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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
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 And secondly, if I recall, it'll take about the same $100 billion to fix our ridiculously outdated, inefficient, unreliable, unadapting power infrastructure too.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'
How much do we spend yearly on the pentagon again?
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.
what distance can copper do 10gbs? 100meters? dont' make me laugh.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
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.
Copper is not as flexible, has shorter range, and more susceptible to noise than fiber. A copper infrastructure would require more repeaters, hubs and insulation around the entire network and it would be less reliable due to EM interference and require protection against lightning and such. Fiber has none of these problems and is advantageous in every way except (currently) cost. Plastic fiber hopes to solve this last problem.
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?
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
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.
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.
Fiber has none of these problems and is advantageous in every way except (currently) cost. Plastic fiber hopes to solve this last problem.
We've had plastic fiber for several years now. However, it is not the material itself that costs so much, it is the installation.
The market can't demand anything that isn't offered. In this case, there is essentially no compitition in most of the USA for internet providers. The way the market would demand something is by having people switch to faster providers, showing they are willing to spend the money for speed. In which case companies would then try to make their networks faster, to attract more customers.
But in the US, there is no one to switch to. So the market can't demand anything.
'Unbundling' as they call it in the article is always painted as anti-capitolistic, and as ending market forces. In fact, it is the opposite: It would allow market forces to work again, by giving people a choice of networks.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
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.
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
Also, fiber is likely to get cheaper as its used more, copper will go up in price as more of the world gets net connected and reserves fall.
From Wikipedia:
The Earth has an estimated 61 years of copper reserves remaining. Environmental analyst, Lester Brown, however, has suggested copper might run out within 25 years based on a reasonable extrapolation of 2% growth per year.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
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
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.
While every statement in your post is true, please note that, AFAIK, acrylic fibre is not currently used for long-haul runs, nor any single-mode applications. It's just not as efficient as glass fibre as far as attenuation goes.
While I don't work for any long-haul installers, and your point about glass fiber is true (and likely always will be), I use plastic fiber all the time for single-mode applications. And for long intra-building connections, it works great. Plastic single-mode fiber would work just fine for individual hookups to a fiber-to-the-neighborhood type of drop. And if the hookup is less than 150m away, multi-mode fiber would also work and be cheaper (with cheaper transceivers and CPE).
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 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.
That's truly the beauty of the free market. If copper starts to get scarce, the price goes up. This allows copper mining companies to invest more money to find new sources or extend existing ones. If that doesn't work, then the economics of recycling become more favorable. And if that doesn't work, then the economics of replacing copper with a cheaper alternative become favorable. Given all this, it's nearly impossible to actually run out of copper.
Beyond that, though, the price of copper declined significantly between 1970 and today. Granted, 1970 was a local maximum, but the current inflation-adjusted price is under half what it was then. We're not running out of copper any time soon.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
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.
What about all the dark fiber we already have laying in the ground? Is that not enough?
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?
Wow. You come up with one case where he may have done something in compliance with the constitution. Rest assured if his backers wanted that bill signed he would have signed it regardless of the constitution. The man has spent most of his presidency making a mockery of the constitution.
He has: