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The Internet Government The Almighty Buck

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.

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Biden Infrastructure Plan Promises Broadband To All Within 8 Years

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  • 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

    • ... end users in the form of tax credits ...

      Telcos will just increase the price without increasing the quality of service.

      ... subsidies ...

      The government tried that: It doesn't get an honest answer from the telcos and it doesn't care that telcos were dishonest.

      ... to avoid throwing money ...

      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)

        by John_Sauter ( 595980 ) <John_Sauter@systemeyescomputerstore.com> on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @10:48PM (#61223220) Homepage

        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.

  • by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @09:04PM (#61223028)

    AT&T decided that 10Mpbs is good enough for all Americans!

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        Streaming outbound is becoming a thing as well. Zoom calls and the like, plus other entertainment sites. You on a zoom call, kids all streaming their games to Twitch, wife streaming on Onlyfans, it adds up.
      • 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.

      • 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.

    • 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

      • 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

  • by sordid ( 322222 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @09:06PM (#61223030) Homepage

    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.

    • by sd4f ( 1891894 )

      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.

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @09:21PM (#61223062)

    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.

    • No penalties, but a legally binding contract of the sort 2 companies would go into, with a binding arbitration clause.

      Gov't penalties never get enforced, but contractual ones? You bet.
    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      Meanwhile they continue to ass-fuck every city government that tries to set up their own municipalities. The government should run the last mile. They should be the stretch of tech to the end user. Then everyone else can buy equal access to that customer. Thats the only way it will survive without monopoly. You need to put the east india trading company out of business and do away with exorbitant port fees thst are designed to stifle competition.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      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.

    • I say if they reject the money it should automatically go toward building municipal networks.

      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....

    • Why give it to municipalities to waste on rolling fiber to remote homes when a couple of cell towers could provide 5G to every home for a fraction of the cost? Or just wait for Starlink, it'll cover everyone in a fraction of the time this is expected to take (will almost certainly take at least 50% longer, this involves government and Democrats), and is far more cost-effective.

      As you pointed out, every other time Democrats pushed to subsidize connectivity it cost a ton and we got nothing in return. It

    • I don't disagree, but I also think it might be a bit difficult to get completed in five years. A majority of it might be able to be completed in five years, but I don't know if thre is enough equipment / manpower to put in that much copper / fiber in that time frame. Then again, if he's following the same "under promise / over deliver) mentality he'll get it done in six years lol.
  • We will have broken all the promises and wasted a lot of money, just ask Australia they did the same thing.

  • by tinkerghost ( 944862 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @11:28PM (#61223290) Homepage
    From the telcom companies that have been raking in billions in tax credits for the last 20+ years while failing to meet any of the targets for rolling out broadband?
  • "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?

  • Good thing there isnâ(TM)t a three term limit, it would take 12 years :)

  • ... a chicken in every pot!
  • 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.

  • 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."

  • 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."

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