
In 2025 we'll be talking about how this whole Internet-for-all plan failed miserably, but not for a handful of greedy assholes who got rich off this scam. Want to know how bad the corruption is? You won't find a single person denying my prediction. You'll probably find a greedy asshole or two bragging about it.
Horrible idea (Score:2, Insightful)
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Might wanna go back and read TFSummary. Specifically how the city won't own the pipe. "Public-private partnerships" are financing deals, not ownership deals.
You may want to re-think that (Score:3, Insightful)
Might wanna go back and read TFSummary. Specifically how the city won't own the pipe. "Public-private partnerships"
BWA HAH AHH AHAH AHAH AHAHH AHA You seriously think the government will have no sway over the companies they award this incredibly large pork project to???
It's not like the government would be financing several companies for an area, it would be single source suppliers for wherever. Which they could easily choose to award to some other company.
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You seriously think the government will have no sway over the companies they award this incredibly large pork project to???
Yes. Because of history. [newnetworks.com] The companies awarded the pork will eat the pork, after wiring up practically nothing. Not absolutely nothing, because hey, New York is wise to their tricks, yes siree. But there won't be any wires to speak of for the city to meddle with when it's all over. The telecoms are much much smarter than governments, and they tend to write these proposals themselves. Inexplicably, they somehow omit any penalties for nonperformance.
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You seriously think the government will have no sway over the companies they award this incredibly large pork project to???
If you started actually paying attention to the world around you, you'd find out there's been a hell of a lot of "public-private partnerships" for a hell of a lot of things.
In every single case, a private entity retained control of the infrastructure. There's zero reason to believe this will break that trend.
Also, in the majority of cases, the public has been screwed financially by the partnership. Which is the real reason this proposal isn't a good idea.
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Isn't that the exact reason why Facebook uses HTTPS?
No Internet at home but they have cell phone? (Score:2)
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...or free wifi at any of thousands of locations.
You can't even read the summary? (Score:2, Informative)
"What's more, 1.5 million New Yorkers have neither a home broadband connection nor a mobile connection on a phone or other device."
Not dense enough (Score:5, Funny)
Whenever Europeans and those in Japan brag about their fast broadband at low prices compared to the U.S., it is always said the U.S. doesn't have the density those other places have to get similar service. We're too big a country with people spread so far out.
As we can see from New York, this is true. It's why all those private ISPs haven't bothered to go in and get more customers. The population density of New York isn't high enough to justify the costs of running fiber or similar products.
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Why should I pay for someone else's internet or health care....?
When did I vote in to be my brothers keeper at govt gunpoint?
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When you became a citizen of the United States. Don't like it? Leave! (or vote). I pay lots of taxes for stupid shit. That's the price for living in a society.
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Well, as far as I know in the US, we've not voted to do either of those yet....and I hope we don't.
I have no problem being charitable on my own, I'm happy to take care of family and friends first and strangers last.
I just don't want to be forced to do it and not be able to direct where my help goes and how it is used.
I certainly don't see in the US constitution where that is one of the limited, enumerated few roles of the F
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"I don't want rich people and corporations to pay a bit more tax to reduce the poverty and inequality in my country. BTW I also need a gun for self defence due to all the poverty and inequality."
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Why shouldn't I just run over people in my car?
You can always tell an America, but you cannot tell him much.
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The US is a poor, poor nation, that cannot afford basic infrastructure.
It really can't. In the 1990's, the Clinton administration gave struggling private companies over $200 billion of taxpayer money for increased internet service using fiber [newnetworks.com]. These companies said that with this massive taxpayer-funded subsidy, they could get the country wired to the tune of 45 Mbps bi-directional for about $40/month because they weren't able to do so on their own.
Here we are, 25 years later, and we're haggling over wheth
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The United States is the largest economy and has built the largest military in the history of the planet. They can certainly lay fiber to every house if they wanted to. It's not difficult to do. Everybody in the US has electrical power, don't they?
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>, 25 years later, and we're haggling over whether 25 Mbps downstream is even feasible for the average person.
Not sure where you get this conclusion. The average person in the US has broadband. Even 3 years ago. It's really not as bad as you are making it out to be.
As of year-end 2016, 92.3% of all Americans have access to fixed terrestrial broadband at speeds of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps,
https://www.fcc.gov/reports-re... [fcc.gov]
Damn... (Score:2)
Sure, makes sense. (Score:2)
Panem et Circenses et Broadband.
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Can't read the summary? (Score:2)
"What's more, 1.5 million New Yorkers have neither a home broadband connection nor a mobile connection on a phone or other device."
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This is at the expense of badly needed subway renovations because money isn't unlimited.
New York City doesn't run the subway. New York State does, via the MTA.
25 megabits? (Score:1)
I just tested Spectrum (the only wired broadband provider available in my neighborhood) and it clocked in at 14.9 Mbps. My main complaints about the service are that it's expensive at $50/mo, and the reliability sucks.
They do offer the option to spend more for ostensibly faster speeds (but probably the same shit reliability). But yeah, the big reason why a lot of us "poor folks" probably skip out on internet access is that even the bottom tier is too damn expensive for what you get. Anyone in the rest of
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I pay about $60 US a month for a LTE connection that at the best of times might give 15Mbp/s and in the evenings is close to useless. Due to government subsidy it does have a 250GB data cap (25 cents a MB for overage). I'm on the outskirts of Vancouver and was on dial up at about $30 US a month until 2 years back.
Here in Canada, we're often amazed at how cheap internet and cell service is down there.
Needs to be a public utlity (Score:3)
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How many different methods are there to deliver power and water? Do you have multiple lines to your home that deliver power over a different median?
Internet and broadband are delivered differently that come with their own rules and regulations. Radio, DSL, cable, satellite, mobile, etc.
What is the equivalent to power and water?
More so, if you read any complaint about internet access it mostly comes down to a lack of competition. How does changing internet access to be a public utility will solve the problem
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How much competition do you have from power companies? Have you ever heard anybody complaining about wanting more competition among power companies?
The only reason that people bitch about competition in broadband is because it's an unregulated dualopoly (or monopoly) in most places.
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>Power can be delivered many different ways. The government standardized it.
AC or DC. AC won out. Not sure what you mean by delivering power in different ways. It all comes across a wire that conducts electicity. Same with water. It's all a pipe.
>No reason that Internet access can't be the same.
This is the dumbest thing I have heard regarding this subject. Your solution to a problem with competition is to limit compeition more. Are you saying that the government should not allow StarLink because it is
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Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Hhahahahahahahahahahahahahah
I live in a major metropolitan area on the East Coast. We have two choices for Internet: AT&T or Spectrum. Both suck, badly. We have to subscribe to both just to have a working connection all (most) of the time. Where do you live where there are more than two options for broadband where the qualit
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Sorry your municipality sucks. Please don't punish people that are able to govern themselves properly.
I have seen plenty of municipalities creating options that lower price and increase quality. I have also seen private enterprise creating an option that do the same. Google fiber comes to mind.
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Making shit up? Being uninformed and firm in your position makes you look like an idiotic religious nut. Have you really never heard of Google Fiber?
Even just a quick search on what has happened demonstrates as much [governing.com].
There is general agreement that Google's plan to bring ultra-high-speed internet to the masses led to more -- and better -- high-speed internet options for Austin consumers. Google Fiber's entry into the market spurred existing providers to raise their game, and the result has been better and faster internet service at lower rates, industry experts say. It has also led to better connectivity in long-underserved areas, such as East Austin.
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How does changing internet access to be a public utility will solve the problem of a lack of competition?
A Public Utility owns the physical infrastructure. Private companies compete by using that infrastructure to provide services. Customer get to choose what services to buy.
My options are Comcast and Centuylink. I can't buy them without also buying their DNS, email, web portal and whatever other crap they offer that I don't use. 20 years ago, I could buy "naked DSL", and choose the provider that had the services that I wanted. I chose one with a bare minimum, as I either self hosted that stuff, or got
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>A Public Utility owns the physical infrastructure.
But which infrastructure? This is the problem with the internet. Is it radio? Is it mobile? Is it satellite? DSL? Cable? Fiber? All of the above?
Now let's say that we establish our public utility to own some infrastructure. Then a private company comes in with a paradigm shifting technology able to put the utility out of business. Let's say that StarLink is able to do this. What will the Public Utility do? isn't it illegal to compete against a public uti
NYC ventures (Score:1)
I predict it will repeat the New York City ventures in Charter Schools and Prisons for Profit. These are schemes where the partner can choose their subscribers (students), or where the government guarantees a fixed number of subscribers (criminals). The former takes money away from those needing more care, while the latter diverts money to failed "tough on" criminals policies.
This involves the US telecommunications sector: Which has a habit of getting contracts where they are not accountable to custom
NYC plan for all New Yorkers? (Score:2)
This may seem like nitpicking, but is this New York City plan really for giving ALL New Yorkers Internet access? Not all New Yorkers live in New York City. New York is a very large state and many, many people don't live in the city. It's annoying when people act like the only part of New York that exists is New York City and anything that people in New York City get is "for all New Yorkers."
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I think they're referring to the five boroughs of New York City itself.