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Universal Broadband Plan Calls For $44 Billion
Andy King writes "The new Obama administration has pledged to deploy next-generation broadband to every community in America, but have offered few specifics. The Free Press have published a specific plan to accomplish broadband for all." I'm not sure which will be the bigger headache when my internet breaks: waiting in line at the new government internet office, or waiting on hold for cable tech support.
The RIAA is not going to like this.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
So far Obama is very good at promises, they don't cost a dime. Let's see how many he can pull through in real.
It sounds like that as long as you have something to bitch about, you'll be happy enough.
the year of the linu .... um ...
wimax?
You speak London? I speak London very best.
Comca$t already plans to raise rates by $44 billion when the $44 billion in broadband vouchers is awarded to qualifying households. Being paid by Comca$t, we say the more broadband entitlements, the better.
Not that they'll bother, but I'd be curious as to what power delegated to the Federal government under the US Constitution authorizes such an expenditure of the taxpayer's funds.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Is there some ambiguity here that I'm missing?
Many of us here would agree that allowing municipalities/communities to create their own ISPs and lay their own fiber is a better solution than allowing the 800lb gorillas to maintain their monopolies by burying any homegrown networks under a flurry of lawsuits.
The Fix: States need to pass laws that explicitly allow for those municipal/community network infrastructure and ISPs that comcast/verizon/at&t/etc are fighting.
How: Have the Feds blackmail the States by tying some important Federal Funding to the passage of such law.
But: Blackmail is bad. I agree. But telecoms have a stranglehold on State legislatures and any other solution is just going to increase the stranglehold that telecoms have on State/Federal legislative bodies.
Obama doesn't need to twist arms, he needs to kick the States where it hurts: their pocketbook.
I'm not sure which will be the bigger headache when my internet breaks: waiting in line at the new government internet office, or the feds knocking down my door when I visit a site that promotes something against their good christian morals.
Fixed that for you.
I drink to make other people interesting!
why does Australia have the " National Broadband Network "
and the USofA has the "Universal Broadband Network" ?
or will it be owned by a hollywood studio ??
these spin doctors need a good kick in the nuts - a polished turd is still a turd , no matter what moniker it has been given.
...I obey the laws of physics....
If they copy Australia, they'll do the following:
1 get tenders
2 get joke tenders from the biggest telcos
3 kick out the biggest telcos
4 decide to filter it all to dialup speed anyhow (all in the name of saving the kiddies)
5 reveal that they want to filter p2p too
6 dither about for a year
7 spend the best part of the next 5 years in court
1-5 have already happened here.
That being out of the way: This sounds lovely on paper, but I don't think it's going to work out the way he thinks it will; much easier said than done. Telecoms all over the country have been resistant (to say the least!) of "free" broadband, and they sure as hell haven't been trying to reduce the costs of broadband OR going out of their way to increase the size (OR the capacity!) of their networks. My $0.02 worth on the subject is that throwing money at this subject likely won't do much of anything other than line the already well-lined pockets of the telecoms, there needs to be some sort of reform(s) to go along with it (read as: strings attached to the money, SERIOUS strings). Even then.. not so sure I want the gov'ment mucking about with the Internet any more than they already do.
so what is the carbon footprint of a $44B dollar broadband system - or are you going to tell me its solar powered....
Can someone read the article in depth? It doesn't sound like free Internet. It sounds like a bunch of things working together to provide broadband access everywhere. Some people have dial-up in America still, don't they? Some people don't have choices. Isn't this about bringing reasonably-priced broadband to all areas?
44 Billion Dollars / Area of US = 4,477.63 U.S. dollars per Square Kilometer
I can build a wireless transceiver for well under $1000 that can provide 100 Mbps coverage to 1 square kilometer (564 meter radius). It will cost more like $100 each if we're making 10M.
The real hurdle isn't technical, but political: we need to stop licensing bandwidth to private corporations and start sharing the entire spectrum.
I don't mind the government promoting the spread of broadband, but I hope that in the process it steers clear of content filtering and content monitoring. This is potentially one of those "deal with the devil" situations, so let's make sure it's done right. Let's make sure free-speech and privacy rights are well protected from the very beginning. Let's avoid a situation similar to that currently faced by public broadcasters who, due to the public nature of the airwaves, are forced to accept what would in any other context constitute unconstitutional restraint on speech.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
already. universal healthcare, other public services, or other services that are held by private sector in other countries work very well in europe, but SOMEHOW, goverment is always 'inefficient' in united states.
or, rather, you people are WAY too brainwashed with the private sector propaganda and lobbying there. for example, the concept of 'lobbying corporation' is an abomination that exists mainly in united states. remember how they spent 100 million on advertisements on how network neutrality was 'sabotaging jobs' back 2 years ago in the blink of an eye over a month, in order to push laws to turn internet into cable tv ? if you dont, you should.
i have to say this here - if, you are unable to make your government work more efficiently than european countries, its YOUR fault. its your country, government is YOUR corporation, you are the inalienable shareholder, you should f@cking stand up and demand your rights, and your rights to be protected from private interests, yourself. someone is not going to come and do it for you.
and no, blabbering 'government is inefficient' and selling your butt to private sector WONT help, just like we saw what happened with healthcare, and credit crisis.
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Wow Obama, you've screwed up more than I thought you would have. If there is something we have learned about government, big businesses and technology is they don't mix. Just look at the old AT&T, the government gave them money and allowed them to "modernize" the USA and then proceed to abuse their monopoly. Then take that same thing and do it to "connect" the USA, and we now have ISPs that are abusive monopolies. Now we are going to do that again to "better connect" the USA and we are going to either end up in FCC tyrannical censorship land, or more than likely into yet another economy-damaging, money-wasting, taxpayer-funded monopoly.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
if Obama even delivers 1% of all that was promised, we might see some change
here in ireland we had the current government get re-elected on a "alot done, more to do" slogan, i can see this crowd doing the same come 2012
This free market fundamentalism american exceptionalism shit sickens me to no end. Most of the time the people espousing it are embarassingly ignorant about basic civics and use their vitriol as a cover for the fact that they have no relevant ideas.
With all this talk about regulation of internet and censorship, do we want government issued internet?
Screw these clowns. Lets run the network ourselves, like back in the good old days.
Lets fire up fidonet and run private networks in our individual communities. Design it from the bottom up to be decentralized.
www.infowars.com
Everyone go get the film "The Road to Tryanny"
I am really tired of the recent "pork" bashing in the latest election cycles. We need infrastructure spending. I suppose you'd say that money to build roads is also "pork". Like fixing that bridge that fell down in Minnesota a few years ago because of attitudes like yours. I for one am sick of this Reaganesque attitude towards spending we've had for the last 28 years, and I'm glad we'll have people who aren't afraid to invest in the future.
Do you think Europe and Asia is afraid of using public money for these purposes? Maybe the answer to that has something to do with why we're losing ground and they are gaining.
We do need to have some harsh regulations so that assholes like Comcast and the telecom cartels don't abuse us. But that is another story...
uh actually, you just make the troll look like an asshat by not responding. remember: arguing on the internet is like the special olympics. even if you win, you're still retarded.
So does this mean Obama just became a target for Sarah Conner and company? Whose side is Arnold going to be on this time?
The funny thing is, if government can bring internet to all the people, this will enable internet to replace the government.
stop it.
the credit crisis did NOT result from the lending to risky borrowers due to those laws, but, from the fact that the bastardly corporations of yours conjured 'derivative' assets over those mortgages, juggled them into complex composure hedge funds and sold them for over SIXTY TIMES their value. now, mark that, SIXTY Times.
because these were considered as investments, therefore assets, the corporations and banks which invested in those showed them in their balance sheets. therefore, all those WATER VAPOR assets have been taken into account while calculating those companies financial health factors, borrowing/lending power and so on. governments and regulators worldwide have given o.k. for those corporations to buy, borrow or lend upon those numbers, because there were no reason not to trust investment banks in united states. entire world thought that they would act responsibly, like total fools.
and those banks and corporations borrowed, lent, loaned and invested ALSO calculating those assets. therefore many of them loaned money/value they dont have, many of them borrowed value that is not there.
and then it turned out that the regulators in u.s. did SH@T of a job in regulating and assessing the financial health of the lenders and the SCAM they were running. why ?
why ! government is inefficient !! if government meddles in business, it kills jobs !!! hands off business !!!
thats why.
and when it came out that the wealth which ENTIRE world thought that was there, was actually a SCAM, VOID, WATER VAPOR. ON PAPER
you know the rest.
dont feed me that stupid 'risky borrower' shit. if a risky borrower bought a house through mortgage, EVEN if the bank gave the mortgage from an overinflated price of 600 k value despite the house was worth actually 400, and the house now only sells for 300 k, 1 million americans risking foreclosure means that there should be only 300 bn worth of assets at stake.
america already provided 700 bn in bailout cash, britain 160 bn, germany 600 and france 400 bn, switzerland 80 bn.
these cover the risky mortgages OVER a few times.
so why bailout money is not fixing the situation ?
BECAUSE THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE MORTGAGES, BUT THE POISONOUS WATER VAPOR ASSETS YOUR BANKS HAVE JUGGLED INTO EXISTENCE.
if you multiply 300 bn with SIXTY, the overselling rate of those FAKE assets, you can get to a rough number of $180 trillion. 180 trillion dollars worth of FAKE assets or more were sold around the world, by your banks, which were NOT regulated in regard to what sh@t they were pulling out.
being brainwashed by private corporations, is your thing. private, personal. we, out of civilized respect, only can voice our opinion on it, but not demand anything. that was what we have done up until now.
however, when your corporations SCAM entire world, excuse me, but that takes on a whole different meaning. this is a global world. you cant do your will and still continue trading globally. you will have to f@cking stick by modern global regulatory standards, and use proper regulatory methods, or you will be going back to herding cattle from kansas to california. for, noone will trade with you again like that. imf, wto, are already pressurizing your government to take its responsibility. you better heed their words.
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How about instead of spending new tax dollars he makes the telcos own up to the favors they were already handed??
No sig for you!!
it isn't whether it's "government" or "a corporation" or a "public-private partnership" that makes the difference between well-done and corrupt, but the vision and integrity of the people carrying out the project A-fucking-men. How many of you chicken littles afraid of everything "gubbermint" also believe that it should be by, of, and for the people? If you don't trust people and would prefer to be indentured to a privately owned plantation because at least you won't have to trust the landlord then say so, don't scapegoat government.
Oh, whew, it's about time we can have broadband access run with all the competence and efficiency of a government program!
government is YOURS.
DEMAND otherwise.
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Troll? Awesome, thanks for wasting your mod point... wow
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
thats what WE think.
to an ordinary occasional internet subscriber, and they are in the majority, such a post that is not responded to may seem like an uncontested opinion, when reached through a random google result.
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Yeah, Europe's in such great shape that plenty of them still come here for good and timely medical care.
I guess I'm not quite sure how you're blaming the private sector entirely for "healthcare" and "credit crisis". I'll put the blame squarely on government intervention for both. Government for pushing HMOs, mandating insurance that operates as collectivism rather than insurance, allowing lawyers to run roughshod over the medical industry, and empowering bureacrats over doctors. As for the credit crisis, I don't look much farther than the Federal Reserve manipulating the money supply to encourage speculative and risky investments.
The free market works great, we just wouldn't know, we don't have one. We're regulated to death, but people are so blind, they call for MORE regulation by the very idiots that caused these problems.
No, this is what you get when you elect fascists.
Yes, I'm talking about traditional fascism... not the kind that is just an insult. There used to be people who prided themselves on being fasicsts just as people claim they are socialists or capitalists. I should say fascism is hard to define exactly. However Obama is especially fascist in his economic and social views.
He is not socialist, but believes the government should call the shots in the economy and have a policy for the economy. Basically corporatism.
His social policies are similarly fascist. Serve the state and you are rewarded. At the core of fascism is typically the view of rebirth. That after a nation is in decline, it must be reborn. Lack of class struggle...
There's a reason why fascism is popular. There is a reason why people elected Hitler or supported Mossulini. :) They got things done. Fascism is a reaction. Of couse we can look back and realize what a disaster it was.
It sounded like a good idea at the time
probably thought so too: no better choices. And we got DMCA, CALEA, NET Act, and more. Whereas Republicans in power might not have been so receptive to the copyright lobbies. Even Bush's administration did threaten to veto the bill that called for DoJ prosecution of civil(!) copyright lawsuits.
So, my money is on some serious additions to the above wonderful laws, soon enough, and some major change and hope for the entertainment industry.
In fact I'd take clueless old school porn-fighters any day: the society knows how to route around them, 1st Amendment and all that. Routing around DMCA lawyers is not so easy.
.
We'll see how useful having a 40Bil network is...
Knowing the federal gov't, which never creates nor maintains, BUT exploits. It may look good on paper, I have a bad feeling about this.
Wow. Because the market does not already drive demand for internet? Reallocate the wealth?
You Americans are turning into card-carrying-commies faster than you realise.
Be sure to forfeit your guns for food vouchers somewhere.
The BPL folks and other hucksters will be all over this...maybe the recent scathing report from congress on the FCC will help keep them at bay.
Dumbasses, the whole lot of you.
The US Government isn't going to go into the ISP business. What they WILL do is help finance and give tax incentives to actual commercial ISP's in order to get them to run lines to everywhere people live.
Right now, it's too expensive to run high speed fiber optic lines to small towns in the mid west. With incentives, Verizon could subsidize some of this initial investment with the government and run those lines. The system will be owned and operated by Verizon, not the US government.
I use Verizon as an example; it could be any business.
I think this is a necessary evil to get all of our citizens connected to the Internet. I don't love the idea completely but we will be left in the dust by other competing markets because these other governments ARE doing this, and their people are benefiting with very fast Internet connections, whereas a lot of the people in the US are still on Dial-up.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
...your needs. I will be east European, um, professionals exporting, that your needs very well be meeting.
universal healthcare,
Yes, as you "Around the World" call.
other pubic services,
All already shaved.
or other services that are held by private sector in other countries work very well in europe,
No roughie stuffie, ok?
but SOMEHOW, goverment is always 'inefficient' in united states.
Our sales associates can be if needed Viagra providing. None 'ineficientiousness' no more; use only as directed.
i have to say this here - if, you are unable to make your government work more efficiently than european countries, its YOUR fault. its your country, government is YOUR corporation, you are the inalienable shareholder, you should f@cking stand up and demand your rights, and your rights to be protected from private interests, yourself. someone is not going to come and do it for you.
Yes, thank-you, thank-you very much, as our dear Elvis would have said. He was never for a bailout asking.
Sorry to poke fun at a serious post, but it's the Holiday Season, and as Kinky Friedman says, "Why not?"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
You have elected...a magician. You were so desperate to expunge the perceived evil of the Bush administration that you voted into office a media-created personality in the vain attempt to right the wrongs of the last sixteen years. You have placed your political, social, and economic well-being, into the hands of an individual who has no chance of solving the monumental problems that have brought your country -and possibly the entire world- to the very brink of total social and economic collapse.
You were so deluded by the 'Hope for Change', that you have placed your nation's destiny in the hands of an individual who, as both a Congressman and Senator, has directly sponsored less legislation that has been enacted into law than you could number on the ten fingers and ten toes that you have. He lacks both the will -and the experience- to solve your nation's issues, yet you keep piling on the demands that he do this or that, as if he were Jesus himself being commanded to perform miracles for the mob. He does not have the time, he lacks the experience, he hasn't the the money, to solve all of your nation's problems in four, very short, years. Here's hoping you will wake from your delusion. Soon.
Putting aside debate on whether government has integrity, we do know private industry tends to not have integrity. Integrity in and of itself isn't a profit driving concept. Vision can be rewarding, but not always.
In terms on current failings of private industry and the internet, no one will provide significant throughput to some people I know. They can get electricity and phone (and dial-up) because of government interference, but the CO is too far for DSL and cable companies aren't going to bother with this area. The cellular providers that in theory could provide coverage won't do so without limits that make it impractical.
Now this isn't exactly life and death, but it does preclude them from participating in a number of internet based industries, as consumers and as potential entrepreneurs. If fast internet connectivity is a significant prerequisite for enabling more of the constituents to participate and compete in the global market, I could see it as being worth taxpayer dollar to some extent given the precedent of the Interstate system. The 2009 budget for that seems to be about 35 billion for maintenance and development. 44 billion depending on the scope and duration of the spending may be a realistic number.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm not sure which will be the bigger headache when my internet breaks: waiting in line at the new government internet office, or waiting on hold for cable tech support.
At least you will have a CHOICE. What a concept eh?
Right now I have to go with Cox Cable. That's it. No DSL, no other cable companies, nothing. And it still costs $40/mo for basic cablemodem at the same speed as what I used to pay 10 years ago when I was one of the first customers in my area. In the meantime I have an order of magnitude more RAM, disk, cpu, etc. for a much lower price hooked up to that cablemodem connection.
"Who's doing it" matters to me because it says a lot about their motivation and risks. The people behind the corporate version are doing it because they think it will be a profitable business venture that people will want to buy into, and it needs investors who think it's a sound idea and are willing to stake a lot of money on that. Furthermore, I lose no money until I choose to buy the service. The people behind the government version are voters who approve of the idea based on their best intuition, and any economists who have wagered that the project will benefit the public welfare. Even if they hire the best team with all the vision and integrity in the world, if the project wasn't a good idea to start with, then the impact is negative. And regardless of what happens, I have to help pay for it. $44 billion is about $150 from each of us.
which explains what has exactly happened, as per international economist's view ?
boy. the tendency to blame government STILL in there, even in slashdot. unbelievable. its as if it became something like a religion in your country - 'believe' government is inefficient, and IT should be blamed for EVERYthing bad that happens and private sector comes up all roses.
some people need a thick stick to get sense beaten into their thick skull.
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thats just another excuse you americans use to excuse your inaction. 'neither democrats nor republicans are any good' -> nonsense. upon any given two groups, there is always one that is more suitable for the purpose at hand.
sue your senators, demand from your senators. choose whichever is more accommodating for people's wishes. start from somewhere. 'hey a third party is gonna co...' -> HOW do you know that third party is not going to be 'the 3rd party', if you are SO sure that the first two are totally useless ? what if it happens to be just another ?
make use of what you have. push forward.
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first, government is YOUR corporation. you have every right to it. if, they dont give out information to you, you change your senator, demand it, have him put out laws, and get it.
ANYthing that is in private hands, can be hid behind the 'private property' 'privilege' 'trade secrets' rights, and you CANT argue.
these were what were used to hide the financial scam that has been going on in wall street in regard to credits, and these were also the thing that prevented madoff's scheme from being found out.
no, harboring trust for private sector in THAT level you people have, is no different than trusting a divine being with all your faith. there is no 'invisible hand', and there is no free market god to set things right.
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No.
Government is EVERYONE'S corporation. It is a corporation in which my interests may differ from the will of the majority. It is a corporation that can PUT ME IN PRISON for choosing not to participate.
I can choose to walk away from a private corporation; I can't easily escape my government.
Yeah, Europe's in such great shape that plenty of them still come here for good and timely medical care.
what we see is otherwise. where does that happen ? freerepublic chat rooms ?
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Force the TelCo's to MAKE every home DSL available.
Period.
There are few to no homes now that don't have a landline telephone. The ones that don't could receive vouchers for 4G or 3G or WiMax or whatever could be available.
I live where DSL isn't possible, and have half megabit wifi link to the rest of the world. I also can't get much in the way of TV, so I get my news via internet. This proved to be a good thing, as it sure has opened me up to more points of view than the talking heads provide.
But, DSL would be welcome where I live. Fuck, my neighbors have it, but Bell won't install at my house per new regulations about distances... In the beginning they would try. If it worked, you had DSL. If not, you could go to IDSL, and if that failed, they would ISDN you. Now, nothing. Tired of the headaches of the service of marginal connections I was finally told by someone who supposedly was being honest.
But DSL would work here. Tax the living SHIT out of the TelCo's until they provide it. It's doable, look at FiOS. In Texas, they provided TelCo with $$$ for "Fiber to the NID" when I was in IT there (pre 9/11). Wonder what happened to that. Always amazed me that Houston, being the 3/4th largest city in the US was SO far behind in broadband. ./end rant.
--Toll_Free
So the US is now the universe?
I've read the Free Press proposal. I'm in the business, know the economics, have done some detailed studies of the Universal Service Fund (what a joke!), and recognize a mess when I see one.
First off, they're overly impressed by speed. They want 50/5 Mbps all over. You need that for three streams of HDTV via Internet, but not much else. They are out to hurt cable, and probably don't understand the nature of the copyright issues that rule those industries. They also ignore the issues facing rural providers, connecting them to the backbone, where current rules let the big Bells gouge small companies (some of whom pass the bill on to the Universal Service Fund). And where's the cost-benefit analysis? USF finances ridiculous boondoggles today. (They finance over $200k PER HOME to Sandwich Isles Communications.) Do we need more?
In fact they explicitly disclaim telecom competition as opened by the Telecom Act of 1996, favoring instead a massive expenditure on a "third pipe" closed approach, as if a triopoly were all that much better than a duopoly. In other words, it's "f* you" to the ISPs.
They have detailed plans to spend the money, but their details reflect a lack of understanding of what the actual costs and needs are. Too much here, too little there. It's like they're taking random numbers and throwing them out there, because that's how pork barrel politics works.
Their plan is classic inside-the-beltway "I want mine" thinking. It's not a good way to improve Internet access; it's a way to make some rich telephone companies richer, leaving a big bill for us to pay later.
The Commerce Clause, given its widest interpretation, would only allow for national regulation of the internet (I'm guessing this is how the ban on an internet tax got done), not building out the network.
OK, then how about the clause authorizing federal post offices and post roads? When the US Constitution was written in the 1780s, the framers envisioned post offices to carry both information and parcels. But in the 1830s, electric telegraphy became practical, showing potential to perform some of the functions of a post office, and in 1843, the US Congress authorized a $30,000 pilot project to run a Morse telegraph line from the Capitol building to Baltimore. By the 1980s, technology had advanced to the point where the Internet, a global packet-switched telegraph network, was becoming practical. I would imagine an interpretation of the post office clause that allows for construction of a telegraph network in the same way that the army and navy clauses allow for establishment of an air force.
you know the saying "your freedoms end where another's begins"
society is a give and take situation. its a trade off. you trade in SOME freedom in order to get a lot of perks and freedoms. for, if society wasnt there, you would be also concerned about saving your butt from wolves, or, wondering whether it will rain this month, so you can find water.
instead, you just get to suffer a little in terms of 'freedoms' (Which is basically generally cash - tax complaints), but gain innumerable, invaluable benefits.
that is a good deal.
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I'm not sure which will be the bigger headache when my internet breaks: waiting in line at the new government internet office, or waiting on hold for cable tech support.
Yeah, because reading is for those smartasses that go to schoo-ools.
Dumb editor. The government isn't going to "run the Internet". More likely, they're going to provide financial incentives to ISPs so that those put broadband where the pure economics wouldn't make it happen. Say, some small remote village where the ISPs in the area figure that putting those people on DSL would cost more for building up the infrastructure than they'd see in revenue over the next years. So that village has no broadband, and won't get any unless the government sweetens the deal for the ISPs.
That kind of shit happens all the time, in all areas. Because, you know, not everyone's a redneck and loves living in a trailer park on illusions of self-sufficiency.
This is the government's job, to step in where the lauded market economics fail and need a little pushing in the right direction.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Its good that they want to expand broadband to everywhere but will this lower costs? For a simple broadband connection, its very expensive compared to those 56kers, if cable or dsl can get down to where the 56kers monthly bill is then this would be awesome.
In the Constitution, Article 1, the enumeration of powers, says that Congress has the authority to establish post offices and post roads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_roads
In early America, post offices and post roads where crucial to communication between the states and the new national government.
One can make the argument that the Internet is the 21st century equivalent of post roads, and as such, Congress has authority to build such infrastructure.
OMFG! It's CmdrTaco!
My blog
Who are they going to go to, to implement this supposed system.
The same jackasses they did the last time. The major telecoms!
What happened the last time the major telecoms got handed a big fat wad of cash for expanding their broadband infrastructures?
1: The money was taken.
2: The promised broadband (hell, even improvements to their EXISTING networks) didn't happen.
3: The public was butt-fucked out of a broadband system.
What's going to happen this time? Take three guesses from the options below.
1: The money will be taken.
2: The promised broadband (hell, even improvements to their EXISTING networks) won't happen.
3: The public will be butt-fucked out of a broadband system.
But look on the bright side!
We'll still have bundled cable internet for $80 a month (or unbundled for $85 a month) for 1.5/768.
We'll still have cheap-ass 768/384 DSL for $20 a month, with the head-end oversubscribed to the point where DIALUP would be faster.
And the phone and cable companies will be bitching because they can't feed umpty-bajillion channels of crappy, compressed digital TV into those tiny "tubes".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Sooo... you've never shit in chamber pot, and tossed your sewage out into the street then?
That whole Government flush toilet system is working pretty well, huh?
When was the last time you fixed the potholes in the streets you drive on. Ahhh.... never. And the last time you built a freeway? Again never.
You need me to continue making you look like an idiot while you are forced to admit over and over and over again the things government provides for you on a daily basis that are there right when you need to used them?
There's a whole lot of rural areas that are too far from phone company offices to maintain internet connections that are stuck with a choice of paying insane satellite connection fees, or going without.
Internet access has become necessary to function in society on an equal basis with others.
Its called the "We've Got A Bigger Army" philosophy. Look up President Jackson and the Trail of Tears for more info on the Executive branch trumping the Supreme Court. Then look at the current administration, and see how many of these attitudes continue in the office to today. I'm not trying to politicize or anything, but merely demonstrate that power (in any situation) tends to create its own rules, whether legitimized or not.
Unity in Diversity
Let me introduce you to it.
As I have been saying here for years, the Internet is the Post Road of the 21st century. It is both the road to the market and a path for interstate commerce. It is too important to allow private enterprises to decide who is entitled to this road and who is not by virtue of which market can pay the most. It's essential for everybody -- more so since more and more government services are provided through it, including even paying income taxes.
It's high time the federal government told the incumbent providers that "if you won't provide broadband to everybody, we will".
Help stamp out iliturcy.
What exactly is "it" that you get when you elect niggers?
I see absolutely nothing wrong with modding that troll.
This is Slashdot. If you're not already encrypting your Internet communications with SSL, if you're not using offshore hosting for your politically or legally ambiguous experiments, you've got no credibility here. The people here know better. Or at least they did once.
You don't really think your private Internet Provider isn't piping an echo to the federal government, do you? I really thought we covered that long ago.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I've done this topic to death, but apparently some of you still haven't heard the word.
In lovely and bucolic Ephrata, WA you can get fiber to the premises for under $100 installed and $60/month through the local power utility. It's actually gigabit, but your ISP will probably rate limit to a bidirectional 100Mbps. Zoom out on that map and see if you can find a big city nearby. The surrounding farmland is greater than the total area of Japan or England.
In a far more urban setting I'm paying twice that for a 7Mbps down, 1Mbps up from Comcast. In other places rates at greater than dialup are unavailable at any price, and that's just wrong.
The power utility in Ephrata is actually turning an embarrassing profit at these prices. This is not the only area where this is available. For example, you can get this rate in Shelton, Wa. Although the far more urban state capital is barely 20 miles away the installation cost of 100Mbps there starts at $10,000 and if you have to ask the monthly rate, you can't afford it.
The density argument is bunk. It has been bunk for 15 years. Fiber municipal broadband changes everything. That argument is completely dead. Please stop using it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Have you seen the cameras on the traffic lights? What do you think those are for? Why do you think the government would actually need video cameras on every traffic intersection?
1984 is here, at least in terms of monitoring. It's well known the Internet in the US is thoroughly monitored. If you're up to something embarrassing or fiscal, encrypt your communications. If you're publishing free press type stuff, go offshore. If you're a kiddy diddler, you need to google the relevant links, but make sure you check out the anarchist cookbook and Guns & Ammo as well so you're thoroughly versed in the relevant legal issues. Oh, and if you're prepping an insurrection and using a monitored network to do it, you're doing it wrong .
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statue nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back." - Robert Heinlein, Life-line, 1939
Ah, a few days from now that quote will be 70 years old. Nothing I have ever said will be so timeless.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I think they covered that in Greece, ca 700 BCE. The senate met, argued, and decided that in their enlightened society there need be only one law: "If it harm none, do what you will." Unfortunately they forgot to provide for the common defense; even to compel that if the populace were unwilling. Other than that, it was a Golden Age. Because of that, we now don't speak Greek.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
To "deplete the surplus productivity" and so avoid a surfeit of leisure is the purpose of modern government. It's easy enough to argue they do their job too well at some times and not well enough at others. Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship." - Harry S. Truman
A surplus of efficiency is not to be wished. In the modern era if each person were maximally efficient in his work we would need 1% of the population. What would the rest of us do?
Ok, I'm going to advance a novel economic theory here. We've produced more than we need. We've built more houses, mined more coal, built more cars and produced more food than we must have. Our system has grown too efficient. Now many people must become idle because government has not done its job of depleting the surplus productivity. To compensate for this, our populace must suffer from a surfeit of leisure until our governments compensate for this by expending far more than they previously would have.
I know that sounds sick. Write it down anyway. One day you might be tickled to know you were there when the answer was found.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's not a conglomeration of network connections and protocols. It's not the aggregation of carriage agreements.
It's an idea.
It's the disembodied idea of the perfect communication vehicle, that automatically heals damage to its communication network.
Monitoring is damage. Censorship is damage. The important part of realizing the power of the Internet is to realize that it's not automatic by itself. You are part of the Internet, and if you want to communicate you have to help it route around these types of damage. If you're in a hostility free zone, host some desktops. Host a proxy. Help some freedom impaired people get and share information about what's happening in their restricted zone.
They can stop a printing press. They can kill a speaker. They can neither stop nor kill an idea. As long as we resist the limiting of the Internet, we preserve the hope that our favored ideas can escape our hearts and take root elsewhere.
In a sense, You are the Internet.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Not to take away from your well cited examples, but...
Some of us have done better. It's possible to do this well and efficiently with a public mandate, but without graning a private subsidy.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
when i first read the headline i was like .. YES, america is going to give all of Egypt broadband access!
then i read the rest of the intro and i went .. duh .. these people seem to think america=universe
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
I hear there's some internet out in Californy.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Comcast recently announced HD bundles that will go for $115 to $180 per month. When you add in what they charge for high speed Internet, you hit $230/month already.
The flaw in parent's math, btw, is that the $44B is mainly one-time investments. The visually stunning, if you like graphs, promote-our-site page is nearly content-free but at least the PDF link (first footnote) reveals that only about $2.2B (over ~3 years) would go to subsidize the on-going costs of end-users (scroll down the PDF to the "Lifeline/linkup..." and "Every child online..." sections. Oh, watch out it is a PDF by the way.
So, Comcast is already hiking their rates, by $60 to $120/month, and in 3 years that works out to $31.75 to $63.5B of variable, not one-time, income. True, the increase is on the TV side of things, but considering their new Internet bandwidth cap it is easy to see them offering an HD/all-you-can-eat Internet upgrade that would be in the same ballpark as their HDTV upgrade.
Comcast rate increases alone (without the need for infrastructure improvements, mind you) make the $44B government plan-so-it will-never-happen look like chump change.
I come here for the love
You're right that religion would probably want to ban certain pornography but I'm more worried about those who would start censoring things that aren't politically correct. That can really get out of hand when they start censoring certain political beliefs because the line is very vague. Soon you feel like you're living in the Soviet Union.
So then what is the benefit of this plan? If you like to wear a tinfoil hat it appears that this is just a smoke screen to cover the government's takeover of telecommunications and healthcare. Two of the Free Press recommendations hint at the real goal: E-rate@home program (federal government provides and presumably controls your internet connection at home, obviating the need for land line telephones and broadcast television), and Health Care and Public Service Digital Modernization Program (aka the backbone for socialized medicine).
Personally I don't think it's quite that sinister. Obama's big on promising this kind of non-controversial, populist program. Nobody knows how much will actually be delivered once he's in charge.
Sounds like you're almost talking about a sales tax which would be far easier to implement.
Back under the Clinton administration (1992-2000), and continuing through the Bush administration 2nd phone lines have been taxed to pay for "Wiring America's schools and libraries to the Internet", and I suspect that many office workers have Internet access at work, and while 100% of Americans may not have broadband at HOME, I think anyone willing to make a small effort can get on the Internet.
What is the problem? I know many people that don't want either the internet or computers in their homes, why must they susidise other peoples Internet connections (and, of course, the requisite computers)?
Broadband Internet access in the home is not a right, and I personally resent the idea of having to pay for other peoples high-speed internet connection...
What's the problem we're trying to solve? Speedy access to YouTube? And will the planned fairness doctrine congress is considering soon apply to the Interne?
it never works that way. choice does NOT happen in a market that is let to be entirely 'free'.
its against the societal dynamics of mankind. how ? very simple :
nature doesnt like chaos. it always establishes some kind of order in any environment eventually. societal dynamics are no different. if you let a market be completely free, eventually the corporations which come out stronger will proceed to corner the market through various means. even in an ideal world, that would still happen through excessive competition - bigger ones muscling others out with better products and cheaper prices. it may seem like a good thing at first, but, in the end it evolves to something else. imagine 10 remaining huge corporations who are way too chummy with each other dominate the food market entirely. do you think, you have a choice in such an environment ? do you think, you will be let to choose a corporation's products exclusively than others, to the detriment of all the others ? no. you will NOT be let to. if any corporation tries to break free out of the 'group' at this eventual cartel situation, they will get bashed.
just like the current situation in many of the markets. cd prices, computer prices, movie prices, all kinds of major product prices that are sold on global scale, converge at certain levels in each country, despite a lot of competition. how ? because everyone, without talking to each other, arranges their prices to a point that will not upset other major corporations. else, they would face retaliation in other markets that the corporations are strong. or other regions.
voila - a strongmen's alliance instead of corporations competing for customers like a maniac.
but what i describe here would happen in an IDEAL environment. world is far from ideal.
wealth is economic power. economy is a dog eat dog world. it is NO different than feudal times, in which stronger lords strongarmed lesser lords and kept them in check, keeping their dominion.
in real world wealth is a strategic resource. supplying a nation exclusively with something is a strategic resource. just think how many 'messages' hollywood slips out into movies that are shown to american people. same goes for every other country's movie industry. opinion is herded. just imagine how the telecommunications companies monopolize a nation's communication, and anything that runs on it. just imagine how it would be if a few companies had mega clout on education, finance, and even food.
no buddy, choice is something that can ONLY be ensured when there is strict regulation to ensure that there IS choice, through government. without government's prominence, there is chaos, and eventually a bigger 'old boys' network' that has enough number of megacorporations fill in the void of authority. if there is a prominent government, and YOU practically OWN and run it through your representatives, then noone can strongarm another, and you can actually ensure that you really have a choice.
Read radical news here
it must have been a Stupid Question!
There are many problems with the Free Press proposal -- not the least of which is that people wouldn't be able to afford the service they propose to roll out. They propose 7 Mbps, unthrottled, non-oversold pipes to everyone in rural areas, where backbone bandwidth costs as much as $300 per Mbps. Let's see; that's only $2100 per household! They also propose that so-called "network neutrality" regulations apply to the new pipes. ("Network neutrality" is a misnomer, because the policies that are proposed under that label are not neutral; they favor certain big Internet content providers such as Google, which funds Free Press.) These regulations would do several nasty things. They'd prevent bandwidth hogs from soaking up all of that expensive bandwidth; they'd strangle small, local, and independent ISPs with red tape; they'd make it completely infeasible to offer wireless broadband; and they'd destroy competition, so that the cable companies and telephone companies which would be subsidized under Free Press' plan would be the only providers left standing... total duopoly. Robert Atkinson of ITIF has much more sensible ideas; see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-d-atkinson-phd/the-right-broadband-stimu_b_152884.html for his proposal (which really deserves a Slashdot article of its own).
In the posting above, "prevent bandwidth hogs from soaking up all of that expensive bandwidth" should be "permit bandwidth hogs to soak up all of that expensive bandwidth. Gotta learn to edit more carefully.
Did we ever do something similar with electricity development in the US?
For the most part, our electricity services are the best in the world. Granted, 120 volts is a little low; but we have very reliable, inexpensive, and standardized electric service. Any device purchased in any state will work in any other state without an adapter. (The EU has differing standards for 3-prong outlets, and Japan runs both 60 and 50 hz.)
Hopefully we can make American internet work just as easily and reliably as American electricity.
No, I will not work for your startup
dear americans, am i part of your universe? from, an australian.
"Change" and "New Ideas" my foot.
From 2004: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4609864/ Bush wanted universal broadband by 2007. It didn't happen though, did it? Same old bullshit, different pasture.
The words "triopoly" and "duopoly" are not perhaps the best suited. I would pick "oligopoly" instead.
(... as if an oligopoly of three were all that much better than an oligopoly of two. ...)
Universal broadband is key to solving the US' current problems. We need an informed citizenry with collaborative ability. This is just as simple as 3G towers and affordable devices/plans to access those towers. It doesn't have to mean we run fiber to every home(but they can run it to mine).
And if you're a total whackjob, post on Slashdot, dude. Dude.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
This is a bad idea.
Consider the ethics on the service and the taxes involved. Let's say you are a private business involved in WiFi, if this goes through, you have to subsidize the government with your taxes, which will be competing with you. It's just as stupid and evil the current idiocy of taking taxes from good companies like Toyota and Honda and subsidizing failing companies like Ford, GM and Chrystler.
I don't want a government owned communication system that could be used to disseminate propaganda to people. What's to stop them from filtering out anything on the network?
Works out to approx. $146/person, or around $700 per household. That $44B doesn't just fall from the sky; it comes out of the pockets of people like you and me.
However, that's just the initial cost. As a gov't program, you can expect that once the taxes are in place to initiate the program, they will not only never go away, they will go up over time.
So... this broadband (which some seem to think is "free") will cost around $60/month per household, albeit hidden as a tax hike. And that will be in addition to any monthly connectivity charges, and you will pay it whether you are in range or not.
TANSTAAFL.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Actually, I have to provide my own chamber pot -- we call the modern incarnation a "septic system" but it came out of my own pocket. All the gov't did was tell me how much money *I* had to spend on building it. (And then they taxed me on it too!)
And I have to fix my own road if I want it done right. If I call the county to fix the potholes, it winds up worse than before, to the point that I can't even drive on it.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?