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Idaho Gets Serious About Broadband
prostoalex writes "In an effort to boost the economy state of Idaho legislated tax credit for companies, who were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure. According to the latest news, the plan worked quite well, and about 150 thousand people can soon take advantage of tax-sponsored buildout. Speaking of wiring rural areas with cheap Internet access, there was an article in NY Times ($free_registration_quote), where Bill Gates admitted that in many cases building Internet in the rural area just speeded up the exodus of farmers, who were able to find a job somewhere else."
Not that many years ago the federal gov't undertook to guarantee to rural customers telephone service, and electricity, and in the very early days postal service. The idea is that while these services are more expensive to provide and won't develop from market pressures alone, providing them at equal prices to rural areas is both just and, in the long run, good for the country.
Would a National Internet Access Initiative be a good thing? Or is internet access is some way frivolous, other than for people who work directly in the field? (In other words, its easy to picture why Ma and Pa Kettle need mail, electricity, maybe even cable TV -- but internet?)
My tentative answer is yes, that it's really just an expansion of telephony. But how ironic that it may result in a "brain drain" from rural areas (NYT article).
building Internet in the rural area just speeded up the exodus of farmers, who were able to find a job somewhere else."
So they only became farmers because they lacked decent job sites? Hmmm.
I suppose we should take into account he possibility that the farmers got better farming jobs elsewhere..
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
broad band is an amenity that many companies and individuals require. Typically those home users requiring broad band are tech savvy. Thus making them valuable capitol. Also many small businesses are now at a point where broad band is a requirement. I'm a Admin for an Architecture firm with several sites and our locations that do not have accessibility to broad band are a pin in our side. relocating the office was a valid option until Allegiance gave us a T1 for half the cost of the local Telco.
I can tell you that I've never heard of this credit/plan/thingy before. And while I suppose the situation isn't *too* bad (I live in a town of about 5K, and afaik, everyone who wants it can get cable), I wouldn't say that we are the model of the modern major um, connected place :-) I guess I'm just bitter that after moving from Boise to Kuna (no, I didn't make that name up!), I had to downgrade from DSL to Crappy Cable. I'm serious, for the exact same amount a month, I get 1/3rd the upload speed, 3/4ths the download speed, and ten times the downtime... I never thought I'd prefer Qwest over *anything*, but at least my DSL line didn't drop out twice a week.
Oh, well. I'm probably going to get 20 responses from people living in Bliss and Sugar City (also names I didn't make up!), telling me I should praise the gods that I can even get cable. To them I say: "Move the hell out! I did!"
I wonder if Idaho has been considering bribing its young people into staying in state. Oregon voters apparently just killed that measure. But that appears to be the same governing philosophy here. "150" people benefit from the latest tax loophole (in addition to a comparable number of Idaho accountants). Whoohoo. Even Idaho has a population that's several factors of ten larger. I think it just demonstrates the stupidity of politicians these days. Legislatures spend a whole year debating pressing issues like "mandatory school uniforms" in order to assure future peace and prosperity instead of reexamining the workings of the existing layers of laws, bureaucracy, regulation, and taxation.
Ugh. A denotative distinction based upon the capitalization of a term. Ugly. The distinction between calorie (1 g water 1 degree Celsius) and Calorie (food calorie, which equals 1000 calories) is bad enough, and in that case the context often makes the distinction clear.
First of all, how do you differentiate between Internet and internet when the terms when they begin a sentence?
More importantly, how would the distinction be conveyed in speech.
I haven't looked up the etymology to evaluate whether "people for whom this distinction proved too subtle invented the equivalent term 'intranet'", but I certainly view the coining of the word intranet as a clever and useful addition to English.
The term intranet seems only to allow clearer communication. Is there a downside to the use of the term "intranet" that I am missing?
Whole areas of the "flyover states" are being depopulated. Marginal farming and ranching operations in cold areas far from civilization can't compete, even with near-zero land costs. Kansas actually has more "frontier counties" ( 6 people/square mile) than it did in 1890.
In case you haven't noticed, agricultural supply is outstripping demand so badly that subsidies to prop up unneeded farms are a perennial political issue in the U.S. We desparately need to get as many people as possible out of farming and into other fields (pun intended).