Telecom Goes To War With New York Over Low-Income Broadband Law 95
Trade groups representing AT&T, Verizon and other telecom companies are opening fire on a new law requiring them to provide discounted internet service to low-income households in New York. From a report: New York's first-in-the-nation law could be adopted by other states at a time when the White House has signaled it wants to reduce broadband prices for all Americans. Driving the news: Trade associations USTelecom, CTIA, the New York State Telecommunications Association and others representing smaller companies filed a lawsuit Friday against New York's new law requiring providers in the state to offer broadband service for $15 a month to low-income households. New York estimates that 7 million people in 2.7 million households will qualify for the discounted service. "This program -- the first of its kind in the nation -- will ensure that no New Yorker will have to forego having reliable home internet service and no child's education will have to suffer due to their economic situation," Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement when he signed the legislation in April.
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How can you order a private company how much to charge for their service?
Oh, like say...medicine?
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The government has banned medicare from negotiating prices. That's part of the problem. And some states have banned municipal internet, which is totally fucked up, but nobody is voting out the crooks that make these laws, so I guess we just gotta live with it until the voters change their habits.
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You want to look into the 340B Drug Pricing Program [hrsa.gov]. It's a somewhat similar situation - basically if you want to sell through Medicare, you need to agree to sell at a steep discount to people who meet certain criteria. I find that similar to: if you want a limited government-granted monopoly to be an ISP in New York, you need to agree to sell at a discount to people who meet certain criteria.
And, what's with this ascii art filter? Can't make a proper post anymore. Thanks, /.
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Manufacturers participating in Medicaid agree to provide outpatient drugs to covered entities at significantly reduced prices.
Translation: The HRSA has gotten drug manufactures agree to provide Medicaid recipients their drugs at significantly reduced prices.
Do you know what your insurance company does? It gets drug manufactures to agree to provide their insurance recipients their drugs at significantly reduced prices. This is called "Pharmacy Benefits Management" and is done via negotiation.
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Medicare does not negotiate prices for medical care. It sets them by fiat. However, no medical care provider is required to accept Medicare's reimbursement. Many don't. That's one of the problems with the Medicare For All idea: many more providers are likely to drop out if they can't recoup their losses with what private insurance pays, prices that are in fact negotiated.
The analogy for the telecom case would be to set the price by fiat, but not require companies to offer service to those who want that
Re: I really don't understand this. (Score:2)
I think you mean like milk or cigarettes.
Milk: https://www.fb.org/market-inte... [fb.org]
Cigarettes: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previ... [cdc.gov]
Re: I really don't understand this. (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s subsidizing and taxing to get the product price you want.
NYS is proposing to just set the price, USSR-style, without any subsidies or taxes to pay for it.
Note that NY already has low income broadband for people with children through their school district. I think itâ(TM)s something like $20-25/month with the rest of it paid by the school taxes.
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I can tell you with certainty that this is not true in all of New York State. There are areas near me that are technically rural communities that have very little or no service options in terms of internet or cellular service. Meanwhile ISPs like TWC/Charter/Spectrum that have been granted what amount to local monopolies have been taking Public money for decades. Money that was supposed to be for building out and supplying service to these poor rural communities. Most of that money ended up in executive's p
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That on top of the big piles of cash the Feds have given them over the years.
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This is exactly the reason that the US government (not a state) granted AT&T/Bell a monopoly but only if they provided universal service. Because the early telephone service did not cover rural or poor areas, just like today's mobile phone service was for a very long time (it's gotten better but is still very spotty). Internet is still in the dark ages still in this regard.
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They did this for DSL as well.
The Telcos were forced to sell DSL to resellers as a discounted rate, which would then be resold to the public under the guise of " competition ".
Eventually, all the resellers folded and here we are.
Re:I really don't understand this. (Score:5, Informative)
Over the last 40 years, ATT and Verizon were given billions in taxpayer dollars to upgrade and maintain their networks. That money went straight into the CxO's pockets and did nothing else. This isn't even up for debate, it was in their SEC filings. Being regulated as a public utility, all of the above is how the government gets to tell them around. Just like the electric, gas, and water companies.
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First, I'd love to see these SEC filings, please provide a link. Second, this stupid law applies to ALL ISPs, not just Verizon and ATT.
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You can fuck off now.
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Well the proof is that you apparently can't access google to search for it.
Re: I really don't understand this. (Score:5, Informative)
You easily conflate federal grants to expand networks and coverage to underserved areas with NY state arbitrarily setting price points for their services.
As a reminder, the federal government already has a low income internet program, the intention of this announcement was to distract from Cuomo's multiple scandals in the press, nothing more.
Federal low-income ISP service: https://www.fcc.gov/lifeline-c... [fcc.gov]
And lets not forget the federal $50/month subsidy program: https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandb... [fcc.gov]
How many overlapping/redundant programs do we need?
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>>How many overlapping/redundant programs do we need?
In the gov't? As many (poorly written) programs that are required to either (a) keep the pork flowing, (b) keep someone's nephew's business above water, (c) to make empty campaign quotes on how they should be re-elected, or (d) all of the above.
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And some of the details of those existing programs...
Lifeline is a joke when it comes to boardband. It is meant to get someone a super cheap, talk and text, phone for either emergencies or bare-minimum contactable. And it doesn't even fully cover that.
The Lifeline discount for eligible subscribers is up to $9.25 per month for monthly (wireline or wireless) telephone service, broadband, or bundled service.
The Emergency Boardband Benefit is a Covid-19 response program intended for short duration.
The Emergency Broadband Benefit will provide a discount of up to $50 per month towards broadband service for eligible households.
What NYC should do is deploy a city-wide fiber network and provide basic ISP service -- data carrier only. Then lease that network to the telcos and let them resell and
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Man . . . . if you only knew the reality of what a Telco network looks like these days :P
Not the shiny, state-of-the-art stuff they put into the dog-and-pony-show datacenters they like to show off, but the REAL backbone that lives within the Central Offices across the Nation.
Imagine a network full of equipment that exceeded its End of Sale, End of Life, End of Support and even End of Manufacturing dates, a decade ago. PSAPS for 911 systems still running across 1200 baud circuits. Imagine a Telecom where
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More seriously though, they can't. If it were that easy the government would just demand that they cure cancer, solve global warming, or any of a number of things.
The internet people will get will be a lot like the project housing that the service connects to, better than nothing, but awful in its own way. I'm sure some company will figure out how to load it up with ads and other terrible shit that no one should be subject to.
Companies may find a way to soak the taxpayers for
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How can you order a private company how much to charge for their service?
They can't. This is tantamount to eminent domain, which would require just compensation.
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It's called a "(partial) taking". (It's like taking somebody's land through eminent domain, or sucking some of the value out of it by restrictive land use laws or zoning without a "non-conforming use" exception, dropping its usefulness and/or price). It's one of the things prohibited (without fair payment) by the Fifth Amendment's "takings" clause
Re: I really don't understand this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not simply require all restaurants in NYC to provide a healthy meal to all low income residents for no more than $5, gratuity included? No New York resident should go hungry!
Andrew Cuomo not only didn't provide any compensation to ISPs, he didn't even extend them the courtesy of a "please" or a "thank you".
Maybe NY ISPs could just tack on a $5 "Cuomo tax" on everyone else's monthly ISP bill?
Any word on equipment rental fees the ISPs can charge?
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It's in lieu of having to negotiate right-of-way with each and every private land owner in the entire state and pay whatever they might demand (assuming they're willing to deal at all) to run their cables.
It's quite a bargain.
The only problem is the telecoms think they're the golden child and that they can just dig up your whole yard, flip you a nickel for your trouble and have you fawning over them and kissing their backside for the privilege.
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Yeah this is pretty dumb. If New York tax payers want to subsidize poor people's internet, that's one thing, but basically ordering non-poor customers of ISPs to make up the difference to subsidize others is crazy.
I think New York will quickly discover that poor neighborhoods will now have no Internet service at all.
Re: I really don't understand this. (Score:1)
How can yoh do this?
Well, you just *do it*.
This is a sovereign state. We, the people, make the rules. If you do not like it, you are "free" to fuck off.
Besides, this is only telling them to not steal as much money from people that really can't afford it. Nobody is losing anything. At worst, it is cutting into their other profits for the good of society as a whole. Aka being social. Aka not being a dick.
I wonder: If somebody barely manages to survive, and begs you for water... so you charge him?
Because a hum
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How can yoh do this? Well, you just *do it*.
This is a sovereign state. We, the people, make the rules. If you do not like it, you are "free" to fuck off.
New York is a sovereign state that ratified the U.S. Constitution, making itself subject to the federal government's rules where they apply, via the constitution's supremacy clause.
The Federal government is a constitutional federation. The constitution is its fundamental enabling act and trumps all laws, treaties, and regulations below it (both at the fed
Don't like it, here's what you can try. (Score:2)
So go ahead and "just do it" because you're "a sovereign state". Then don't be surprised when you get sued by the phone companies to pay the rest of the bill for it.
Which is exactly what this lawsuit is, isn't it?
Don't like it? Try one of these:
1: Repeal the takings clause by constitutional amendment.
2: Modify the due process clause by constitutional amendment to break the incorporation doctrine or its application to this situation.
3: Secede from the Union.
Good luck with those. 1:
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It's the Internet. It's basically a utility at this point and other utilities get discounted for low-income, so why spare this one? Can you even still get a job without Internet access? Obviously can't do WFH or remote learning without Internet, which is pretty critical and has been for the past year and well before.
The Internet service providers should be made into regulated utilities and their media components spun off. It's never made sense that the ISP can also be part of big media. Definite conflict of
Starlink (Score:2, Interesting)
Subsidize Starlink FFS. Offer taxpayer-funded broadband for everyone regardless of income up to 10 Mbps.
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That would indeed be a poke in the eye. "Oh, you don't want to give people what they want? Here let us subsidize someone who will." Even better, help make sure municipal broadband is a success.
Re: Starlink (Score:2, Informative)
So there's money to compensate competitors, but not incumbent ISPs? Interesting.
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Incumbent ISPs have already been compensated for expanding broadband. Instead of doing what they were paid they just took the money and ran. Nobody wants to pay them more because they never deliver and somehow nobody goes to fail for defrauding taxpayers.
Re: Starlink (Score:1)
Lol, you poor black-eyed people.
It's a pattern repeated a million times. Yet you never see it.
Starlink's gonna become just like Verizon, the *second* they are in the position to do so.
Starlink would only do this now, *for the purpose* of getting in a position where they can do so!
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: Starlink (Score:2)
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It's not just service, it's construction (Score:2, Insightful)
The city doesn't want to solve the problem with wireless options like StarLink and 5G because they want to make this a massive payday for the construction companies.
Re: Starlink (Score:2)
NY and others want to declare gigabit as the minimum requirement for classifying broadband, there was an article about that a few weeks ago here.
Good luck getting millions of subscribers with gigabit on a few satellites. We canâ(TM)t even get dense enough 4G to do that.
They're right, it's a bullshit law (Score:2)
The city or the state should provide the service.
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If they are operating with government subsidies, then we have have equity and can demand good service at a reasonable price.
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No, we're supposed to level the playing field, not fill it with moguls and divots
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No goalposts in baseball
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Two words to scare them (Score:5, Interesting)
Watch them go up in flames. Make interest free loans available if the municipality needs help with the starting costs.
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I don't support this (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no reason for Internet access to be analogous to power or water monopolies.
Governments role should be to ensuring a vigorously competitive market not setting prices companies are allowed to charge. If they want to subsidize service as many have done due to pandemic or make deals with providers so be it.
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If the service is not provided based on contracts with the government that exclude other competitors from entering the market then you have a point.
Re:I don't support this (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it not be considered the same as power and water? Those are regulated since they are natural monopolies and thus can easily be considered a market failure.
You don't want or need multiple power lines or water pipes into your house just so you have "competitive markets".
Internet service should just be treated like both of those, pure utilities and regulated as such. If a private company wants to manage that system for a municipality they should absolutely be subject to stringent rules for the ability to operate in a monopoly market.
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Why would it not be considered the same as power and water? Those are regulated since they are natural monopolies and thus can easily be considered a market failure.
Internet access need not be a natural monopoly. The same airwaves can be shared (e.g. CBRS) the same fiber strands can be shared (Muni fiber) .. just as the same ATM cloud was shared with competing DSL providers a lifetime ago.
There is no practical or technical reason why natural monopolies have to exist or should even be tolerated in this space.
You don't want or need multiple power lines or water pipes into your house just so you have "competitive markets".
If it were practical I sure would.
Internet service should just be treated like both of those, pure utilities and regulated as such.
Why?
If a private company wants to manage that system for a municipality they should absolutely be subject to stringent rules for the ability to operate in a monopoly market.
I agree in terms of the plumbing for something like last mile muni-fiber which would be a natural monopoly. Yet what those p
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What else are we talking about but last mile, that's where as you said yourself, having more than one line to a residence, be it water, power or fiber, is frankly wildly impractical and serves no function other than a waste of time and resources. The last mile of that type of infrastructure will always be a natural monopoly since it's considered essential service so the fact that people must have it (for all intents in purposes) it becomes a market failure. Internet service, which is communications in thi
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What else are we talking about but last mile,
Partially it is that multiple access technologies exist to deliver service.
Fiber, Telco, Cable, Wireless, Cellular, Satellite
One or more providers in each category may be available at any given location.
Here we have Fiber, DSL, Cable, a couple of WISPs, major and regional cellular companies all able to provide Internet access over different technologies.
The last mile of that type of infrastructure will always be a natural monopoly since it's considered essential service so the fact that people must have it (for all intents in purposes) it becomes a market failure.
If you are talking local loop unbundling I can get behind that idea and would support the FCC using it's Title II powers to make it happen.
I very much would like to see local governments vigorously persuit solutions like muni-fiber and CBRS where there can be vigorous competition.
If you have a
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That's the point, if they have a monopoly they need to be regulated like a utility. Power company even if private can't just raise my rates arbitrarily, pricing is regulated via state level.
Where I live, not 20 minutes from a large city center I have 1 Cable provider and 1 terrible DSL provider, so in reality, 1 option. My price has been raised 3 times without increase in service, not exactly a market solution to this.
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It's absolutely a trivial matter for multiple ISPs to provide service and fierce competition over common infrastructure.
Except the ISPs fight like hell to make sure they have exclusive access to their infrastructure.
Re:I don't support this (Score:4, Interesting)
> There is no reason for Internet access to be analogous to power or water monopolies.
Cancel your internet access. All of it. That includes any non-telephone cellular service.
So much of modern life requires connectivity it can easily be justified as an essential service. After the pandemic, with so many jobs and schools moving online - especially with video conferencing - broadband internet in particular is arguably becoming an essential service.
As for the constitutionality of enforcing a price ceiling; It's been done before (anti-price-gouging laws), it's done now (rent control, sometimes other utilities), and there's no reason to think it won't or shouldn't continue.
=Smidge=
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Cancel your internet access. All of it. That includes any non-telephone cellular service.
I don't understand what this is intended to convey. My commentary on power or water monopoly analogues is centered around the fact that it is practical for there to be vigorous competition amongst ISPs where the same is not true of power and water.
So much of modern life requires connectivity it can easily be justified as an essential service. After the pandemic, with so many jobs and schools moving online - especially with video conferencing - broadband internet in particular is arguably becoming an essential service.
My local grocery store provides an essential service. Should the government step in and set the price of flour and Twinkies too?
As for the constitutionality of enforcing a price ceiling; It's been done before (anti-price-gouging laws), it's done now (rent control, sometimes other utilities), and there's no reason to think it won't or shouldn't continue.
My position is that I would rather see government promoting (demanding) competition rather than price fixing in the Internet space. I
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> I don't understand what this is intended to convey.
Internet access is, I'm arguing, nearly as fundamental to modern living as power and water.
Also, that it is *not*, in fact, "practical for there to be vigorous competition amongst ISPs" - not unless the infrastructure is publicly owned, anyway, because *someone* needs to maintain and operate the infrastructure, and if it's a private ISP than the best you'll ever hope to get is common carrier status with one ISP using another's infrastructure... which w
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"There is no reason for Internet access to be analogous to power or water monopolies."
Bullshit.
Internet is the new phone, and the phone is already a utility.
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Bullshit.
Internet is the new phone, and the phone is already a utility.
Prior to mobile and Internet the local telephone company had a monopoly on the provision of telephone service.
This need not be the case with Internet. There are numerous transports and numerous ways of leveraging shared mediums to enable effective competition. There are no practical physically possible analogues with power and water.
I'll take a muni fiber deployment with choice of a dozen different ISPs over government granted monopoly and associated price controls any day.
Re: I don't support this (Score:2)
You forgot a negation there:
There is no reason for Internet access to NOT be analogous to power or water monopolies.
Convenient misuse of "monopolies" there.
Do you even know what "by the people, for the people" means?
I bet you hate "The government's monoply to govern" too. And don't even realize that governent is *you* and you are arguing for your own enemies.
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You forgot a negation there:
There is no reason for Internet access to NOT be analogous to power or water monopolies.
The reason I disagree with this position is that packets are fundamentally different from electrons and water molecules.
Over a common infrastructure it is not possible to address an electron from a power source to a specific residence.
It is not possible to address a water molecule from a water source to a specific residence.
It is absolutely trivial to address a packet from a ISP to a specific residence.
There are significant practical reasons to support a monopoly on water and electricity.
There is NO practic
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Technically, the only service you actually need is reliable, clean, running water. Electricity and gas are nice extras. So is Internet access.
Electricity and gas are both regulated just like water even though you don't technically need them to survive (i.e. creature comforts != survival).
A better analogy is one akin to cellular networks. MVNOs exist because the Federal government busted up the telecoms because of their monopolies on the market and said that others could use their network infrastructure t
Having cheaper plans is fine (Score:2)
Offering the exact same plan to different people based on their income, is not.
Any telecom complying to this law should at the same time differentiate the plans by opening up more bandwidth to the more expensive plans.
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Telecom luvs bananas (Score:2)
NYC is extremely expensive ground to wire underground network infrastructure for terrestrial Internet. Costs to maintain, service, upgrade and accommodate gov’t regulatory action all come at cost. Costs in NY exceed anywhere else outside of remote locations.
Comparing apples and oranges the Big Apple feed Billion$ into telecoms for state of the art service, upgrades and new capacity. Residential are the oranges telecom supplies typically vertical neighborhoods mostly to the building. SFR is small tomat
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If they do pull out of NY then that opens the gates to Municipal Broadband. After all, if the Telco's pull out, they can't complain about the State of NY filling the gap.
Oh wait.... this is the USA.
10 gazillion lawsuits will stop Cuomo (and whoever comes next) from doing anything.
Those that can do. Those that can't sue, sue and sue again.
Fuck Verizon (Score:5, Insightful)
This is fucking infrastructure. That is what government does. It's an investment. Like the fucking highway system.
The money is in the services that use the wires. Amazon, Google, Apple, NetFlix, Walmart, and any other fucking goods and services that can be had online.
Time to end this stupid fantasy that the private sector is going to help out when it comes to broadband.
"discounted" (Score:1)
I'm betting this would still be at a profit for the companies, just not as profitable as they'd like. And it'll give people the idea that service can be had for that price and wonder why they're paying more. Of course, the companies will say this service is why *they* are paying more and denounce it as socialism ... But, given the lack of progress of broadband speeds, services and investments in the US, the companies and shareholders are just used to getting their money at our expense.
Easy solution (Score:1)
$50/mo for the modem rental.
broadband providers shooting themselves inthe foot (Score:1)
Oh noes, our monopolism! (Score:2)
A free market! With independent actors making theor own superior competition with blackjack and hookers! Oh noes! The biggest threat to corporations ever! ;)
This really shows how much they actually hate a healthy market.
Re: Oh noes, our monopolism! (Score:2)
You think Internet service is a free market? I'm sorry to disabuse you of this notion, but ISPs are mostly local and regional monopolies, with some cartels sprinkled in in some areas. There is no free market in Internet service for the vast majority of Americans.
Might turn out to be fair (Score:2)
Low income households are concentrated in population dense areas. Those places require less investment and infrastructure per customer. They should be cheaper due to basic economics, but monopolies kill any chance of a well-functioning market.
Utilities are regularly subject to price controls. ISPs are utilities by any reasonable assessment. In addition, based on free market principles, they should be heavily regulated when they rely on public easements.
International comparison (Score:2)
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So? Telecoms in France are highly subsidized by the taxpayer.
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