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."

Comments

bad idea

[ILuvRamen]

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 And secondly, if I recall, it'll take about the same $100 billion to fix our ridiculously outdated, inefficient, unreliable, unadapting power infrastructure too.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?

Re:Preview of President's report

[Surt]

The real solution is to tax wealth rather than income, so that investment becomes the best strategy for tax avoidance.
It also just happens to be fairer: you get taxed in proportion to what the government is keeping the poor people from taking away.

Re:What is it good for?

[elrous0]

They're all dumb kids that would've ended up in prison if a recruiter hadn't talked them into enlisting--right?

I'm a third generation military brat. Dad is career Army, so was my grandfather. And, having grown up around Army bases for the first 18 years of my life, I'd have to say that is actually not too far off. There are a lot of good people in the Army, it's true. But most of them are obnoxious kids who were too stupid to go to college and too irresponsible to hold down a civilian job. Sorry to spoil the "noble heroes of freedom" horseshit image that everyone who's never had to live around these pricks seems to have.

If you want a good picture of these noble heroes you idolize so much, might I suggest you head down to Fort Campbell and walk into any bar on 41A on any given night, or head down to Riverside Drive any weekend to see our brave professionals drunkenly hitting on 16-year-old girls?

Re:What is it good for?

[ArcherB]

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? There is a quote I'm familiar with, but I don't know where it came from:
The boats are safe in the harbor, but that is not what they are made for.

Re:Total Costs Must Account for Opportunity Costs

[spazdor]

a free market has no responsibility to provide for people's needs in the first place. Nor has it any responsibility to explore space.

Would you prefer, then, to compare the achievements of the Soviet space program against the achievements of those American space flights which were strictly entrepreneurial in nature and did not receive any federal funding? If not, we're still talking apples and oranges.

The FCC?

[ttfkam]

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.