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It is utterly dependent on public rights of way, it is at least nominally available to each and every member of the general public (unless they don't feel like servicing your area, despite getting massive tax breaks for 27 years to do so), and it is fundamentally a public utility because of the physical and financial realities of how it is deployed.

This is true for some types of networks but isn't universally true (just in the past year in my area - which is far from being a big metro area - added 2 different wireless providers. And this is before the widespread deployment of 5G and is in addition to copper and fiber).

Until AT&T pays the $400 billion in back taxes they owe for failing ...[snip] ...

On the part about how screwed things up are we are very much in agreement. But look at it this way: some of these companies got in bed with the government and now we're trying to figure out how to untangle the mess. If for no other reason than this do I have trouble with the idea that even more government entanglement (dictating how they are run, more regulation, even nationalizing them) is the solution.

Public utilities can sometimes be a good solution, but it is so tricky to get right that it's probably a last resort option. A lot of the problem seems rooted in the fact that they become a monopoly, but one that is government sanctioned, so you have this weird situation where you're dealing with the anti-competitive downsides of a monopoly and the bureaucratic downsides of the government - it's a mess that resists fixing.

The government could instead work to roll back anti-competitive legislation that has prevented municipal ISPs to form. Or it could force AT&T (and others) to pay what they owe and use that money on incentives for providing better access to under-served areas. There are many things the government could try before getting further intertwined with running companies - a solution that pretty much always leads to sub-optimal results.

the government doesn't really have legal justification it can use to tell a private company that it can't censor traffic on its own network.

The government has the legal justification to tell a private company that it can't censor traffic on its network because its network is not private. It is utterly dependent on public rights of way, it is at least nominally available to each and every member of the general public (unless they don't feel like servicing your area, despite getting massive tax breaks for 27 years to do so), and it is fundamentally a public utility because of the physical and financial realities of how it is deployed.

Your original statement that "ISPs should ALWAYS have the right to censor traffic" is wrong.

Until AT&T pays the $400 billion in back taxes they owe for failing to live up to their part of the National Infrastructure Initiative bargain, until I can charge AT&T for every inch of their lines that cross my property for every month they're there, AT&T's network is not private enough to claim exemption from regulation that would prevent them from breaking the fucking Internet.

The Internet as it existed, with de facto neutrality, because ISPs had not yet had the nerve to try to break it for profit, is so valuable, to the tune of $500 billion annually to the US economy, that it must be protected as a public good. If you really believe their nominal status as private entities makes them immune from regulation, then I will advocate for seizing their assets and nationalizing every last one of them, forcibly removing every ISP from the media conglomerate into which it has been sucked. It's that important that they not be allowed to break it. For more money.

suing their own customers and the customer are paying for it

We've already paid for it. Twice. During the Clinton administration, $200 billion of taxpayer dollars were handed over to broadband providers who promised us 45 Mbps, both ways, within a decade.

Since that time, over $1 trillion in direct payments, tax breaks and other inducements, all of it taxpayer money, has been given to broadband companies who are now fighting tooth and nail not to provide the service they claim to do.

Considering it was the government (i.e. taxpayers) who created the internet, that it is government (i.e. taxpayers) who continues to foot the bill, it's very disingenuous for companies to claim they shouldn't have to do what the government tells them to do.

I wish it was only $250M. I think you're off by a few orders of magnitude.

http://newnetworks.com/ShortSC...

http://newnetworks.com/bookofb...

http://newnetworks.com/ShortSC...

http://newnetworks.com/bookofb...

So along comes net neutrality, where everyone needs to be equal and it will be governed by our government. That means tax payer dollars being spent to extend line to areas with low amounts of users that isn't financially possible for AT&T to do.

Uh, no, that's not remotely what it means.

Network neutrality means the delivery of my packets, either from me or to me, will not be degraded or interfered with, regardless of their origin or destination, by my ISP or any other network provider between me and the other endpoint. It especially means that no network may extort money from me before they'll agree to stop degrading delivery of my packets. Net neutrality codifies what engineers always tried to do with the Internet for the past 30+ years: best speed delivery for all traffic, before asshole MBAs decided to fuck it all up for more money. That's all net neutrality means.

Net neutrality does not have anything to do with net availability. That's a whole different problem, for which the American people were robbed of $300 billion, as documented in excruciating detail by Bruce Kushnick.

Really, I think the system we have been using all along has been fine. There are enough watchdogs and the advent of social media calls out ISP's pretty much the second they start doing some funny business that the bad PR makes them reverse their positions.

No, there aren't, and no, they don't. Netflix caved in to Comcast's extortion demands and has been paying them Mafia-style protection money since 2014, despite that bullshit being widely publicized. "The system" is not remotely fine anymore. It was fine before 2014. Now it's not. Not as long as ISPs are allowed to extort money from Internet services who are not their customers. (Lack of enforcement of net neutrality rules is yet another problem to be fought, if net neutrality can be preserved at all.)

Internet companies have invested an awful lot of money in having almost universal service now.

Yes, those billions of taxpayer dollars given to them during the Clinton administration, and the billions more in tax breaks and what amounts to effective monopolies, is a lot of money being spent by the end users. It's so much money, ISPs have to be reminded they can't spend taxpayer money on booze and trips to Disney World.

As we saw recently, the taxpayers keep being told they have to hand over their money to these private companies for. . . well, no one's really sure since neither service or accessibility has been increased in many places.

Yet another subsidy to the telecoms to not deliver what they promise, and then go completely ignored by the government.

Sincerely,
my bi-directional 45Mbit access from the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that should have been available 10 years ago according to the Act, and the hundreds of billions of dollars paid in the form of excise taxes by the public.

Well, I think it's both true and untrue. I think it is more expensive to wire up the US because we have a lot of land area and people sprinkled through it fairly liberally. I think it's bullshit because telecom execs have collected piles of bonus money while failing to meet broadband penetration targets, after we paid them to do so. That is to say, it is more expensive, but we could clearly have accomplished it, and we did not because of fraud.

We could have continued increasing productivity, at least into the foreseeable future.

I remember a couple of decades ago when telecommuting became possible (roughly 1990), and the IRS stepped in with rules that made it less inviting as an option. Among other things, you couldn't deduct the expenses of your home office, and you could no longer be a consultant (1099), you still had to be a regular employee (W-2). Unless, of course, you were a doctor, lawyer, or architect - those three professions were excepted from the rule.

A little later, someone pointed out that GE pays no taxes (among many other businesses), leading to the conclusion that it's nigh impossible to start a business that makes a competing product.

Microsoft did its "embrace, extend, extinguish" thing to a bunch of other companies. Microsoft would "consider purchasing" your software business, sign an NDA and send in some engineers to check out the internals and otherwise determine the fitness of the purchase, choose not to purchase, then come out with a competing product 6 months later.

This happened so many times it became a meme.

(Let's not forget that Microsoft illegally forced itself on many computers. Whole companies sprang up to deal with viruses and other security exploits, while a viable alternative floundered. The first person to purchase a computer and return the Windows software got sued by Microsoft, and had to justify his actions.)

We gave the telecom companies $200 billion to bring everyone up to broadband. They took the money and did nothing - much of the country can't get internet access, Comcast can be the most hated company in America, and mobile phone service is spotty, the quality is choppy, and the communications insecure.

We give away our productivity and resources to other countries for little or no gain, we've been neglecting our roads and bridges, our electric service is outdated and increasingly unreliable, our health care is third-world-class. Our education is top-heavy with administration and mindless rules, and the cost of extended education burdens the student for the rest of their life.

(It's really hard to start a new business, make an innovative invention or do scientific research, when you're burdened with education expenses for the rest of your life, have to hold down a low-paying job just to survive because the high-paying one was outsourced to a H1B, can't get good internet service, and are forced to use Windows compatible software, and have to purchase health insurance at $5,000 per year per family member.)

====

This is in stark contrast with, for example, America of the 1920s. Reading newspaper articles of the times shows that the country was hopping with ideas. Just about everyone on the street in NYC had ideas on how to start a business, invent a new machine, or otherwise make their fortune in America.

Immigration was easy, just show up and get registered. Immigration was a self-selecting evolutionary sieve for people who were smart and could get along with other groups. You had to leave your family, community and support system behind, and learn a new language, culture, and laws. But if you could do it, you could make enough money to have the rest of your family come over to join you.

(Nowadays it takes 10 years and $30,000 for a Russian (to use an example) to emigrate to the US... if you win the immigration lottery.)

====

My point for all this is that we *could* still be having increases in productivity. If we just eased up on all the arbitrary unfairness and burden we place on the people, The electronics revolution isn't quite over yet, the internet revolution is about half over, there's a ton of room for innovation in medical sciences, and the bio revolution is just getting started. (And the start of the AI revolution might be very cl

So in the great American tradition, the municipalities should tax their local population, collect all the money and lay it at the feet of Internet barons in New York and beg them to build a fiber optic network for their poor little towns.

We already did that. To the tune of 200 billion dollars.

We got bupkiss.

Looks like Quest^W Qwest^W CenturyLink is just going for Part Two of the original hit production: Broadband Subsidy Scam.

But don't worry if you're enjoying the show so far -- I have no doubt there will be a Part Three in 10 years or so.

I agree - all the tax money put those lines in and the baby bells are a government mandated monopoly. A level playing field would be amazing. When the FCC rolled back many of the '96 telco reform act the small ISP could no longer compete. Wholesale rates were higher than the telco was offering retail rates to the end user.

For a good first step how about the telco's having to live up to their $400 billion in broken contracts. One agreement had every house in NJ to be on fiber by mid 2000s. http://newnetworks.com/bookofb...

We know net neutrality is something that could be enforced, there is enough bandwidth available now over fiber to give everyone a standard amount of bandwidth. Fast lanes are probably inevitable; if that is the price for getting standardized internet access then fine, do it. It's a reason for companies to roll out the upgrades.

Let's face it, business will not upgrade the networks to the speed required without being told that they will get to charge for premium access. It's a fact, you can't get around it. It's better for everyone to just accept what can't be changed, live with it, deal with it, and let's get IPTV to everybody nationwide so we get more channels, more content, etc, etc.

Just imagine a future time when you don't have to watch football on the weekend, where you can watch whatever minority sport you prefer, be it surfing or chess or mountaineering or whatever. Imagine having the freedom to choose what shows you watch when. It's not going to happen if we don't get the networks upgraded and that is not going to happen without fast lanes, I don't believe.

I don't think we'll ever get net neutrality, but by the trickle-down theory, we should be able to get serviceable internet to everyone which is sufficiently neutral for it not to matter. Let's shift the cost onto content rather than the medium, and we'll need fast networks to do that, and that requires fast lanes for now, I think.

That's a steaming load of grade A bullshit. Do you work for the CTIA? Or just one of its members?

Do NOT be fooled by the "Net Neutrality" cover story. This is an effort to regulate the Internet by hardcore leftists, and if allowed to proceed will be the end of the Internet as we know it.

The unregulated Internet CHANGED THE WORLD. Allowing government regulations will only destroy what has been created.

You sir, are uninformed. Until 2002 Cable inernet service *was* classified as a common carrier under Title II. DSL Internet was also a common carrier until 2005.

Since those orders reclassifying internet access under Title I rather than Title II, the ISPs have slowed innovation, dragged their feet with infrastructure upgrades despite the USD$200 billion subsidies given to them, raised prices, created ever more abusive terms of service, and consolidated their stranglehold over both content distribution and last-mile infrastructure through consolidation, lobbying at the municipal, state and federal levels and plumbed the depths of poor customer service.

All of this since we lessened regulation on the ISPs. There was huge growth, innovation, new infrastructure, more competition and fairer terms of service, *before* that. So, as I said, you're uninformed. Either that or you're being deliberately obtuse for partisan reasons. Or, you're just a shill for the big ISPs. I'll assume you're just uninformed, rather than a liar.

Uh, The Federal Government has already paid $400 Billion to the major telcos (including verizon) to build an extensive fiber optic network...

http://www.newnetworks.com/Sho...

Or everyone in the US just got swindled out of billions that was supposed to give us real broadband, to the tune of 300 Billion

you are already paying for this... SEVERAL times the goddamn major TELCO's lobbied congress for additional charges...

FEDERAL SUBSCRIBER LINE fees
UNIVERSAL SERVICES FUNDs
FEDERAL ACCESS fees

these all exist so the FCC can give ATT more money to build broadband to every home. Yes the USF predates the 1994 telecom act and later laws, but its constanty evolving. The FCC, right this minute, is considering USF charges on your internet connection as well.

the telcos got government permission to bill you and everyone else extra BILLIONS to build out an infrastructure that was supposed to provide 50Mbps connections to the homes. Instead they rolled out DSL (at the time 1.5mbps x 256kbps) which was a technology they already had and pocketed the rest. To this day you are still being charged these extra fee's for a buildout that was declared 'completed' years ago.

http://www.newnetworks.com/Sho...

We've already paid for high speed internet using the existing infrastructure. The telcos and cable cos have to get the permission of various entities from state and federal agencies, sometimes they got huge tax breaks to improvements. New Jersey was supposed to have fiber to the home of everyone by 2010 if I recall. currently it's up to 300 billion that taxpayers have paid and hasn't been delivered. We want better internet speed start calling your congress critters and ask them where our money has gone.

With carriers having overcharged over 300 billion who is then on the hook if there are no more landline companies? Of course telcom giants want people only on wireless, Verizon has been selling off their landline business for years. ...
I wonder if this means other companies can move into these abandoned areas without the ILEC screaming like crazy?

No, the ILEC's won't scream. And no, no other companies will move in. Once all are converted to wireless, POTS will be forbidden by law ... it 'interferes' with wireless networks somehow, all they need is a line item inserted into a 'farm aid' bill or similar that declares POTS installs of any kind to be dangerous to the wireless businesses ... then they'll say "see, we can't do POTS because it's bad for you, we know it is because there is a law that says so" ...

With carriers having overcharged over 300 billion who is then on the hook if there are no more landline companies? Of course telcom giants want people only on wireless, Verizon has been selling off their landline business for years.

I haven't kept up with the laws the last decade but the ILECs - incumbent local exchange carrier - were the equivalent of government mandated monopolies. Telco reform act of '96 forced the ILECs to share the publicly paid for infrastructure with startup phone companies. The Internet exploded with thousands of ISPs popping up. This was rolled back under Bush Jr when Powell's son was running the FCC. I wonder if this means other companies can move into these abandoned areas without the ILEC screaming like crazy?

There are monopolies, there are cartels, and there is protectionism when it comes to big money Telcos.

Quality has taken a back seat to a giant cash grab.

They don't really even bother to hide how much they are robbing the sheeple.

All they have to do is distract the sheeple that same way a snake charmer does,
and their favorite tool is the "Operation Mockingbird" media.

$300 billion stolen by Telcos, $32 trillion stolen by a various means and
placed offshore and the IRS won't touch it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

http://www.democraticundergrou...

Well the problem is due to the "revolving door" between the government jobs and corporate ones,
the same ppl are affecting policy that work at both locations at different times.

They buy off the government, and get them pass huge taxpayer looting boondoggles
that were NEVER meant to deliver better service and why they keep trying to squeeze
a few more bits out of old unshielded copper lines laid decades ago.

Thieves bribing thieves, and the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill yet again, its like listening
to a broken record at this point.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

Proof that they did buy the government and used it to loot $300 billion.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

Yeah the government is who setup to rob the taxpayers of $300 billion and
give it to the Telcos with a blank check bill that had zero guarantees in it.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

Government by thieves for thieves is Kleptocracy.

The funny part is the Telcos were paid $300 billion of US taxpayer money
to upgrade everyone, but instead the took the money and ran like the thieves
they have proven themselves to be over the decades.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

LOL, when theives run the Telcos expect to get robbed !!!

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

Who would expect thieves to use deceptive market ?

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

Correct the US does not even place in the top 20 internet connection world wide anymore.

Mostly due to greed of US Telcos which is obvious after you read about them stealing
$300 billion in tax payer money like the thieves that they are.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

The government in its present form is a Kleptocratic Plutocracy as seen by this.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

Yeah that is a great idea, they robbed the $300 billion from us last time
because the corrupt politician parasites are basically thieves who dress & lie well.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

The US citizens "only" hope at this point is a Co-op that totally bypasses
the federal government, or its done by local government and they have
iron clad transparency built into it or you end up with more lies and corruption
just as has infested every layer of government and red vs. blue being merely a circus sideshow.

The VERY best part of it is that the US taxpayer doled out $300 billion in corporate welfare
to the Telcos and they took the money and run.

It was supposed to be used to provide broadband to every US home.

As usual, corrupt corporations + corrupt government ( left & right ) = legalized theft

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

A Co-op ISP looks to be the best bet, but I think it would be killed by the Telecom Cartel.

Cartel is when corporations scheme to price fix, and to equally screw the citizens.

Monopoly is when one company owns it all and crushes any competition.

Cartel can be far more subtle, and it is the current paradigm here.

What is wild is that the US taxpayer paid $300 billion for a broadband upgrade,
and the Telco's took the money and run.

Whole story here:

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

Don't expect a fair and free trade experience from pirates, thieves, and looters.

This is why these local authorities should not be able to grant franchise rights as it limits competition. The infrastructure needs to be paid directly with taxpayer funds, not indirectly through massive financial incentives like this, then the providers can compete over which services to provide over infrastructure owned by the taxpayers. I've been fortunate to never have to deal with Time Warner, although I have had to deal with Comcast, and they are both steaming piles of shit that would never exist in their current form in a truly competitive marketplace.

You cannot expect the corrupt Telcos who stole $300 billion of US taxpayer money
to do anything remotely in the realm of honest.

Welcome to the Kleptocracy.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

If the Telco's can get away with theft of $300 billion, they can get away with pretty much anything.

Welcome to Kleptocracy, Government for thieves by thieves.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

80+ % of fiber in the ground is dark fiber.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

To read just how corrupt the Telcos are and the Congress Critters they "own"
read this little gem.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

People really have no idea of the magnitude of the Kleptocracy,
even when they realize 32 Trillion was funneled offshore, that is merely
what we can detect hat was not transferred into no traceable forms.

Google "32 Trillion offshore need IRS attention".

Honestly we don't need to charge by the bit as network gear gets cheaper and cheaper.

We need a co-op model that runs a tab on costs, pays the workers the prevailing wage
of the industry, and if they have a shortfall they raise rates, and surplus they issue a rebate.

I don't think this will happen, but its a nice dream.

What we get instead is things like the $300 Billion Broadband Scandal.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

If you want to see both parties at work corrupting the money and internet rollout
check out the $300 billion broadband scandal.

http://www.newnetworks.com/bro...

When you have corrupt ppl in both parties, you get billions flushed down the toilet.

Google is not getting tax breaks for their current buildout. Kevin Lo, head of the Google Fiber rollout, specifically says that's not even a criteria. They are much more interested in gaining access to poles, getting accurate maps of where poles are, and in getting rapid approval of their construction permits.

AT&T, on the other hand, already got over $200 billion in tax breaks to deploy broadband, and didn't. So no, "all this regulation" did not make it more expensive to upgrade their infrastructure. It made it much much cheaper to upgrade their infrastructure, and instead of actually upgrading their infrastructure, as the law said they must, AT&T and their antecedents booked it as profit and paid their executives over a billion dollars in bonuses.

So yeah, let's level the playing field. Let's take $200 billion from AT&T and give it to Google.

They kept the 200 billion we gave them

Are you sure it's 200 billion? The author you cite seems to have thought it was $30 billion. Wait, no, it was $200 billion. Ah, sorry, now it's $300 billion. Maybe it's inflation?

Not saying that the American public wasn't shortchanged by the Baby Bells - back in the day when they actually existed, I never encountered a more anticompetitive group of oligarchists in all my career. But let's not necessarily keep repeating this "OMG telcos stole $200 billion" meme without a little more quantification and justification.

The question to ask is: which way will build value?

If Verizon and AT&T will just sit on the spectrum doing nothing, then the government gets 12 billion extra and it will be wasted. The government doesn't do anything that's useful or valuable to the people any more - it only generates pointless bureaucracy and sweetheart deals. It's the aristocracy of "pull".

If players other than Verizon and AT&T will use the spectrum for new and innovative products, generate intellectual property (ugh! that word...) and add value to the economy, then the government gets 12 billion less which will go unnoticed (a minor drop in the bucket), but it will enrich America and perhaps generate tax revenue over time.

Let's give Verizon and AT&T a chance at the new spectrum. They kept the 200 billion we gave them to bring broadband to 86 million homes in America and did nothing, but that was a long time ago.

They wouldn't do that to us again, right?

FIOS is halted because the large telcos made deals worth hundreds of billions and then realized they could keep their money without rolling it out. Although states like NJ are supposed to have 45Meg to every household by now - it's in the contracts the telcos signed. Sadly no politician has the gumption to go against such big companies.

You can have your cake and eat it, too. But I'm not responsible for buying it for you.

Except it's more like you having and eating your cake, and you are responsible. Where does your food come from? Farms in rural settings? If they have to pay a lot for broadband then they will raise their prices for your food. Unless you can do or make for yourself everything you want you have to pay for others to receive services and goods you get too. Personally I'd rather pay more or donate to those I choose to than have government forcibly take money from me to give to others. At the same tyme I believe in getting what I pay for as well as having a choice as to who will provide what I want to buy. However we, US taxpayers, don't have either. The federal government gave the cable and phone broadband providers $200 Billion, oops >$300 Billion to build out broadband access. We did not get it. Governments also gave these large corporations monopolies, get rid of the monopolies and let there be competition. That includes airwave monopolies.

I'm still waiting for my fucking Fiber Optics that was promised in the 1990's when the Gov gave permission to the phone companies to raise their prices because they are going to build a fiber optics network for their customers. http://www.newnetworks.com/BroadbandScandalIntro.htm

So, now I need to pay a tax to maybe get a better internet connection, even though I live in the fucking heart of Seattle? What, thru one of my 2 choices, Comcast and Centurylink? Really?

Will this tax keep them from sending me notices about how much bandwidth i use?
Will this tax keep the internet free from corporate interests?
Will this tax keep the net neutral?
Will any of this tax go to the overbudgeted military?

Pretty sure I'm going to say, Fuck you, give me what I was paid for in the 90's, and NO NEW TAXES!!!!

$300 Billion Broadband Scandal

Alliance for Customers' Telecommunications Rights

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

I've been hearing about this for years but I was under the impression we already paid for 45 Meg up/down under the clinton presidency and while the telco's have been taking tax money for this, they still haven't built out the infrastructure we should have had several years ago.

Anyone know more about this?

It was also my understanding that the National Information Infrastructure was a result of the High Performance computing act of 1991 under Clinton and Gore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Performance_Computing_Act_of_1991

So I have to ask. Why pay for more when we've been paying for it since 1991? I'm curious if other's can help me understand if I've misread what the act is supposed to do.

If it means universal service provisions for broadband internet access, then yes.

There are people in rural areas right now that don't have Internet access because telcos aren't willing to spend the money to run it out to them.

Universal service provisions allowed telephone service to reach every single person in the entire country back in the day. The same thing should happen for broadband internet access today.

Didn't we already give the telecoms $200 billion for universal access, which they never delivered? How about we hold them accountable for that instead of providing another subsidy?

http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

Easier done than said.