Biden Infrastructure Plan Promises Broadband To All Within 8 Years (vice.com) 161
One of the many promises made in President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure plan is to deliver "future proof" broadband to every home in American within eight years. It sets aside $100 billion to accomplish this feat. Motherboard reports: While specifics are murky, a new fact sheet on the proposal states the plan won't just involve throwing more subsidies at America's deep-pocketed incumbents, an American pastime studies show historically hasn't delivered on the promise of faster, better broadband. Instead, the Biden administration says it plans to "prioritize support" for broadband networks owned, operated, or run in concert with local governments. Frustrated by limited competition and substandard service, some 750 U.S. communities have built local broadband networks that studies have shown are faster and less expensive than traditional options.
"President Biden's plan will promote price transparency and competition among internet providers, including by lifting barriers that prevent municipally-owned or affiliated providers and rural electric co-ops from competing on an even playing field with private providers, and requiring internet providers to clearly disclose the prices they charge," the plan states. The problem: neither the Biden FCC nor broader administration can do much about such state-level restrictions. Previous efforts by the Obama FCC to eliminate state barriers to community broadband were shot down in court. Still, clear support for such efforts is a course change from the GOP, which has repeatedly tried to ban community broadband entirely.
"President Biden's plan will promote price transparency and competition among internet providers, including by lifting barriers that prevent municipally-owned or affiliated providers and rural electric co-ops from competing on an even playing field with private providers, and requiring internet providers to clearly disclose the prices they charge," the plan states. The problem: neither the Biden FCC nor broader administration can do much about such state-level restrictions. Previous efforts by the Obama FCC to eliminate state barriers to community broadband were shot down in court. Still, clear support for such efforts is a course change from the GOP, which has repeatedly tried to ban community broadband entirely.
Lovely. You'll need a lot of (Score:2, Insightful)
legislating to avoid throwing money at established big boys for the simple reason that throwing money at private companies (while requiring them to adhere to all sorts of federally-mandated business practices) is what almost all federal agencies are staffed up to do these days.
Some of those federally mandated practices (codified in the FAR) are sensible and some are not, depending on the perspective one takes, but all of them add compliance costs and all of them add a barrier to entry for bidders that has t
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Telcos will just increase the price without increasing the quality of service.
The government tried that: It doesn't get an honest answer from the telcos and it doesn't care that telcos were dishonest.
In that case, the federal government instructs the local/state governments to create a disbursement committee to hire companies to do the work. Too often, the company hired, is a shell corporation that pockets half the money then hires a real company to do a third of the scheduled work. After the money is sp
performance bond (Score:5, Interesting)
In that case, the federal government instructs the local/state governments to create a disbursement committee to hire companies to do the work. Too often, the company hired, is a shell corporation that pockets half the money then hires a real company to do a third of the scheduled work. After the money is spent, there's no way to finish the work. Somehow, no-one is punished for missed deadlines or failure to complete.
Here in New Hampshire (and probably in lots of other places) we have a solution for that: a performance bond. The company that wins the contract puts enough money in the bond to cover the cost. That amount is reduced as the company achieves certain completion benchmarks, and is 0 when the job is done. If the company vanishes with the job incomplete, the committee collects the bond and uses the money to put the remainder of the work out for bid.
Re: Lovely. You'll need a lot of (Score:2)
No one is going to compete for a revenue stream of size zero. Break up ISPs all you want, but it won't make them pull fiber or coax or whatever out into the sticks.
Yes you have to have the threat of antitrust enforcement but you also need a revenue stream that can't be redirected by whatever version of regulatory capture this mess is going to spawn.
Print internet dollars with Biden's picture on it and drop them from planes over rural areas for locals to pay isps to run infrastructure, which isps redeem from
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The big telcos aren't going to do it themselves. The only reason copper made it everywhere is because they waited for a government handout to do it - and they made massive profit off of that. We're not going to give them that gift again. I'd rather back municipal wireless than give money to the likes of our major ISPs here.
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The big telcos aren't going to do it themselves. The only reason copper made it everywhere is because they waited for a government handout to do it - and they made massive profit off of that. We're not going to give them that gift again. I'd rather back municipal wireless than give money to the likes of our major ISPs here.
We already gave them that gift, unfortunately. We gave them over $400b between 1999 and 2015 [amazon.com] to roll out national fibre and they did fuck all with it. What's changed since the POTS era is that they've gotten better at stealing our money. At this point either nationalize them or lets have the government build it ourselves.
The rest of the world will be on +1Gbps while (Score:3)
AT&T decided that 10Mpbs is good enough for all Americans!
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I can't see why a consumer would need that speed unless you're doing something nefarious.
Your imagination is too small.
I have Gb ethernet through my home. I can imagine all sorts of reasons I might want to access home resources at the same speed when I'm away form home with a direct VPN.
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I wonder if ppl on /. keep mixing up mega BYTEs with mega BITs.
Because 10Mbit upload is extremely low.
I have something like 2Gbit download and 200Mbit upload.
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AT&T decided that 10Mpbs is good enough for all Americans!
Well, that brings up a really good point. Who gets to decide what's adequate speeds? My mother-in-law needs zero. If I want to schedule a Covid vaccination, 56k is probably good enough. Netflix could get away with low single digit Mbps download and virtually no upload. All day Zoom meetings by myself and a couple of boomerang kids during quarentime, few tens of Mbps. A sports fan watching all NCAA March Madness games in 4k simultaneously might need in the hundreds of Mbps. If I'm running my home-brew stream
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If you're spending this kind of money, you build it for long-term. We got lucky with copper and ended up being able to push dialup and then DSL over it. But it was never designed for it. We're not going to accidentally get 50 years out of an investment again. But you can intentionally future-proof the fiber-runs. The nodes on either end might change over the years but the fiber will last a long time.
Why would you build it to the lowest specs possible and ensure that it's obsolete before the cost has be
America follows Australia's example (Score:3, Insightful)
Glad us Australians can set a bad example for the US for a change. Our NBN was a political clusterfuck that cost way too much and stifles competition thanks to the monopoly laws needed to help keep it funded. Total pork barrelling.
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I think at its core, people (except maybe old people) that the internet is the utility for the immediate future, so there's heaps of leaches and cronies looking to line their pockets with what has become an essential service for a developed country. The internet may not be on the level of necessity as water and sewerage, but it's arguably as important as electricity today.
Needs obscene penalties. (Score:5, Insightful)
We've tried this several times with broadband companies and surprise, they take the case and don't follow through. Schemes like changing definitions allows them to get by without actually doing anything and penalties are smaller than the amount they are given, so they pocket the money and give a few bucks back after 10 years.
This infrastructure plan definitely needs to come with definitive specifications and heavy enough penalties that they will either refuse the money or be forced to do as they are being paid. Frankly, I say if they reject the money it should automatically go toward building municipal networks.
It needs a contract (Score:3)
Gov't penalties never get enforced, but contractual ones? You bet.
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Seems like they realize that and have a decent plan to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Specs, they are mandating fibre which is the right choice. Supporting municipal broadband schemes will force companies to either deliver to get out.
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Investing in fibre, which is future proof, and in municipal projects so that the network is public infrastructure is the way to do this. The main problem in the past was that they kept giving the money to private networks that then didn't deliver, or just installed shitty copper.
Fibre networks are already deployed up to 20Gbps for broadband and the limiting factor is cost, not physics like with copper.
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So, if they reject the money, we should give the money to someone else to do the job? Next highest bidder, maybe?
Yeah, that ought to work....
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As you pointed out, every other time Democrats pushed to subsidize connectivity it cost a ton and we got nothing in return. It
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In 8 years (Score:2)
We will have broken all the promises and wasted a lot of money, just ask Australia they did the same thing.
Will we be getting our tax money back? (Score:3)
Have the relevant laws changed? (Score:2)
"President Biden's plan will promote price transparency and competition among internet providers, including by lifting barriers that prevent municipally-owned or affiliated providers and rural electric co-ops from competing on an even playing field with private providers, and requiring internet providers to clearly disclose the prices they charge," the plan states. The problem: neither the Biden FCC nor broader administration can do much about such state-level restrictions. Previous efforts by the Obama FCC to eliminate state barriers to community broadband were shot down in court.
From the linked-to article:
This month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld restrictive laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that will halt the growth of such networks. While the decision directly affects only those two states, it has cast a shadow over dozens of city-run broadband projects started nationwide in recent years to help solve the digital divide.
In siding with the states, the court hobbled the boldest effort by federal officials to support municipal broadband networks. While the court agreed that municipal networks were valuable, it disagreed with the F.C.C.’s legal arguments to pre-empt state laws.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0... [nytimes.com]
Have the laws changed allowing the FCC to pre-empt state laws?
Very convenient timeframe... (Score:2)
Good thing there isnâ(TM)t a three term limit, it would take 12 years :)
SpaceX will beat them by 7 years (Score:2)
100bil well spent.
And ... (Score:2)
Residential 5G is the answer (Score:2)
The major hold up of fiber is that in most places the poles are owned by the power utility. Municipal fiber is successful in towns that own the poles. 5G alleviates this. Yes, there are locations that this will have issues. But the vast majority of even rural areas can be addressed with it.
In other news, the sun will rise in the east (Score:2)
This is such B.S. Look at where we were 8 years ago in internet performance. 5G is rolling out as we speak. Starlink is up and running. In 8 years, this supposed problem will have already been solved. It's like that old joke, "Doctor, what would you do if a patient died walking out of your office? I'd turn him around so it looked like he was walking in."
Right (Score:2)
If how they do this on my phone bill is any indication, the extra fees to support this will mean I will no longer be able to afford broadband. But fear not, that is the price of "equity."
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:5, Informative)
You seem a bit confused. The usual method is:
* Municipality pays to run fiber to everyone's house and to maintain it.
* ISPs get access to the fiber
* Residents choose between ISPs. Residents pay the ISPs for their service.
Usually the ISPs have to pay a small amount to the municipality per customer to cover maintenence of the infrastructure. Taxpayers usually pay for creation of the infrastructure (via a bond and taxes) but ongoing maintenence is covered, and sometimes the bond payments are covered by the fees too.
Benefits: the infrastructure is maintained by someone who is beholden to the customers (via votes), not to the stock market (you increase profit by letting it slowly decay!) All ISPs compete equally; all they need to do is run lines into some central location. Rather than having one or two ISPs (each running their own lines) you usually have many ISPs. Rural people get just as good connectivity as town people.
Now do you understand?
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That's not a municipal ISP competing with private ISPs, no.
That's private ISPs competing with private ISPs .
While local politicos get paid no matter what.
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Well, at least you realize you are arguing against a straw man.
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You are talking about a completely different thing than I, or the summary, are talking about.
It's not at all unusual to have a tax-payer funded ISP, which "competes" with private ISPs. Of course the competition aspect is limited by the fact that citizens are REQUIRED to pay for the muni ISP, at least half the cost.
You've simply tried to change the subject, then declared "I win".
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot something:
* Municipality pays to run fiber to everyone's house and to maintain it.
* ISPs get access to the fiber
* Residents choose between ISPs. Residents pay the ISPs for their service.
You forgot:
* Residents pay for fiber infrastructure through property taxes, regardless of their decision to connect or not connect to it.
Re: Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, it's almost like we live in a society. I'm really not a fan of cops, 9/10 of the armed forces (the organization, not the people in it), subsidies to oil companies, many highway expansion projects, municipal funding for sports stadiums, and a whole raft of other public spending, and yet I still pay for those.
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:4, Interesting)
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Thats exactly what ive been saying. The cities need to run the last mile. Let everyone have equal access to the customer.
"Need to"? It might be a desirable but I don't know it's necessary. I've got multiple high-speed conduits to my house (Verizon and AT&T), plus reasonably high speed wireless. In fact, I didn't need San Jose to build the fiber.
In some cases, that will work fine. In other cases, perhaps not. I'm coming to believe (especially as we roll out 5G) it's not as necessary as I used to think it was.
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Where does the municipality get the money to run fiber to everyone's home? And how do they pay for it?
Taxes? Yeah, raising taxes on everyone will go over really well. Do remember that while the Feds can just **poof!** money into existence to pay for things, States and municipalities don't have that option....
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Same place they get the money to build a new school, a new bridge, or any other infrastructure project: float a bond, which they later need to pay back. These are usually repaid via taxes; for fiber-to-the-home it may be repaid by service fees. This is Local Government 101.
Municipalities do this, not because they want to raise taxes, but because they believe that a new school, bridge, or fiber-to-the-home will be important to their community. For FTTH they actually have a strong argument here.
I think th
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The same municipality is already running water and sewer lines to the same homes. They can even be trenched together for new construction.
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If you thought random statistics were making a point, they're not.
Re: Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:2)
You're replying to a news story about the feds "proofing" money into existence to subsidize infrastructure... Specifically fiber.
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:5, Informative)
What other countries have done, is split the service provision into two:
Physical infrastructure is provided by the government, they dig up the streets and lay fibre to every property, which goes back to a central exchange.
Any provider is then free to colocate equipment in that central exchange and to rent access to the fibre. The costs are regulated and cover the government's costs of maintaining the infrastructure on a non-profit basis.
That way all the government provides is the last mile fibre, any provider can rent it and use it to provide whatever services they want at whatever price point they want. This makes a lot of sense because the costs of installing the last mile are very high, so if providers have to bear that cost themselves you end up with only one or two providers in densely populated areas and nothing in sparsely populated areas. The costs of setting up an ISP are much lower if you don't have to provide the last mile yourself, so you get lots of providers to choose from.
Like in the days when the last mile was your phone line and modem provided by your local monopoly telco, but you could dial into one of many different ISPs who provided IP connectivity.
Many countries do the same with electric or water supply. One organisation owns and manages the wires and pipes, many providers can sell you power or water using the common infrastructure.
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This makes a lot of sense because the costs of installing the last mile are very high, so if providers have to bear that cost themselves you end up with only one or two providers in densely populated areas and nothing in sparsely populated areas. The costs of setting up an ISP are much lower if you don't have to provide the last mile yourself, so you get lots of providers to choose from.
And in our rapidly growing world of everything wireless, I'm curious as to how much the "last mile" argument will sustain itself going forward.
What's cheaper, digging up millions of miles of roads, or solving for the wireless bandwidth problem? Seems others are quite invested in the latter.
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:5, Insightful)
I want a physical cable to my place and inside. Wireless sucks no matter how much makeup you trowel on. It's less stable than hardwire, requires more infrastructure, is more expensive to maintain, and slower.
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And in our rapidly growing world of everything wireless, I'm curious as to how much the "last mile" argument will sustain itself going forward.
What's cheaper, digging up millions of miles of roads, or solving for the wireless bandwidth problem? Seems others are quite invested in the latter.
As soon as you can get a cheap 200/20+ wireless plan that is either uncapped or with a multi-TB cap, I will buy this argument, but until then I don't. Even assuming wireless providers were willing to provide such plans, once you get everyone on wireless for all their household needs, you start needing so many micro-cells, each of which needs a fibre back haul, that you might as well do fibre to the premises to begin with.
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:4, Informative)
They are trying to make internet access a utility in a way similar to water, sewer, gas, and electric.
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They are trying to make internet access a utility in a way similar to water, sewer, gas, and electric.
The difference, the key difference, is sewer technology basically hasn't changed in 2,000 years. Well, there was the introduction of garbage disposals in the '60s (NYC still doesn't handle them) and indoor plumbing in the 1800s.
Municipal utilities are fine for relatively static technologies. I'm less confident my local city council can handle rapidly evolving tech.
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I forgot about Chatanooga's gig service - http://chattanoogagig.com/ [chattanoogagig.com]
Utilities and telcos tend to be regional monopolies regardless of weather or not they are public or private. I'm not sure where I stand on this matter yet but running the fiber and not providing the service might be a good idea. Maybe require the internet providers to "buy in" to access the infrastructure as a way to fund the fiber infrastructure.
Doing some quick searches led to some stats on public vs private utility ownerships.
https://ww [eia.gov]
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:4, Informative)
The same is true of electricity, running water, sewage services, roads etc.
The vast majority of people do want (or in most cases need) these things, and centrally building them is the most economical way to do it. As more services move online, the need for internet access only increases, for instance online education classes during COVID...
If education has to be provided online due to a pandemic, then the government has a duty to ensure that people have the facilities available to actually access it - power and internet at the very least.
Re: Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:5, Insightful)
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I seriously doubt the majority of homeowners in most communities would support paying for such a thing
What if we simply ask homeowners what they would support. We could do it the same time every year to make it easier. November would be good I think.
I suspect you're looking at several thousand dollars per household in all but the most dense neighborhoods.
Lol, I hope you never find out how much your local park/playground costs you every month.
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What if we simply ask homeowners what they would support. We could do it the same time every year to make it easier. November would be good I think.
Many municipalities did precisely this, the people said yes, and then the telcos and cable companies bought their state legislatures and made municipal broadband illegal, which is why the federal government has to step in.
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck fair competition. It is about providing an essential service in the modern era at the lowest possible cost to the end user. This allows the rest of the economy to grow without forcing an economic parasite on it's back. Obviously services are delivered at inflated cost, bandwidth strangle, this because the incumbents want to be content publisher, charge a corporate tax on all content upload on an essential public service.
FUCK corporate profits on essential services, lowest possible price for a reliable service for all end users. That is where the profit should be and not a corporate tax on an essential service, currently strangled to inflate profits.
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Depends on what it is. Personally I'd like it if there was an ISP that offered zero tech support and passed that cost savings to me, mainly because I have all of about zero use for the typical support drone reading "have the customer unplug their modem and plug it back in" from a script. Hell, don't provide DNS service either; let me deal with that. All I need is the bare minimum. Such a business model would be possible if the government provided last mile connectivity and allowed ISPs to provide (or not pr
Re: Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:3)
I had one of those ISPs too (it was centered in hawaii and I forget the name).
But it was only $8 less than alternatives.
If we assume last mile plus service cost the same now as they did then, Comcast's rent seeking (compared to telcos that had to lease lines at cost, Comcast has exclusive access to the only highspeed line to my house) costs $15 or so. I'm comparing $60 today to $15 for a full service ISP + $30 last mile from the telco back then.
The equal access to the lines saved double the no help ISP AND
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Fount is.
Flex.com was the no support ISP I used.
http://flexnetinc.blogspot.com... [blogspot.com]
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Depends on what it is. Personally I'd like it if there was an ISP that offered zero tech support and passed that cost savings to me, mainly because I have all of about zero use for the typical support drone reading "have the customer unplug their modem and plug it back in" from a script. Hell, don't provide DNS service either; let me deal with that. All I need is the bare minimum. Such a business model would be possible if the government provided last mile connectivity and allowed ISPs to provide (or not provide) whatever services they want on top of that.
And also provide what? Perhaps government subsidies on the taxpayer dime to prop up a business model that would otherwise fail?
Yes, perhaps demand would be low enough from the roll-your-own-DNS geek crowd for this minimalist model to not impact business too much, but you DO have to wonder where the motive is when you've all but destroyed profit. I mean, just how much are you willing to pay for a network cable and not much else?
And sadly, I pay $90/month for "not much else" now. Just internet with additio
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Imagine a world where you rarely need to call tech support because their infrastructure actually works, with proactive monitoring and area outage alerts. How often do you call the power company for support?
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FUCK corporate profits on essential services, lowest possible price for a reliable service for all end users. That is where the profit should be and not a corporate tax on an essential service, currently strangled to inflate profits.
Might I remind you that when referring to the United States, you're speaking about a country that will happily make a considerable profit from just a funeral. You should see what the Medical Industrial Complex does to you before that.
When citizens are dying because they literally cannot afford life-saving services, the "essential" ISP problem tends to not only look like a fucking paper cut by comparison, and also explains exactly why governments don't care to fix this. They're rather busy profiting from
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Fuck fair competition. It is about providing an essential service in the modern era at the lowest possible cost to the end user.
Indeed. IdeologicallyI take a libertarian approach towards individual rights and I agree; this is public infrastructure we're talking about.
Ike might have had his regrets; the Interstate system likely wasn't one of them.
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The interstate system is also good for more than just cars and trucks. It's part of our national defense infrastructure and can be closed down for military use or used as landing runways if military bases are destroyed.
This isn't an argument against fiber as public infrastructure. Just that the Interstate System was a really, really good idea all around.
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Don't defend this irresponsible boondoggle, don't pretend rolling old tech is "futureproofing", don't get distracted by how most ISPs are a-holes. This is a bad idea.
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Fiber will not be made obsolete by wireless. Wireless requires fiber. And nearly last-mile too due to the density needed to give the bandwidth people actually want out of 5G.
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And how do the cell phone towers transport the data ... when there is no fibre?
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"It is about providing an essential service in the modern era at the lowest possible cost to the end user."
And you think the mayor is the best person to do that? Hahaha. If you have multiple companies competing on an even playing field, it will obviously result in the lowest possible cost. The company offering the end user the best/cheapest deal will get the business. The companies will try to offer it at the lowest price, if they don't their competitor will take the business?
Handing over the responsibility
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If you have multiple companies competing on an even playing field, it will obviously result in the lowest possible cost./quote
ISPs have already proven that they don't want to compete. They give each other de facto monopolies so that they can extract maximum profit from their respective regions.
Nevermind that rural always gets left out to the extent allowed by law because it's just not as profitable.
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Fuck fair competition. It is about providing an essential service in the modern era at the lowest possible cost to the end user.
You're not wrong. Now the question is, which approach do you think is more likely to deliver up to date technology at lowest cost? A government monopoly with no strong incentive to stay current and control costs, or a more open market with costs controlled by competition but with the possibility of monopolies, inequity, and rent-seeking?
Personally, I'm skeptical of the utility model. I don't think they're all that good at providing good service and containing costs. I trust open markets and competition much
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I despise potatoes and eat only Freedom Tubers[*].
[*]Nutrition facts:
Salt, reconstituted corn starch, modified corn starch (E1422), high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated vegetable fat, fully hydrogenated vegetable fat, lactose, acidity regulator (E270, E330), stabilizer (E322, E401, E415), flavourings (E621 E630), tartrazine (E102).
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:4, Interesting)
In my neck of the woods, the muni utilities were built with taxpayer-backed loans, but all the debt service is paid by ratepayers. Taxpayers would only be on the hook if the muni-utility were to default on the loans.
One might argue that the lower interest rate constitutes an unfair advantage, but it is also unfair to characterize "my" electric bill as "50% taxpayer subsidized". Of course, your mileage may be vary as I have no way of knowing what deal "your" muni-utility struck.
To extend your soccer analogy, it is more like saying that if the game ends in a tie, team A wins.
Re:Impossible. You can have one or the other (Score:5, Informative)
Here in NZ an independent company owns the fibre infrastructure - from the local point of presence to the box in my hallway, its owned in my area by a government backed company.
That company cannot provide me with internet service - they are required to provide other companies with equal access to it. So I can get a variety of services to my one box - my current service is a no-frills internet only gigabit speed one for $109NZD with no caps. Or I can go with other companies which provide other services.
So yes, you can have both.
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Who cares about an even playing field?
The internet is now an essential service, what's needed is a way to make sure everyone can get a decent connecting for a reasonable price. The fact that this thread exists is evidence that the market based solution is not working. America has on average terrible speeds and prices even in densely populated areas.
Everyone pays for roads, sewage, the fire brigade etc etc.
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Doesn't matter who is any office.
You can do this plan:
You are required to pay for ISP A.
You can also buy ISP B if you want to pay double.
Or you can do this plan:
ISP A and ISP B compete fairly.
You can't do both. It's simply not fair competition when you are forced to pay $45/month for the muni ISP, plus another $45 if you want to actually get the service. Or you can pay $45 to the city plus $90 to an ISP that's run by people who actually know how to run an ISP. Someone may LIKE that plan because somebody t
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...$2 Trillion .... By way of comparison, the entire annual operational expenses of Amazon are only $365 Billion -- less than 1/5000th as much.
It would be about 5.5 Amazons, not 5,000 Amazons. Looks like your calculator slipped a comma somewhere.
Re:My trust in the competence of government is low (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends on what the job is. As far as bringing broadband to the 17-20 million Americans who currently cannot access high-speed internet of any kind, all the Amazon-size companies in the world will never do it because there's no profit, just like there was no profit in running interstate expressways all over the country (except there was, it just took a while). Companies don't look far enough into the future to embrace a project like that.
When the scale is big and there's no obvious immediate pay-off, government is the only way.
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It depends on what the job is. As far as bringing broadband to the 17-20 million Americans who currently cannot access high-speed internet of any kind, all the Amazon-size companies in the world will never do it because there's no profit...
You're telling me Amazon can't find profit, within millions and millions of Americans, by providing fast access to Amazon?
Given their current market share, I do hope you understand exactly how silly that argument sounds on the surface.
When the scale is big and there's no obvious immediate pay-off, government is the only way.
And we probably wouldn't be here discussing the problem of shit broadband in America if government could figure out how to actually collect taxes from their beloved Donor Class.
We KNOW where trillions in profits are. This isn't a matter of not having enough money, or being
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I am absolutely telling you that. I'm not sure you're getting the scale of the task of bringing broadband to rural America. AT&T and Comcast and Verizon etc couldn't find profit in it, why would you think Amazon would?
Uh, because there was actually plenty of profit to be made, and corrupt execs were not willing to be patient and wait for it. That's why.
You can stop pretending we taxpayers haven't been bilked out of hundreds of millions for this "broadband for all" bullshit. This crap comes up every few years when a large enough group of people complain about their promised "broadband" solution half-assed delivered by a previous corrupt asshole. Millions of dollars have been corruptly pocketed by many executives over
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Companies will "cut" the lower 10% of the market if it gets it only 1% of the profit (or even a loss).
For an example, you can install couple of kilometers of fiber and serve a 100 apartments high-rise - with another couple of kilometers of fiber to the exchange - or install a couple of kilometers of cable for 10 houses in a hamlet, with a dozen more kilometers of cable (or more) to the exchange.
Not to mention that for the second case, the fiber is laid on top of existing power poles, leased from the electri
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It depends on what the job is. As far as bringing broadband to the 17-20 million Americans who currently cannot access high-speed internet of any kind, all the Amazon-size companies in the world will never do it because there's no profit,
Spot on. I'd prefer the Biden administration focused on this slice of the problem, bringing broadband only to the areas which don't, in fact, seem to get commercial service. There's really no reason to get involved in broadband in most urban and suburban areas, that's a local problem.
Well, I'd argue this isn't a federal problem in general. It really should be handled by cities, counties, and states first.
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This is really not such a great time to pitch yet another Big Government spending spree. The government hasn't exactly covered itself in glory handling the pandemic. And $2 Trillion is a unbelievable mountain of money. By way of comparison, the entire annual operational expenses of Amazon are only $365 Billion -- less than 1/5000th as much.
So, who do you think would do a better job? 5,000 new companies the size of Amazon, or 1 creaking, old government? Government knows how to do just one thing: invent more government. Don't feed it, put it on a diet. It really isn't a good value.
What in the FUCK makes you think Greed N. Corruption, the CEO of US Capitalism, is going to give a shit about citizens if they were put in charge? Do they care about you or your product concerns two seconds past the warranty period? Hell no. Now imagine that same kind of Greed putting an expiration date on Grandma and Grandpa.
When Bezoes turns into the next Hitler, what exactly are you going to DO about it? Fucking vote?!?
You cannot compel Caplitalism to give a shit about citizens, and that is exactly
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I know the Left LOVES authoritarianism and HATES individual liberty,
I doubt you find any left who is like this. You are just silly.
Totalitarian Dictatorships pop up because a dictator becomes a dictator. Has nothing at all to do with left or right.
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For example, here is a 5 bd, 2 bath 1800 sqft house for $140K. [zillow.com]
Just because housing costs are high in large cities doesn't mean the entire nation is that way. I understand moving to a location with a lower cost of living is difficult unless you have some sort of employment arranged first, but it isn't impossi
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Yeah, this would have been a great plan 8 years ago.
Now, we'll probably have Starlink satellite broadband available everywhere in the US before this bill even gets signed into law.
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Starlink can't solve this problem. It can't provide gigabit speeds to 99% of America at once.
What it can do is fill in the gaps, the really remote or difficult locations. But for everyone else fibre is needed, starting at gigabit speeds and ramping up.
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You don't need to subsidize any cable runs anywhere. Established ISPs are rolling out gigabit anyhow, and the pl
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A lot of people make the argument that it isn't cost effective to run cables to sparsely populated areas. In some cases they are right, but they tend to over-estimate a lot.
Think about how many places have telephone service and electricity now. It was cost effective to run cables for those things. Better yet often the same infrastructure can be re-used for fibre.
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By the time the checks are signed and the fiber is purchased, Starlink and cellular will have covered everyone at a lower cost.
At best this is a boondoggle demonstrating the utter incompetence and irresponsibility of the Democratic Party. At worst, corruption and self-dealing.
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The first sign that a new cell site was arriving down the road from me was an AT&T fiber crew pulling 240 fiber (I asked) underground cable. This cable passes my own older development, and a new development under construction, and connects neither of them to anything. It passes by the decrepit B-box serving my area, and under the decrepit aerial distribution cable that, in between droughts, has gotten too wet to draw dial tone for 10 days at a time. I switched to a wireline CLEC because they have the
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But that's AT&T.
As for the unions, well, despite their policy agenda being in direct contradiction to the interests of union members, unions themselves are so deeply tied to the DNC that this is basically an excuse for a ton of self-dealing. Give the u
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And what happens when the fiber actually starts rolling? They find out that everyone has Starlink or 6G hotspots and don't want or need a damn wire. $100 billion wasted. Real quality stewardship of my fucking tax dollars, idiots.
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Meanwhile... https://www.crfb.org/blogs/spe... [crfb.org]
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Trump at least understood how to grow an economy to offset spending. The modern Democratic Party has no idea how to do that. They get it wrong every time. They make exactly the wrong decisions, and run into the ground anything they are put in charge of. That's why two of the biggest and most prosperous States in the union have to be bailed out by other Democrats when they should be flush with cash. They don't
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Love your "I got mine, get your own" attitude. It's this same attitude that has led us down the road where folks make it to the next plateau and then pull up the ladder behind them just to make sure those following along don't get there also. It's the traditional boot-strap mentality of rugged individualism, which is blind to the fact that almost every achievement of great importance to this nation was done as a group endeavor in which the ultimate achievement, though it may have been done by a handful of i
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I'll just add here that the cost of urban housing is skyrocketing because you can't find knowledge work in a rural area. But really, that's because of no broadband. Investment in rural Internet will bring down all kinds of costs in urban areas by slowing the exodus of everyone with a degree from small towns to big cities.