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The $200 Billion Broadband Rip-Off
Jamie noted that Cringley has a piece about the US Broadband situation. He talks about where we were and where we are: 'not very fast, not very cheap Internet service that is hurting our ability to compete economically with the rest of the world' and about the $200B the phone companies got to make it that way.
It still costs a lot of money to string fiber up to every residence. Competition could, theoretically, actually impede development of such a network, since they're so expensive to build that you're only going to build it if you have a reasonable expectation of recouping you investment.
Not only that, but it's horribly inefficient for us to build multiple networks. There should be one physical network, and competition should exist on it.
The problem is that in most of the country (Everywhere non-Verizon), this network isn't being built. And in Verizon territory, there is no competition allowed. Worse, in some areas, inferior technology is being installed (FTTN, etc..) that will actually delay the possibility of anything but 7ish Mbit ADSL. Even worse, we paid for the fiber network, but we don't actually have it.
What is needed? We need some politicians with ethics who aren't in the pocket of the telcos to actually stand up and hold them to their promises. Either that, or we need the physical network to be a public utility. The former would be best for everybody, but it hardly seems likely... Everybody up the chain from the local town governments on up to the senate and even the executive branch is used to receiving their cut of what are essentially bribes from last-mile carriers (unscrutinized regressive taxes on citizens, really, funneled through telcos and cable-cos into local treasuries and national campaigns), and nobody is going to give the money back unless the voters hold them accountable. Most of the voters don't even know what's going on.
In most of America, only two companies are allowed to run wires into your home, the local telco monopoly and the local cable monopoly. The existence of the cable and telco monopolies is responsible for the problem. As long as that's the case, you're just arguing about the best way to manage the ripoff. Any regulatory scheme, at best, simply minimizes the ripoff. At worst, it leads to the two companies having undue influence over regulators.... and indirectly gives the regulators vast power to regulate and monitor private communication.
My own feeling is that the very idea of regulated telecommunications is inconsistent with the First Amendment. I don't think it could be any plainer. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the court decision.
Let's see... about 24% of my income goes to federal & state (no local) income and payroll taxes... and, my best back-of-the-envelope guess is that I pay another 1%-2% in gas taxes, my car tab, and other user fees. (I own no property.) Yes, I'd happily pay half of my income to live in a country where we really had all of that stuff. Many Americans react just like you did when I say that, because the government is so ineffective here that they can't believe it would actually work. But there are a number of countries where it does, most notably a few of those evil European welfare states.
Obviously, competent management and fiscal discipline are necessary for such a state to succeed. Ultimately, those are political problems and are the responsibility of the people. Ask yourself why certain other countries have them and the U.S. doesn't. I think you will find the answer has to do with how people are educated.
You must be taking your information from post AT&T breakup, 1981'ish. Back when the publicly owned and traded phone "monopoly" was f'd up. HiTF a publicly traded company can be considered a monopoly I would like to know. But, anyway...
The original copper network was a private/public compromise built on private property seized by the government
No sir. The original copper was being put in place in the mid 1800's along with the railways. The land was "seized" from the native Americans.
The federal government allowed monopoly control of the copper by one company, as long as it agreed to follow certain rules
Bell was given credit for the phone making The Bell Telephone Company was the only player in the market. The government owned the copper it put in place until the, then, "American Bell Telephone Company" built enough exchanges to receive through government grants the existing copper because uncle sam didn't want to pay for upkeep not to mention it needed private phone system and couldn't do it due to patents:
Until Bell's second patent expired in 1894, only Bell Telephone and its licensees could legally operate telephone systems in the United States http://www.corp.att.com/history/history1.html
Up until the 80's the majority of old folks had their money tied up in phone stocks and government savings bonds. The industry was broken up to get that stagnant money back out in the world to pump the U.S. economy back to life.
The reason we don't have good network connectivity is the constant fighting for control of what is unarguably the biggest industry in the U.S. Everything, in one way or another, is dependent on communication. The people in the industry are the second most greedy pieces of sh't on the face of the earth. Absolutely everything they do is for their own benefit. The massive tax cuts they received to "modernize the infrastructure of our nations communications" went directly onto their bottom line. The proposals that Google et. el. are putting together are the only signs of hope the people have to break free from the same ol sh't.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
we paid for the fiber network, but we don't actually have it.
Why do the congress critters need to hold the telcos responsible when we the customers can. As you pointed out, we paid for a service that was not delivered. That sounds like a giant class action lawsuit to me. Now if it were an individual person I think that it would qualify as fraud, and that person would face prison, but in this case the criminal is a corporation with corporate personhood. So how do you jail a corporation? Well jail is basically the loss of you freedoms to the state, so that is what we should do here and in other cases of corporate criminal activity, take away control from the those in control and give it to the state for the duration of the sentence. That would mean the stock shares are frozen and cannot vote, the upper management/board of directors is not paid or allowed accept new employment, and a state Warden will run the company with the sole goal of maximizing the public good through the companies line of business, shareholder profits or losses are not considered in state Wardens decision making process, only the maximum quality at best possible cost to the existing customers. Yes the executives and the shareholders will get screwed in this scenario, but they are the ones who's greed and poor decisions lead to the fraud in the first place.
We are all just people.
That sounds like a good excuse until one realizes that in the WWII the USA's involvement in Europe was far behind that of the Soviets, even ignoring the fact that the British faught a prolonged aerial war to hold Hitler at bay. The majority of the WWII action for the USA was its tangle with Japan, not in Europe. As a matter of fact, a significant portion of the business elites of the USA were sympathetic to Hitler and did brisk business with him, until (and for some even after this point) it became very dangerous for them to do so.
As to Communism, if the Soviets managed to take over Holland (an exceedingly unlikely scenario since all the other countries they took over were in their path to Berlin, at which point the Soviet public had no apetite whatsoever for further warfare after paying such a horrendous price so far, and by the time they did, the Western Europe already had nukes), their empire would have crumbled that much sooner, as its inherent internal deficiencies, accelerated by its being an over-stretched military monstrosity, brought it down, Reagan's hand waving nothwistanding.
And to truly put a lie to all these claims of "protection" of Europe in post WWII era (never you mind that both UK and France are nuclear powers) the USA kept on building its ever-more expensive arsenals and armies long after the Cold War ended, and now it seeks to employ these armies in an effort to brutally impose its will on random resource-rich countries. So much for all the bullshit. After Vietnam and Iraq, attempts at painting the USA as a "protector" of anything but its own elites and profits have become an exercise in pathetically comical futility.
A salary of $60k in Iowa is equivalent to $100k in California. $60k/year will buy you a nice family house, decent car, and a easy-going lifestyle. If the national telecom infrastructure was up to date, there would be many jobs that can be done in the middle of Iowa that are now done in California. Alternately, for a bit more than the salary you pay to an Indian programmer (well, a bit more than those who now are demanding more money...), you can get a native English speaker *in a nearby timezone*.
With low-quality or no broadband, you lose this potential workforce.
Or, at least, so goes the theory.
In all fairness, it's not really socialism - none of the countries mentioned (Netherlands, Canada, Scandinavian countries, etc.) have command economies, state ownership of property, and so forth. A lot of Americans seem to think that a national health care system automatically equals gray concrete walls and red stars, but it's not so.
On the other hand, the U.S. is still the best place to go and start a business, thanks in no small part to their labour mobility (easier to hire and fire).