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Fixing US Broadband Would Cost $100 Billion
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a new report from EDUCASE (pdf), it would cost $100 billion to wire the US with fiber optics and keep our infrastructure from falling behind the rest of the world. Specifically, they recommend what has worked in many other countries — government investment and unbundling — which are often criticized by free market groups, even though those policies have resulted in faster, better connections for smaller total costs. Ars Technica mentions in their analysis of this report that the President will be releasing a report on US broadband today, too."
yet more money which the US could afford if they stopped wasting it on playing war games.
liqbase
I dont know why they cant just print money on a worthless war, and not just print some money to pay for this.
Okay first of all, if it's government run you know they're gonna spy on everyone everywhere with it. I won't be able to ping a website without it getting permanently logged. And secondly, if I recall, it'll take about the same $100 billion to fix our ridiculously outdated, inefficient, unreliable, unadapting power infrastructure too. I say we do that first. If my computer's got power at least I can play Oblivion but what can I do with no power and an internet connection?
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
but why bother when copper can do 10gbs?
forget upgrading to fiber - the ISP's just need to replace their hubs to accomidate new tech. Or I could be just flat wrong... who knows.
With all the Dark fibre out there, this should be a lot less of a problem. In most cases the issue the last mile, and in many cases this last mile can easily be handled by other already deployed networks, i.e. cable, bell, wimax, etc.
How much do we spend yearly on the pentagon again?
How much is that in days of Iraq war?
Tax breaks for the ISPs, particularly the telcos.
A hands off business approach, let them do with the money (and the consumers, a.k.a. taxpayers) whatever they want.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
. . . but didn't we already pay $200 billion to get 45Mb/s fiber starting in the late 90s? I seem to remember how the telecomes complained that they didn't have the money to do it. And Congress passed the Telecom Act of 1996 to allow them to charge fees to help fund an infrastructure upgrade. Ten years later we barely have fiber and that fiber is dramatically slower and more expensive than promised. And you have to pay for it to be installed.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't the cable companies, et al. already receive many billions of dollars from the government that they have seemed to squander away on their CEOs and crappy advertisements?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
We have lagged behind the rest of the world in terms of (private home) bandwidth and cost for a WHILE. Granted, many other areas of the world are more densely populated and thus are easier and cheaper to wire up, but still...it's kind of embarrassing how far behind we are when it comes to the tubes that reach our homes.
Living With a Nerd
Explain again why 95% of people need fiber to their home. 5% of internet users use 50% of the bandwidth. Even if that's not correct, why are we talking about wiring fiber to people's homes when there are thousands of starving children in the US? Get out of your ivory towers.
That'd be, what, about six months in Iraq? We had no problem with borrowing that from the Chinese; why not fix up the infrastructure here?
I'm thinking, though, that 'broadband' in the US is rather slower than in other countries--wasn't there a study that said the US has the slowest broadband in the developed world? I mean, sure, it's significantly faster than dialup--but for some reason, dialup still sells; 'broadband' connections are still unreliable in speed and connectivity (how many times do you have to reset a cable/dsl modem in a week, anyway?); a lack of choice--because of the de facto regional monopolies--has completely removed all desire to innovate or compete, leading to a situation that decays over time.
How long will it be until the US is relegated to a third-world ghetto because nobody can get information in and out in a timely manner?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Yes, it's appropriate.
WTF!!!
We already paid 200 billion for fiber optic to the home, but never received it. Just search for "200 billion dollar broadband scandal". But here's a clip:
Starting in the early 1990's, the Clinton-Gore Administration had aggressive plans to create the "National Infrastructure Initiative" to rewire ALL of America with fiber optic wiring, replacing the 100 year old copper wire. The Bell companies - SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest, claimed that they would step up to the plate and rewire homes, schools, libraries, government agencies, businesses and hospitals, etc. if they received financial incentives.
Kushnick's "$200 Billion Broadband Scandal" says the government was promised 86 million households with fiber wiring delivering bi-directional 45 Mbps speeds, capable of handling 500 channels by 2006. He calls it a fraud case, with deft omission in the annals of the FCC, that cost households at least $2000 a piece but got nothing in return.
I think there were subsidies to the telcos as well as tax breaks and incentives
BUPKISS! Freaking nothing, zilch, nada, zip, zero, goose egg, F%&KING damn 20th place
And yes I'm going to point out it was the dems who were in the seat when this happened. Only to show that both parties are really different sides of the same coin. Originally posted by :
I'll ignore the billions spent, and the billions we still have to spend in Iraq...
I'll ignore the other major issues that maybe this country needs to spend 100 Billion on first...
And now, baring all of that...
*WHAT THE FUCK*
Any of you know this story?
http://www.teletruth.org/http://www.teletruth.org
http://www.teletruth.org/PennBroadbandfraud.htmlhttp://www.teletruth.org/PennBroadbandfraud.html
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htmhttp://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
In short, Verizon, ATT, SBC and the other big TeleComs were supposed to do this, FOR US, in the last 10-15 years.
They got major tax breaks and government handouts to do this.
So where is it?
16th in the World in Broadband
This is one of the largest scandals in American history.
* By 2006, 86 million households should have been rewired with a fiber optic wire, capable of 45 Mbps, in both directions. -- read the promises.
* The public subsidies for infrastructure were pocketed. The phone companies collected over $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks, about $2000 per household.
Reports like this piss me off, cause the first thing I think of, knowing the history of How we're already supposed to have fiber to the home, is who paid for the report? and what is it really asking for? Hear hear! I can't believe noone brought this up sooner, or even in the article. There's pretty much no hope at this point for the US to have a globally competitive broadband Internet infrastructure.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
These guys are suggesting the old apporach that we had; that is allow competitors to access the monopolies lines. Instead, a company/local gov should be allowed to create the monopoly of the green box to the house. That should be the ONLY monopoly. And it should ONLY be allowed to do just that.
Maybe it's because it's harder to get a government-funded monopoly if you push forward in directional high-speed wireless for backbone links?
OK, sure, there are reliability problems with wireless, but in most of the USA you could set up a huge network using relays on existing cell towers. Shoot, cell towers already use directional high-data-rate wireless links to communicate with each other. And there are reliability problems with fiber, too... it's harder to drive a backhoe through a wireless link...
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
I'm confused here. Won't the market demand better service when it is needed? Sure $100 billion sounds like a lot, but when it's taken in smaller increments by the free market it's honestly nothing.
Yes the US is probably lagging behind some other countries, we are much more spread out and thus it requires more $$ for the same service, but I don't see a reason for the government to step in and "fix" something that isn't broken and is improving by itself already.
It seems the only reason this is proposed is so we can be "number 1" again. Kind of ridiculous honestly.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
We can spend who knows how much money on a pointless and widely unpopular war over in Iraq...but we can't get better tube materials for our internets?
So like one month in Iraq? Of course... I guess it doesn't sound so expensive when you put it that way, huh?
Americans for the most part are perfectly willing to suffer for the "free markets" rationale.
-Mobile phones (multiple, incompatible networks)
-Health care
-Data infrastructure
In other areas, we are quite happy to nationalize,
Railway services
Interstate highways. "free" too.
Social Security (just try being the elected grinch that cuts that program)
and most recently, education with no child left behind.
Depending on your politics, some of these issues cannot be discussed with any civility whatsoever.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It will help with their plan to wire all of our houses with HiDef telescreens.
(Crap, I've got to stop giving them ideas.)
Nice response.
Seriously, this would have cost 10% of that back in the '90s when we ALREADY PAID FOR THIS as part of the Telecom Act of 1994. The telcos simply have not delivered what they promised for receiving deregulation and all those tax breaks.
Or maybe this is where that imaginary $9B that Worldcom has went.
I already have Fibre Optics to my house. KTHXBYE
Seeing as the telecoms gained about $200 billion in increased fees and tax breaks since AT&T's breakup in 1984. That money was supposed to be used to upgrade the entire nation's infrastructure from copper wiring to fiber optics, but was instead used to pad the pockets of executives and shareholders. Find out more here.
But, but, but.... all the giant telecom corporate CxO's needed to squander all that money for themselves instead of using it to build infrastructure for the future. Didn't you know that?
And how much have we spent on the war?
Everything we need to fix seems small in comparison to that.
So, about 1/5 of what's spent on iraq so far, never mind afghanastan...
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home
http://zfacts.com/p/447.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/
Hmmm... well infrastructure's not a priority, let's stick with blowing stuff up, and pissing people off.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
Jeez, yeah. I mean, I should fork over another $500 a year in taxes so that Gramma Moses living 12 miles from the nearest paved road in South Dakota can have fiber laid up to the very door of her log cabin, and download recipes for grilled bear in 0.15 seconds instead of the 1.5 seconds her $10/month dial-up requires? Feh.
Dumbest and most pointless idea since Hillarycare.
Of course the "free market" groups don't like it. They hate the idea of consumers getting more for less, because the lower cost is coming at the expense of corporate profits. That's because most of those "free market" people don't really want a free market at all. They hate government regulation when it keeps them from doing what they want, but they love it when it keeps new competitors from getting into the market. That's why they're so keen on local monopolies- the antithesis of free markets.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
...mostly because that implies it was working at some point. Clearly it never has, because the telecos have been touting 1Mb connections as the wave of the future for at least 5 years.
Private industry, in theory, is supposed to be more efficient and more innovative. The problem is, the data just doesn't support this for most essential public services because the monolithic nature of these industries lend themselves to monopolies, oligopolies, cartels and market failure. Looking at data from all over the world and not just from the US, it is pretty clear that if a society is serious about getting essential services to every citizen, the government - for all its inefficiencies and foibles - is a better bet.
We often talk as if private corproations or nationalized industries are the only options, but there is a third option: the nonprofit sector. Unfortunately, it seldom gets discussed. It's too bad too, as there are some interesting advantages. A private, commercial nonprofit could compete in the open market and retain the efficiencies mandated by self-suffiency (or it would just die - this kind of nonprofit isn't supported by donations but by its own revenue). But without an overarching mission to maximize profit, it's actual mission would just be it's stated mission, and so, for example, people out on farms who are less profitable customers might be more likely to get services rolled out to them.
A-Bomb
If you pay a phone bill, you've been paying for internet infrastructure for years. You've been paying for this for years.
Instead of double dipping and asking for more money to upgrade/create internet infrastructure why don't they start spending the money they already collect IN THE RIGHT PLACE?
FEDERAL UNIVERSAL SERV FUND
http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/universal_service/welcome.html
The goals of Universal Service, as mandated by the 1996 Act, are to
promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable, and
affordable rates; increase access to advanced telecommunications
services throughout the Nation; advance the availability of such
services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural,
insular, and high cost areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to
those charged in urban areas. In addition, the 1996 Act states that all
providers of telecommunications services should contribute to Federal
universal service in some equitable and nondiscriminatory manner; there
should be specific, predictable, and sufficient Federal and State
mechanisms to preserve and advance universal service; all schools,
classrooms, health care providers, and libraries should, generally, have
access to advanced telecommunications services; and finally, that the
Federal-State Joint Board and the Commission should determine those
other principles that, consistent with the 1996 Act, are necessary to
protect the public interest.
FEDERAL UNIVERSAL SERV FUND PRIVATE LINE
http://www.shore.net/support/usf.html
The Universal Connectivity Charge is 9.25% of state-to-state and
international long distance charges, and on Internet circuits. (ATM,
Frame Relay, Private Line, Internet Access and SDSL)
[NOTE: This may be the local number portability surcharge - ED]
E911 SURCHARGE
http://www.legis.state.ia.us/GA/79GA/Legislation/HF/00200/HF00279/Current.html
The surcharge shall
3 21 be collected as part of the access line service provider's
3 22 periodic billing to a subscriber. In compensation for the
3 23 costs of billing and collection, the provider may retain one
3 24 percent of the gross surcharges collected. If the
3 25 compensation is insufficient to fully recover a provider's
3 26 costs for billing and collection of the surcharge, the
3 27 deficiency shall be included in the provider's costs for
3 28 ratemaking purposes to the extent it is reasonable and just
3 29 under section 476.6. The surcharge shall be remitted to the
3 30 E911 service operating authority county auditor or the
3 31 auditor's designee of the county in which the subscriber
3 32 resides for deposit into the E911 service fund quarterly by
3 33 the provider. A provider is not liable for an uncollected
3 34 surcharge for which the provider has billed a subscriber but
3 35 not been paid. The surcharge shall appear as a single line
4 1 item on a subscriber's periodic billing entitled, "E911
4 2 emergency telephone service surcharge". The E911 service
4 3 surcharge is not subject to sales or use tax.
SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE TAX
http://www.state.ia.us/tax/educate/78511.html
IOWA SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE LOCAL OPTION TAX
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
FEDERAL TAX
This should be the federal excise tax
STATE/LOCAL TAX
FEDERAL ACCESS CHARGE
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/accesschrg.html
100 billion ? That's peanuts compared to recent tax cuts, see http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
They're proposing to spend billions of dollars to run wire/fibre all over the place? Haven't they heard, everyone is going wireless!
That $100 billion figure is about the cost of one year of the war in Iraq. And that doesn't even include the indirect costs (opportunity cost, lifetime medical bills for injured veterans, increased cost of oil etc.)
If we ended the war in Iraq today, we could have the money for this by July.
If you put more currency into circulation, the value of it decreases. As the value decreases, things purchased with it become more expensive (inflation). Printing cash to get us out of the hole would do nothing more than crash the economy (the world's, since so many other countrys' economies are inseparably tied in with the US Dollar).
Economics has a way of biting every "get of debt quickly" scheme in the ass.
I have a difficult time believing that such a paltry sum could build a real high speed network throughout the country.
:)
That's like $8/month per tax payer spread over a decade. At that level of cheapness every ISP would be running fiber to the curb, I would have 20 fibers running in front of my house already. Heck, they telephone or cable company could just charge some exorbitant amount for plain old telephone service or cable tv, like $10/month, and pay for this thing!
If they had thrown out a figure of 10 trillion dollars I would have been the first on the bandwagon telling my government that they must spend the money now, but a 100 billion is just not a believable sum. I'm sure you could wire up a small portion of the population living in densely populated areas for that amount and then use a small tax on those connections to slowly reach rural populations, but then you have to convince rural states that the investment is still a good idea and that the project won't stall after that first 20% is covered.
Also 100Mbps? If you're building it now you should set the speed at 10Tbps and then try to upgrade it later when faster speeds are cheaper. The short distances you are dealing with in fiber to the curb allow for multi-mode fiber which gives you a bit more leeway for expansion, but you still need the network design and the physical fiber itself to allow for the future speeds you will want to introduce.
$100B spent on improving US broadband infrastructure would have instant payback in the US economy. First, most of the labor would be Americans, so the expense would create jobs. Second, the US still has most of the industry making most of the profits on the kind of broadband equipment we're talking about. There's no reason that the purchases couldn't prioritize vendors which keep more of the money paid them inside the US.
And that labor and equipment expense would make US labor and equipment compete to get it, and improve their quality offering, which makes them more competitive overall. It would jerk lots of talent and productivity away from lots of less productive efforts, like pursuing BS defense and "homeland security" contracts that wind up sending lots of profits overseas, lots sunk into rich pockets that pay either little/no taxes (especially the corporations), or even ship those profits offshore.
And it would boost America's workforce of exactly the kind of skills and products the rest of the world is looking for now. That are already associated with the "America" brand, since everyone still remembers we invented the Internet.
And then of course we'd have all the economic value of actually using that broadband infrastructure to produce even more, to make even more money with it (including designing and deploying the next $100B in broadband buildout).
It's as if the US invested $billions in the auto industry back during the Great Depression. Which is exactly what we did, by joining WWII which demanded $billions in cars, trucks, tanks, planes, and ships. But this time we're not going to send them all out to be destroyed, and to destroy the territory we'd capture when we win. Instead we'd increasing the value of everything we got to buy with our increasing profits, and bringing the world together instead of blowing it apart.
Congress is about to pretend to stimulate the economy with about $65B sent out in little $600 checks to every taxpayer. Who will mostly spend it on gas and Chinese-made TVs and crap. If they were really visionary, and really wanted to boost the economy, they'd make local governments and corporations match that expense only 1:2, and actually rebuild this country as the 21st Century is so clearly begging us to do.
--
make install -not war
its all in control of large companies who have a vested interest in not fixing it.
At least because its an unnecessary cost as users don't have any real alternative.
First off, Verizon is really running fiber optic everywhere in its service territory with FIOS. Secondly, supposedly obsolete cable internet providers are touting their DOCSYS 3 modems which match that performance. So, bandwidth is being made available and at a rapid pace to people that are willing to pay for it.
More importantly, 100B is entirely something that American internet providers can afford. Verizon's market cap alone is 110B, and Comcast's market cap is 50B. That's just two companies worth more than enough to finance growth in bandwidth. So, in a way, people arguing for massive government taxpayer internet are really arguing for taxpayers to pay for something that the private sector CAN afford. There's no need for the government to get involved. The private sector has the money.
This is my sig.
So for a 1/10 of the cost of the war we get nationwide fiber optics which would improve infrastructure and create new business opportunities and benefit most citizens. Essentially for what the war is likely to cost we could have solar panels on every home in the US, allowing us to shut down some coal plants rather than build more and have fiber optic cables to most homes providing high speed internet and HiDef video. If we put the better than a trillion dollars the war is running into replacing the oil and improving infrastructure we wouldn't need Iraqi oil. Nothing will get better in this country until people get angry but apparently they aren't all that upset since all the front runners are talking more of the same. Time to swim back to Europe. Might have seemed like a good idea 500 years ago when my ancestors came over but it's looking like a bad idea now.
This is only about a quarter of what we spent on defense last year.
You say you want a revolution....
slashdot to mark this post offtopic and run the news story after it's no longer news.
what time is it?
4:20!
hail satan!
Actually, getting Haliburton to pay back the money the *stole* would help make a nice down payment!
Keeping up to date with the cutting edge is far too complicated and expensive, which is why telecom has always happened in stages. Once installed, you're pretty much stuck in a time warp until there is a huge motivation for the next big upgrade.
Take a look at the telecom in Germany. They got bombed to crap during WW2 and then installed the latest telecom during the war recovery. Pulse dial phones. Cool!. The USA big upgrade happened later (1960s/70s) and was all tone based. In the late 1980s/early 1990s computer telephony really struggled in Germany because pulse dialling is far less reliable (it's very reliable at the exchange, but not at all reliable at the listening party) but DTMF worked pretty well.
This is the reason why Kenya has better cell phone coverage than USA.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Since there is only one broadband provider in my town, the Capital of Illinois, the free market doesn't apply.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You couldn't fix the broadband situation in the US even if you had a license to print an unlimited number of TRILLION dollar bills.
Why? Because there are too many telcoms out there that're more interested in their bottom line than in actually delivering better performance at a reasonable price.
We gave the industry 200 billion over a decade ago and what happened?
*BURP* MORE!
Give them another hundred billion and the same thing'll happen. Hell, give them a hundred TRILLION and the same thing'll happen.
This country's Internet infrastructure is essentially a money pit. Not because it's essentially unfixable, it's not. It's because the greedy, thieving fucktards who'd rather line their pockets with money that is earmarked for improvements than actually pay for the improvements.
And don't expect some dark horse champion to emerge from anywhere either (even Google). The existing players have the current status quo so thoroughly buttfucked that a new player can't POSSIBLY get an implementation in place.
I can so see the MPAA and RIAA getting behind this one.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
We could just stop the Iraq War and get 160Gbps cable modem for the entire nation, PLUS replace all imported oil with US energy supplies of wind, solar, geothermal, tidal energy plants PLUS rebuild our nations's crumbling bridges/roads PLUS fund health care for every American kid.
And still have enough left over to get rid of the budget deficit.
No, that is not a misprint. That's how CHEAP this is.
Right now, the US is slipping fast in science, broadband, education, and health care - all because we can't just say "Oops! My Bad! See ya!"
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Is it really 'that' broken? Last weekend, we visited some relatives in rural North Carolina. Foothills of the blue ridge mts. Hardcore trailerpark Appalacia. Redneck central. (They aren't rednecks, they just live there)
Everything worked. Sat TV? Check. Cell phone? Check. DSL line for his MacBook/AirPort? Check.
By all rights, that should be one of the least connected areas around. But they were just as connected as anywhere else.
We can quibble about 5MBps vs 20 (or 50), or the price. But for 'beyond dialup'...I'm not so sure how 'broken' it is in the US.
So I guess we could just forgo the next war and use the money saved on this then?
Wow. The EDUCASE proposal, at least according to the Ars article, seems to be pretty much what I've been saying for at least a decade. A quasi-private gov't agency to build the infrastructure, neat little boxes at the house to convert fiber to POTS, Ethernet, and CATV (this was before HDTV :) ), and bandwidth rented to whomever's got a service to sell.
In theory, such a system would let you call your cable company, tell them "Screw You!", hang up, call a different cable company and say "I wanna give you my money!", hang up, and in 5 minutes turn on the TV and watch with the new company.
The really interesting thing this go-round is that the technology now exists -- the Verizon FIOS boxes are pretty much exactly what I had in mind, give-or-take. Now we just need some kind of opening that up to competition and we've got it. (with appropriate broad-market penetration and upgraded backbone, naturally).
I'm not sure there's an easy way to convince Verizon to do that, but I suppose that there could be a government agency that'll take over "ownership" of the lines, and then they simply contract back to Verizon (or someone else) for maintenance of it. To pay Verizon back for all the investment they've made, maybe they have "free" bandwidth on the system for, say, 10 years, after which they pay whatever their competition is paying.
In the meantime, the new agency continues to deploy FIOS-like services as widely as possible, Verizon is no longer saddled with the cost of expanding the infrastructure, competition flourishes, angels sing, and the US resumes its rightful place at the top of the geek pyramid.
Never happen. We as a country are way too tied to the "let the market decide" way of doing business, and it's shoved us backwards in the Cellular Phone world, and now in the broadband world. Sometimes we're really our own worst enemies.
Everybody talks of tax breaks and say that it will help, but only in specific cases does it do so. For example, when 9/11 occurred, W. paid the airlines a load of money post 9/11. It was to be used to help the airlines recover. Instead, it was sent directly to the CEO bonuses as well as stockholders. After that, the airlines had tough times, so was given more tax breaks. Instead, we (America) should have offered to pay 80% of the ticket costs for domestic traveled, and then dropped it monthly (60-40-20-0). It actually would have been much cheaper to America AND would have gotten a lot of ppl to get over their fears. The Tax breaks that W. gave to the oil company has not helped one bit. They actually targeted the large companies who have been drilling at the same rate as before. It is just that they have bigger profits. If America really wants to make a difference on this, then what is being suggested now should be skipped. Instead, it should be to minimize the monopoly. It should be JUST from the house to the green box. Once that is done as fiber, then allow anybody to hook up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I agree with required unbundling: any entity with a controlling power over systems that consume public right-of-ways should be required to unbundle those components to the maximum extent technically feasible. Its impractical for everybody to build infrastructure and unhealthy for the economy for one or a small number of organizations to have a lock-in on the infrastructure that does exist.
I don't agree with the government investment part. That would be better handled by reclaiming the universal service fund. It was corrupted in the '90s to support computers for schools and libraries, but that's not what it was originally for. Originally, the USF was used to pay for the additional cost when a telephone company installed a rural telephone but charged the rural user the same price as the city user. It worked well for telephone service and would work fine for fiber-to-the-home broadband if it was allowed to do so.
Besides, everything the US Government does costs 5 times as much and works half as well as comparable operations by small business. Haven't you figured that out yet?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Just imagine: we could have upgraded our nation's information infrastructure 15 times instead of having funding the ethnic cleansing of Iraq, and maintaining the failed state in Afghanistan. Oh, and turning Pakistan into a failed state and/or a dictatorship.
Heck of a job, Conservitards!
Didn't the same thing happen with the airlines? Huge government bailout so people could keep their jobs, then the airline execs pocketed the money and fired everybody anyway?
At least, that is what I remember from watching South Park.
because I don't begrudge the Pentagon's budget. What I cannot believe people put up with is Congressmen making monuments to themselves and their friends with our money.
There were more than enough earmarks in the 07 budget to fix the roads and data infrastructure. But like dutiful little parrots people yelp "What about the pentagon"
Look at the current political run for President. There won't be a DIME for fiber because all the money is going to be sucked up delivering on promises of government intervention into our lives where it already fails miserably. We spend over a trillion dollars a year on health care through the government, and for what? To see millions without healthcare? Yet who gets blamed? Insurance companies and business. The government already oversaw 200 billion dollars of so called investment in fiber, what did it get us? Not much yet you want them to take more and try again? Why? I bet the biggest beneficiaries of the last 200billion are still in office collecting on that payout.
Quit following their talking points. They want you to look everywhere else but behind the curtain. They want to direct your ire elsewhere and obviously it worked! Now we are being force fed two candidates who will simply take us further from the goal. Entitlement programs are far more damning than defense expenditures. They selectively buy votes and help hardly anyone yet the promise of the chicken in the pot works wonders.
Face it, us "geeks/nerds" are second class. We earn the money that the politicians want. They certainly aren't going to cater to us because we are not a big enough voting block to worry them. As such its up to us to support third party candidates who speak of getting the government out of our lives. Quit asking the government to fix it, they can't. They proved that very well with the last 200 billion dollars.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Good knews is they aren't going to be spending this money any time soon.
I'm pretty sure McCain is a direct relative of the Slowskys
Find coupons in Greeley
Now we find that USA will lose its competetive edge unless we upgrade to the same level of broadband as other countries. And the price tag to do this is a mere $100B.
So let's cut back the rebates to $275 each, and stimulate the economy (well the telecoms sector) by building out some real broadband.
[Just give me a short head start to buy some Cisco stock before starting the rollout :-)]
Why is the question always, "What can government spend money on to stimulate the economy" As if government spending is anything but taxation. Inflation is a kind of tax, too, y'know.
So great, another thing for the government to spend your time, effort, and blood on for you. Which if other posts are correct, has already been spent 1x for zero payback? Well, it is an election year, so I guess we have to expect lots of "spreadin' money around" political machine promises.
It's not even the $100 billion that's the problem. If it costs that much to catalog all the existing telco rights of way, determine how much additional cross-sectional area could be added under existing easements without placing extra burden on the property owners, purchasing additional land-rights where appropriate and opening that up for bidding, then so be it. But why should government pay Telcos to do something that is in their own economic interest do do?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
to be more modern like other countries? Cause last I checked, our system can cause to continents to loose connection at once.
Yeah, wouldn't it be cool if we just screwed 85% of the population crapped everything and rebuilt. I'm sure Homeland security would want a hand in that, as well as major corporations~ I am also sure that they would want to to be open like it is now as well~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thats about the cost of one day in Iraq.
But if we are going to spend some money, something like this would be useful. The other choice would be in alternative energy, but that is more likely to simply be moved up REAL high, REAL quick. IOW, fewer jobs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"And yes I'm going to point out it was the dems who were in the seat when this happened. Only to show that both parties are really different sides of the same coin."
The dems did not ahve majority anyplace when the telcos failed to provide. It was the Dems that had the foresight to see that people needed this. After they were out of office all pressure was removed from the telcos to live up to their end of the deal, MS got off nearly scot free as well as numerous other perks to large corporations.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... just possible, that the reason we're behind in broadband is because there isn't enough demand? Sure, in all those other countries the government stepped in and built something and now we're "behind". So what? I love a fast internet connection as much as the next guy, but I'm not ready to have the government make YOU help pay (via taxes) for the build out to my rural neighborhood. Nor am I ready to help pay for the build out to the old farmer down the road who doesn't even have a computer. People who want government to step in where business isn't "getting the job done" should ask themselves first WHY business isn't getting the job done. If you see fast internet as a NEED, then I guess you have a case, but I don't see it that way. Sounds like people are upset that we're not "keeping up with the Joneses".
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
You should have been mod'd flamebait - "insightful" you are not.
Fixing America's bandwidth = $1 billion
Divided by RIAA lawsuit for sharing a single 10 song cd @ $1.5 million a piece
Equals 6,667 RIAA lawsuits to fix America's bandwidth problems
Well speaking as someone outside the US, wouldn't it show greater concern for your troops to not send them out to get shot at?
You'd think that this would be blindingly obvious, but for whatever reason, the idea that supporting the troops means supporting any war seems to have considerable traction.
I don't think it's *entirely* without merit. Telling someone they're fighting in a war that has a serious ethical or strategic problems isn't going to help their morale much.
But then again, most of us understand that when we tell someone their *boss* is incompetent or a little crazy or even somewhat crooked, we're not insulting them for working there.
Why that doesn't transfer over to the military, I don't know.
Tweet, tweet.
have you heard of it? if you own enough stock in the company you work for to make any noticeable money from the company's tax breaks then you're either a CxO or the kind of idiot Atlantic City loves.
$100 billion and not a mention of Ipv6, some one needs to go back and redo the study!
It does not matter which side of the aisle the blame is placed, it could be down the middle for all I care. The Fed's gave the telco's a no-strings check and the telco's had a feast - all are to blame here.
When I was in college taking a business law course, we spent a day or two on contract law involving performance penalty clauses. These little gems go a long way and act as an insurance policy. Problem is that when both signatories of the contract are fiscally and operationally bankrupt, only the public suffer going into the contract and suffers when the contract is not fulfilled. The politicians get reelected and the big companies get their bucks for free.
-- Aetherburner
Electile Dysfunction: What you suffer when there are no electable candidates put forth by any party out there.
Then maybe it won't piddle all over the carpet.
In a situation like the one in the US, I cannot imagine why people claim that national infrastructure should be exclusively privately owned.
For capitalism to work, you need to have competition.. but that competition basically ceases to exist as soon as a vendor can lock a customer into a service. Since telecommunications rely on having physical infrastructure in place, the only people who can provide to an area are those who are willing to invest in heavy amounts of it. This makes it difficult for small providers to play, since it's also difficult for customers to choose anyone other than the dominant player in their physical location, and provides a method for vendors to get a local monopoly.
I'm not going to claim that government ownership of infrastructure is a good idea, i'm sure everyone will assume that the government is spying on them anyway.. I will say that, regardless of ownership, keeping the infrastructure and the providers separate would solve a lot of problems. This is probably what should have happened when AT&T was originally divided.
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
Only $32 billion would come from us, the rest from private partnerships. I see that many are pointing out that we've already paid for this. Good point! By all means, I wholeheartedly support fining or taxing them the entire sum! After all, we *should* get what we paid for, and we've paid something like double this amount already. I guess I didn't make that clear in the submission, though.
As for the spying bit:
A) They're doing that RIGHT NOW. It's ALREADY SET UP AND RUNNING.
B) It does need to be stopped, but the only way to do that is by outlawing it.
So it doesn't make sense to stop improving our infrastructure because of that. Nor, in the case of our power grid, does it mean that we should stop upgrading our infrastructure because it's crumbling. Yes, of course there are priorities with these things. But I should think that ALL of our infrastructure--power, broadband, roads, bridges and whatever else--should be rather high among them.
After all, our civilization is built atop this infrastructure. It doesn't make sense to let it decay.
- I don't believe in imaginary property
Agreed. That is what needs to happen.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
As everyone knows, the internet is a two way media. This means that I need REAL broadband to send hidef movies of my kid to her grandmothers who live ~1k miles and ~7k miles away. I also need a fast upload speeds so that I can run rdesktop/X to my compile box at a speed that doesn't make me cringe everytime I need to make a quick edit before starting an hour long compile. While I have a 8mbit cable modem, the 384kbit uploads speeds are a joke. Right now I would be willing to pay 2x as much for 2x the upload speed, but its simply not avialable. Its like the cable and telco's are in collusion with the RIAA/MPAA to completely fsck the customer.
I actually had faster speeds back in 1999 when I first got the cable modem, back then I was only getting about 2.5mbit down, but i was getting ~1mit up, since then at every speed bump making the modem "faster" the upload speeds have gotten slower. As far as I can tell this is completely artificial, the DOCSIS 2.0 spec says that its 38down/27up, and I can get 8Mbit down where is the missing ~5mit upload speeds? I can only guess that its sitting unused because time warner is hearing from warner brothers and warner music that they are loosing major $$$ to the cable customers sharing their movies. Plus, there is DOCSIS 3 which goes way over 100mbit, but I haven't heard of anyone with a cable modem getting that kind of speed, and its not like they couldn't bond a couple more channels together and make a DOCSIS 4.. The lack of "broadband" is completly artificial and a way to milk the customers for every penny while offering them the absolute crappiest service possible.
Really the goverment needs to step in and get some goverment agency to set some high minimum standard (set to grow based on some formula of what speed the fastest 1/3 of the population can get). Any area which is less than the minimum standard, results in the goverment building out a network of fiber in that area within a year or two. The resulting fiber becomes part of the public infrastructure and is managed by nonprofit trusts. We will see how long the cable/telephone companies will sit on their a**'s when they see the goverment walking into a neighborhood wiring it up with fiber and giving people VOIP phones and gbit+ internet connections for some pittance. I will bet every cable customer will be at 100 mbits by the end of the year, and the phone companies will start offering 1/2 gbit connections to neighborhood fiber drops faster than you can wonder why your grass is being torn up.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/01/ntia_broadband.html 99% of zipcodes have at least 200kbs connections from at least one provider!!!!!!!
You mean the same FCC the majority of whose members are appointed by the president of the United States? Or how about the SEC that allowed all those baby bells to get back together again. The chairman of the SEC is appointed by the president as well.
You're right that Bush wasn't president from 1994-2000; however, the US was at the forefront of technology and internet access at that time. After the tech bust in 2000 (self-evidently obviously not Bush's fault since he wasn't president yet) there was the opportunity to invest in infrastructure and prepare for the eventual economic recovery. Instead Bush gave out tax cuts right and left. Nice idea for stimulus except that he gave mostly to the richest who, contrary to the revisionist history of the Reagan era, do not trickle those funds efficiently down to the working class. He then stacked the FCC, SEC, and many other agencies with party hacks who didn't know the first thing about the real world, only their ideology.
So yeah, basically Bush takes a fair amount of blame here. Sure he had help, but that doesn't excuse him. Sure he had other things to do, but that doesn't excuse him.
Other things he had to do:
* Put someone competent in charge of FEMA
* Read the reports from various agencies and his predecessor about some guy named Osama
* Protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
Instead he spent time funneling money to his cronies and vetoing bipartisan child health care bills.
So now we have an infrastructure that is woefully behind and will take $100 billion to fix. Hurray us! Japan, South Korea, and other countries have faster speeds available than *anywhere* in the US. This isn't even an argument about per capita speeds or the fact that we've got a larger population over a larger area. Our fastest simply ain't that fast.
It's true that Congress takes its share of blame too. Lucky for my argument, it's been a Republican-controlled Congress since '94 and until very recently. There's been record government spending during Bush's tenure when he never vetoed a Republican bill (other than stem cell research funding) and yet we're still behind. Do the math.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
In a libertarian paradise, where there is no regulation of any kind, the Enron and subprime mortgage affairs wouldn't be so embarrassing, because cheating would be normal. Investors would regularly get burned, as these greedy people deserve. With practically no investors, we would be enjoying a much smaller and more beautiful economy, like Mexico's. Being unemployed is of course the most desirable situation to be in -- just think of the leisure! -- so nobody should ever doubt the irrefutable superiority of libertarianism.
"U.S. President George W. Bush is calling for a temporary package of tax rebates and other measures worth about $145 billion US to stimulate the slumping U.S. economy." -CBC.ca
I'm not saying that a national fiber build would be an appropriate alternative to a tax rebate in this particular situation but...
It would sure be nice to have the government choose a national infrastructure project like this to achieve its economic stimulus goals.
I'm amazed to see that, according to the article, the US has fallen behind Australia in terms of broadband. Our broadband is terrible, and we have a far lower population density - our country's 3/4ths the size of yours, and yet we have 1/14th the population. Worth considering for those of you that say "America's too big and sparsely populated for decent broadband".
The truly sad part of this, however, is that even this 100 Billion dollar fibre plan is still far too short-term. It amazes me that the thinking behind broadband infrastructure upgrades is still "dig a hole in the road, lay some cable, cover up and re-tar the road. Repeat." Say you do go and spend all this money, in, at best, a few decades time, you're going to have to go and do it all over again. And I suspect that bandwidth usage will continue to accelerate exponentially as people get used to the idea of downloading all their entertainment, VOIP, telecommuting and the no-doubt novel uses of bandwidth to come. So who knows how long it'll be until you have to dig up the whole country again? It seems to me there's a much smarter way to go about it: build some nice big conduits. Have the government pay for it, big enough to be easily serviceable, capable of housing potential future technologies that may require more space, and being nice and durable. Then, rent the space to the ISPs, telecoms, power utilities &c. that need the conduits. The result? A national infrastructure plan that ensures the speedy and cheap roll-out of future upgrades, as well as paying itself off and eventually even generating income for the government. As an added bonus, the idea of "big concrete pipes in the ground" is sufficiently simple that even Ted Stevens could probably understand it sufficiently to avoid completely screwing it up with technological naivety - which in my opinion is the biggest problem with governmental technology policy.
Its interesting that the three unsatisfactory "free market" examples are heavily distorted by government regulation.
1. I defy you to come up with a legitimately unregulated products market in the Industrialized world. I'll give you an illegitimate example, illicit drugs. Totally unregulated. Will I get a good fix this week? Will I get killed buying/selling/using? Maybe CDO's are a good example of a legally unregulated market and look where that's gotten us.
2. What you also conveniently forget is economic history is full of examples of what ACTUALLY happens with unregulated markets. The market swiftly changes into a monopoly. End of story.
3. Do you like price fixing? How about collusion? How about doctors and medicine that kill your loved ones. How about a house that doesn't fall down in a strong wind or earthquake? You like freeway bridges that stay up don't you?
It's time for you and the jokers moderating you up to move out of your parent's basement and join the real world.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"In the very near future, a single family will be watching HDTV video at the same that they engage in remote health monitoring, videoconferencing, gaming, distance education class lectures, and social networking."
Out of that entire list. How much has been poo pooed on slashdot, and how much is people REALLY using broadband for? I'll bet the rise is mostly P2P with youtube being number two.
If there was more useful content besides 8mm quality home videos & 10,000 copies of the same information reprinted over and over there might be more incentive for consumers to pay up. But since there is no incentive, guess that would make it a government mandate.
"Iraq Wars," equal to whatever the cost of the Iraq War is at an arbitrarily picked point in time (for now probably the current rate, when [if?] it ends we can set it equal to that).
.2 Iraq Wars"
To rephrase the article, "Fixing US Broadband Would Cost
Grammar Nazi
What about all the dark fiber we already have laying in the ground? Is that not enough?
Isn't the purpose of health insurance to keep the hospitals and doctors from charging you outrageous prices (which they do if you don't have health insurance)? I thought they were ruthless guys on 'your' side, as long as you don't try to make them pay for anything.
They make some interesting arguments for higher broadband but I'm not certain the examples they give are going to justify broadband for everyone. Not everyone is going to be a video producer, or even want TV (any kind of TV). And the telemedicine. That implies broadband for businesses not consumers. And apparently in this broadband utopia no one's tackled the dark side. The accelerated loss of freedoms.
They should fix Australia so that I can get some sort of internet in my house 15 minutes from the centre of town...
Until you actually look at the facts. The tax cuts were not the same percentage cut for everyone. They were weighted to give the most percentage reduction to the top earners. They contained cuts like dividend and capital gains adjustments that specifically target wealthy rather than middle class taxpayers. They contain other provisions that can ONLY be used by business or high income earners (special depreciation rules for businesses, etc). Your argument is the facile one, not the original poster. Why- and this is not directed at you personally, but at all of us collectively- do we rag someone out for a reasoned argument before we acquaint ourselves with the actual facts? Aren't we supposed to be tech savvy types, don't we respect facts?
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
...The costs will be exorbitant because even if we activated all that "dark fiber," we still won't be be able to reach many rural areas. We're not like Japan, South Korea or much of Europe, where the sheer population density on a per square area basis makes it economically viable to wire everyone up on landline broadband despite the exorbitant initial cost.
To reach rural areas here in the USA, we have to go to a wireless solution, especially in hilly to mountainous regions. This is where new technologies such as WiMAX becomes useful to avoid the very expensive "last mile" connection issues.
Awww. Too bad.
The RICH, POWERFUL, but DUMB usa.
SO dumb they believe JFK was killed by a MAGICK BULLET.
So dumb they still believe that planes took down the 3 towers. One of them wasn't even hit by a plane.
So dumb they are at the bottom in education in math, science, physics, etc.
So dumb they have a medical system far worse than cuba, a so called "evil" country by the USA.
So dumb they can't troubleshoot ISP issues on their own. They have to call tech support because its too "complicated".
Now, I grant you, some persons in the USA are smart. But they are the exception.
Let the USA fall behind the internet. Let them suffer.
As China becomes the dominant economy, and leaves the USA behind.
As China makes the first MOON base, then MARS base, and so on.
The USA is over. They are on their last leg.
Unless WWIII starts. Thermonuclear war.
That will pretty much send almost everyone back to the dark ages, or the reaper.
Conclusion :
Internet Policy in the USA : what? what is the internet?
Internet Policy in ASIA : FASTER! BETTER! I WANTED THIS FIVE MINUTES AGO! NOW! F*****G NOW!
Did you mean the Telecommunications Act of 1996? Google only returns 3 results for "Telecom Act of 1994" but more than 34,000 for "Telecom Act of 1996".
The telcos simply have not delivered what they promised for receiving deregulation and all those tax breaks.
Agreed Big tyme!!! The telecom and cable companies have been paid a lot to deliver broadband but haven't. Other than Sprint, who's rolling out fiber, I know of no other company who's really working to provide broadband. Seems to me the others only work to prevent others from offering broadband, blocking competition. Normally as a libertarian I prefer a free market, but in the case of infrastructure such as cable and telecom I lean towards what cities and communities in Northeastern Utah are doing, creating a Broadband Utopia. The local governments are building and will own the infrastructure but then they allow anyone capable to provide any service it can deliver. The system can provide cable tv, broadband internet access, and or phone service. For net access it's currently capable of 30Mbps but will be capable of up to 100Mbps. It can also handle more than 2 high-definition TV channels.
FalconShould there be a Law?
How about actually trying a free market? Everyone assumes that's what the US has, but it is not. We have telco/cableco monopolies over the infrastructure because local governments gave them those monopolies. Want to lay down some fiber optic cable? You have to lobby to local governments. That last mile everyone talks about is owned by government. I am not suggesting we completely privatize streets, so providers can bid to rip them up for laying new lines. What I am suggesting is that government, not private business, is the major barrier to laying fiber optic cable.
Then you have the state and national governments that set tax and regulatory structures that encourage big businesses. Most of the ills people attribute to corporatism stem from indirect government encouragement of large corporations. When it takes an army of lawyers and accountants to deal with the government, then only firms large enough to afford an army of lawyers and accountants will thrive.
Imagine if government had its way back in the 1990's, and laid down ISDN lines to every household on the taxpayer's dime. What a waste that would have been! It wasn't that much better than the existing copper, but would have been a huge expense obsolete ten years later. If government gets its way today and lays down fiber optic, it will be obsolete in 2018. But technology can solve these problems, if only the flexibility of private businesses is allowed to operate. We are already bypassing the lastmile problem with highspeed wifi. WiMAX (and it successors) will make tearing up the city streets obsolete. Who knows what new technologies will be available in the 2020's, but I am certain it will be stuff to make 802.11n and WiMAX look like 1990's era 10BaseT.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Isn't this about what it costs to keep us in Iraq for half of a year?
"As for the thrust of this slashdot post, whinging for a government run Internet.... no fscking way! If you utopians think a government run Internet would be net neutral think again. A network run by the same assholes who gave us the DMCA in the first place is going to let 'yall sit around all day running bittorrent and happily building out ever more fiber for ya to do it on? Riiight."
Sounds like you all (News for Nerds You all know the rest) have a task ahead of you. Develop a high-speed, point to point, untraceable, unbreakable, cheap, communications technology (like wireless without the waves). And while you're at it develop fusion so we can get rid of the dependency on unstable Middle-Eastern countries.
The bids now are over 11 billion, how about using that ridiculous haul to fund this or repeal income tax for a year?
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
I think this is no different than investing in the Eisenhower interstate system. That did wonders for the economy and still is. He was a republican that knew the value of logistics to an economy. If we invested in a internet infrastructure upgrade, we just might lure some jobs back to the US as well.
Instead he spent time funneling money to his cronies and vetoing bipartisan child health care bills.
I find it ironic you say Bush didn't protect and defend the Constitution of the USA and at the same tyme you say he vetoed child health care bills. Can you show me anywhere in the Constitution where it says it gives the government that authority?
Another irony is that right now on CNN Dr. Sanjay Gupta is discussing national health care. In it he says a root cause of the health care crisis goes back to WWII. Back then laws barred businesses from paying employees more, there were wage control laws, but government not only allowed businesses to offer employees benefits like health insurance but gave them tax breaks as well. Because of this there is no real free market in health care. Now if government allowed employers to pay employees more without raising taxes then employees could get their own health insurance thus creating competition which would lower prices.
Japan, South Korea, and other countries have faster speeds available than *anywhere* in the US.
Do these countries really have faster speeds than the Broadband Utopia in northeastern Utah? They offer 30Mbps now and are capable of delivering 100+ Mbps.
Should there be a Law?
We already have laws for that, and an Amendment to the USA Constitution, unfortunately the government asked them to break the laws. Now the president wants to give them a get out of jail card.
FalconShould there be a Law?
And I saw not a one. Man! What is it with you people? Get one with it.
I hope I did this right. The reply link at the bottom of the first page where I reply to the original story unsettles me.
Or did I do it wrong?
qz
In Iraq, Kurdish men women and children were gassed.
Yea, and guess who supported those in Iraq who were gassing not just Kurds but also Marsh Arabs and others in Iraq as well as Iran? Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. In 1988/9 when congress was debating sanctions against Iraq, and these weren't the sanctions on Iraq during the 1990s but instead were sanctions barring military support, Bush Sr told congress sanctions would hurt US trade.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That all that dark fiber that runs up I-95 through to I-93 and from Boston on down the east coast isn't already there? I watched them rip up medians to put that glass in place.
The purpose of health insurance, or any insurance, is to reduce risk. In the unlikely event that you get hit by a truck and need a new spleen (or whatever), the insurance will be there to cover this very expensive procedure. Insurance does not magically create money from somewhere. All payments for service come from the pooled premiums payed by every subscriber of the policy. The insurance company simply levels out the total risk among each subscriber.
Interestingly, buying insurance, from a purely economic viewpoint, is a losing move because the insurance company must charge more than your expected gain (risk * payout) to cover its operating overhead (and the CEO's Ferrari fund). However, insurance is still a good idea since you have a positive utility gain from the peace of mind that you are protected in case of catastrophe.
One of the problems with the current health insurance system is that the payer and the customer are different. Thus the customer has no incentive to find the lowest-cost/best-value provider. This is solved somewhat by insurance companies negotiating with providers, but obviously it isn't working very well.
some soldiers signed up for the college money, but trust me, it's not worth it. Take those extra 8-15 hrs a day you work and get a second job.
Not the only reason but one of the reasons I went into the army was to save money to go to college. In high school I knew I wanted to go to college but I couldn't afford it, and I didn't know about financial aid. As a senior there were three options I knew I had, one was not going to college, which wasn't really an option. Another was taking a job I was offered at a research lab. One of the classes I took as a senior was Marine Biology and we went on a field trip to Mote Marine Research Laboratory, and while there a couple of us were offered summer jobs and were told that if we wanted to go to college and major in a related field they would help us get in and pay tuition. The third was going into the military to save money then majoring in Computer Engineering. Being ignorant, I didn't know then that double majors were possible, and wanting to design and work with computers I chose the third option. Regrets are a waste but I now wish I had double majored, in CE and a marine science.
FalconShould there be a Law?
My 50Mbps full up/down fiber connection to my house only costs me $50/month! Yes, and it's even a public utility managed by the city and leased by the carriers. This does exist in the United States (and it's F${king awesome!).
The point is, it doesn't matter how much it will cost. Spread the cost over every city/county/state that does it, and then realize that the infrastructure cost is paid back by subscription costs. The cost of deployment is made back after a few years, and then you just have upkeep of the network to worry about.
I'm actually surprised that the number is so small.
or else!
Physical network lines, like utilities, are a Natural Monopoly. It doesn't make sense to run two sets of lines to every house, but if you have a private, unaccountable, corporation running the show, the customers we'll get screwed, ie "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." This means it makes sense to have government involved. Now whether they've done a good job so far is an entirely different story.
The job of a dictionary is to help you understand and make yourself understood. The job of a dictionary is not to settle questions like this. Or do you think that the lexicographers spent any serious amount of time, when writing their entry for capitalism, deciding whether it is really true that "the whole basis of a capitalist system is the idea that you are responsible for yourself"? That's not their job.
Are you adequate?
key phrase: supposed to be
see here.
In the first use of active-duty troops to fight marijuana growing in the United States, a contingent of about 200 Army soldiers, National Guardsmen and Federal agents have spent the past two weeks raiding clandestine marijuana gardens in the rugged terrain of the King Range National Conservation Area.
The residents of southern Humboldt Country have responded with protests, complaining that the military convoys through their towns, the Blackhawk helicopters over their homes and the camouflaged and armed guardsmen prowling the woods have made the war on drugs too much like real war...
No, it isn't, because a free market has no responsibility to provide for peoples needs in the first place.
Actually the Father of the Freemarket Adam Smith argued it is the freemarket's responsibility to provide for the people's needs, and that a freemarket was the most efficient way of meeting those needs. If you don't believe me and it hasn't come out for you with his "Wealth of Nations" then read his The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Back in October 2005 Libertarian magazine "Reason" had a debate on this with Milton Friedman, Whole Foods' John Mackey, and Cypress Semiconductor's T.J. Rodgers entitled "Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business".
FalconShould there be a Law?
And now, we have in the USA a bunch of social programs to help those downtrodden. Did we have those prior the New Deal?
Those social welfare programs in the US started with the New Deal aren't ready about helping the poor. The way they work actually keeps the needy needy. Someone poor and receiving government assistance is almost trapped. Once they start making enough money they risk losing all the assistance they receive. For instance years ago I had to drop out of college so I could get full tyme employment, the job I finally got didn't allow me to take classes when they were offered. Though I worked full tyme my employer didn't offer health insurance. So I looked into getting my own and the cheapest I found was about 1/3 of my income, and I was trying to save money for tuition. A room mate suggested I check with the county health department, they told me there I made to much money too get any medical assistance. The health worker, just as in the movie "John Q" told me it was too bad I worked. I was left with a bad choice, I could either work and earn money but not enough to get health insurance or I could quit working thus not earning any money but then I'd be able to get medical care. I forewent the insurance and looked for a better job, while still working. Eventually I got a job that allowed me to take a class or two a semester, depending on class schedules.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Says who? Who appointed you and vested you with the power to decide what the basis of a capitalist economy is?
Well, I own a dictionary, whereas you apparently do not. This makes me more qualified to speak about the meaning of words. I suggest you check out www.dictionary.com for details.
As the Father of Capitalism and the Free Market I believe Adam Smith is the most qualified to define what capitalism's responsibility is. If his "The Wealth of Nations" isn't informative enough his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" should do the trick. Or for a debate on what capitalism's responsibility is read a debate in the Libertarian magazine "Reason" with Milton Friedman, Whole Foods' John Mackey, and Cypress Semiconductor's T.J. Rodgers called "Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business".
FalconShould there be a Law?
Let the government do it and pay for it.
We don't seem to have a problem spending a billion dollars a day blowing up women and children... At 100,000,000,000.00 we'd have fiber to every farm, house and condo in less than six months.
It comes down to: What do we want?
10 times the number that died in 9/11 keel over from high cholesterol. A war against obesity would have saved more lives. 6000 sixteen year old die a year because we give them drivers licenses, cost of doing business? Apparently, because there's no war against that number.
100 billion is nothing. We should be spending it on improving our lives. We give a lot more than that to other governments as stimulus and subsisted packages for their countries... They're probably spending part of it to wire their citizens. Our priorities are screwed up. There's a similar number being toss around for what it would cost to give the uninsured in our country national health insurance. We could do both for what this war has cost for just one 1 year. Let's bring that money home and fix our own country.
Disclamer: I like fast internet a lot more than dead children so this is not an unbiased opinion
JMHO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8
For once you might want to take a good look at what has happened in France ;)
:p). It's essentially the same price as his previous DSL suscription.
A few years back, local loop unbundling (a EU requirement) created competition among private ISPs and the formerly public operator/monopoly, France Telecom (FT). FT had to give up their stranglehold on DSL (and subsequently on telephony as well), many private ISPs started offering DSL services, and available speeds quickly rose to 20 Mbps (and now even 28 for some operators). The typical offer, which costs you 29.99 euros/month, gets you not just unlimited Internet, but also dozens of TV channels (including some in HD) and free unlimited phone calls to landlines in France, the EU, and dozens of foreign countries. That would have been considered totally impossible just a few years back.
Now, the DSL market is facing saturation, particularly in urban areas. So the telcos have naturally started laying out 100Mbps fiber - my dad just got his installed, and it seems to work extremely well (the only downside is that I'll have to look into 802.11n, because his Airport Extreme is now officially slower than his internet connection
Note that fibre network operators are not affected by LLU - in order to protect their revenue and provide an incentive to invest in the fibre network. A good move IMHO, as otherwise I'm not sure anyone would have bothered to pay for the initial network investment. Whether or not LLU is required for fibre in the future, competition from DSL (and soon WiMax?) should be enough to keep fibre prices down.
In Paris, I think the municipality is making money from fibre, as telcos pay a fee to lay out their network through the sewer system. Other cities have paid for the initial investment cost, and now rent the infrastructure to ISPs. In both scenarios, public investment has been kept to a minimum.
The interesting thing is that both the fast DSL and fibre markets were initially pushed and led by Free, an independent and extremely aggressive (and geek-friendly!) ISP for whom price-slashing was the only way to become a recognized player.
So, in theory all the US of A needs to fix its telecom infrastructure is:
-local loop unbundling on DSL, *asap*
-its own version of Free
-as far as fibre is concerned, maybe some level of investment by local or federal authorities to Get Things Done quicker (but probably nowhere close to 100bn though - maybe 1/10th of that amount)
Competition and economies of scale should be able to do the rest.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
You're aware price is a measure of value? If the government comes in and messes with the price of copper, fewer people get what they value. This isn't a humanitarian issue (like with water, which has no substitutes), so resources should be left to be used efficiently.
And please go take an economics course so you understand why the free market IS a humanitarian system. Hint: willing buyer, willing seller, and no central government to decide what something is worth to you. It will be worth whatever it costs to make or acquire it. It's not romantic, but it works.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
That's less than a year of military spending in Iraq, probably less than 6 months if you account for all the follow-on costs.
It's no wonder Europeans can get government supported everything with small budget deficits, while the US is running a huge deficit: the Republicans have been wasting money like there's no tomorrow. Bush did it. Reagan did it. And McCain, Romney, and Huckabee are falling all over themselves to promise that they will waste money even more rapidly, just like Reagan did.
Republican promises of fiscal conservatism are a big, fat lie.
Have a look at a plot of budget deficits vs. presidents:
http://www.mcadcafe.com/images/commentary/us_federal_budget_deficit_20040510.jpg
And "blame Congress" doesn't work: in addition to significant budgetary powers the president has, a lot of this is due to military overspending, bogus tax policy, and other executive branch lunacy.
Send a message to the money wasters and vote for Ron Paul or one of the democratic candidates.
Spending on infrastructure, like networking, really helps our nation to maintain competitiveness. Blowing up bombs in Iraq only makes people hate us and hurts our national security.
those policies have resulted in faster, better connections for smaller total costs
Of course they have. The bridge government builds is what is seen - great! The Hospital that the government builds is whats seen - hooray! The Monument to Lincoln is whats seen - superb etc etc.
What isn't seen is what that tax money would have otherwise been spent on. Maybe that roof repair that you desperately need but can't afford. Or a new set of tires that are becoming dangerously worn etc.
So to get a wonderful super fast broadband you have to give up something else that you may have wanted. The state, like anyone else, can only allocate resources away from one job to another, whether paying through tax or inflation (bond issuance).
If you are still an advocate of government setting up this infrastructure - what you are really saying is that you want the government to satisfy your needs to the detriment of those that are unwilling to pay for it but have to anyway. You are imposing your plan on someone else with the threat of force.
That was never the american way, that was the socialist way.
Just a couple of points:
1. All you Bush-haters out there: he is neither the first nor the last dull normal to inhabit the White House. Why do you suppose the next president will be a genius? Think of your own boss entrusted with the powers of government, and try to imagine the magnitude of the screw-ups.
2. ARPANET evolved. It was not planned; certainly not the way it is now. Remember Hayes-compatible 1200 modems? Bulletin boards? Sendmail? The current situation was not planned because it could not have been imagined. HTML was not even a concept at the time. We don't really know yet what we need, but we can figure it out as we go along.
3. IT in general, including infrastructure, is an unbounded problem. Private enterprise is in essence a massively parallel brute-force solution engine. Government programs are linear, more suited to bounded problems. You don't drive nails with your pillow or sleep on your hammer.
Why wire the country more if we could use the air? Use WiMax on "stratellites" or high altitude blimps that act like close satellites, and you could give a ton of people internet access much easier.
Here's one trying to do it:
http://www.globetel.net/
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
During dot.com companies laid about twenty times the optical fiber backbone than the country was using. Lot of those companies went bankrupt. I remember the street being dug up a periodic basis in front of our tech office to lay yet another optical cable in the late 1990s. It wasnt hard to finance the tens of billions to lay that cable then.
What is missing is the "last mile problem" - how to best connect the backone to individual users: DSL, cable, wireless, etc.? Thats where the $100 billion need go.
Why don't the US ISPs use the billions they were given by the government from taxes to do exactly this? Or is there a case here against both parties for fraud?
Yes! This is absolutely correct. If the socialists out there desire a more detailed explanation of why this is correct then I whole heartedly recommend the following article: by Milton Friedman
Thanks for TFA link.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Sorry but mobile phones, health care, and data infrastructure are NOT operating in the free market like you seem to suggest.
First off health care is highly regulated with artificially high barriers to entry. Secondly the phone and "wire" industries are usually straight up government granted monopolies.
Sorry, please try again.
Libertas in infinitum
I guess if you just don't believe that the Supreme Court actually decides what is, in fact, constitutional - rather, you decide it - then you are right. But if you actually look at Supreme Court cases, Bush hasn't violated the Constitution.
It is well-settled. Every single Supreme Court case on the matter has firmly said: non-citizens not on US soil have never, ever been afforded constitutional rights. Never, ever. Maybe that is contrary to the way you feel things should be, but that is the history of American jurisprudence.
To recap, 1) never in this history of warfare have combatants been given habeas corpus. Military trials have been done since the time of Lincoln as well as FDR (the two highest rated presidents of all time), and the Supreme Court has upheld them; 2) Show me a case that says that the First Amendment bars religious organizations from receiving the same funding as non-religious orgs. IOW, an organization is not banned simply because it carries a religious message. The law simply does not support what you claim. 3) The Fourth Amendment has never been held, by SCOTUS or the FISA court, to require warrants when surveilling those calling from outside the US; 4) Again, when in history have POW's or enemy combatants every gotten trials, in any war? The Nazis? The North Koreans? The Viet Cong? Or are there just different rules for George Bush? 5) Getting redundant here. No Sixth Amendment or any Amendment for non-citizens. And this rule applied long before Bush was president; 6) Again, the Constitution does not apply, and even when it does, the Eight Amendment has only been held, ironically, to apply post-conviction.
The problems with Slashdot is that many people here argue from a perspective of what they want to Constitution to be, not what 200+ years of SCOTUS interpretation have said it is.
BTW, while we are discussing the Constitution, I see references to providing for the common defense (as well as to patent and copyright, which many here like to ignore) but nothing on the government building the Internet. Where does it say that, you constitutional purists?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you