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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 going to love this. A big Federal investment in broadband will give the feds the leverage they need to enforce the three-strikes laws the MAFIAA will get now that their party is in power (having failed to even stall music sharing by abusing the courts). Before everyone jumps all over me, I voted for Obama, but let's face it: the Democratic party is practically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the "content" "industry".
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
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?
I completely agree. I have long tired of Americans whining about their own ability to exercise self-government. Sometimes we act as if a(n) alleged failure to make government "efficient" in the US is some sort of law of nature. And after the recent "market perfections" of Wall Street and the banks, they have real cohones condemning the USG as inefficient....
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
It is not the infrastructure that I am worried about, because like you I think rebuilding our failing infrastructure, including broadband is long overdo. What I AM worried about is the bible thumpers will get together with the "big nanny government" types and we'll end up with a great firewall of the USA to keep you from using federal property to look at anything they don't agree with. And considering the amount of crap the big corps, the big nanny government types, and the bible thumpers have managed to shovel through congress into our law books I think it is a legitimate concern.
While I hope it doesn't end up that way, would YOU trust these congress critters who keep passing crap like DMCA and that crazy law where you can get busted for having a jap hentai mag if some prude judge decides the CARTOON is underage(WTF?) to pass responsible and pro individual rights laws with regards to the Internet? I bet the *.A.As and the bible thumpers are drooling all over themselves at the thought of being able to lock everything down at the backbone. After all it'll be paid for with "federal dollars" and shouldn't be used for any illegal and illicit purposes,now should it?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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. -
Wow...
I'll just throw this out here: the uneducated masses of the US believe it is a democracy. The US is not. It is a Constitutional Republic. The key factor being Republic, where a minority can hold power. That means the wealthiest, charismatic, or powerful people will hold positions. A small group of people, even if they were elected, could not change the government, since it would necessitate a majority vote in both the House and the Senate with the President's seal of approval, or a 2/3 majority. There would never be a majority in favor of reform because those in power would be voting to give up power.
As far as the UN goes, it wastes money like all other governments. Fox News reports of a mural where the cost was taken out of relief funds. Also, the US pays 22% of the UN budget. Japan contributes 19%, with Germany at 8.66%, rounding out the top 3. I don't think you can claim the US doesn't pay a fair share.
Do you remember the UN limiting criticism of Islam? http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/01/news/UN-GEN-UN-Free-Speech.php Something is seriously wrong with the UN if they can limit free speech.
Ideally, the government should only do four things, A) Protect citizens from foreign invasion B) Protect citizens from fraud C) Printing a stable currency *preferably backed by something other than "the full faith of the government"* and D) Protecting citizens from harm from other citizens.
My apologies for being blunt, but you are completely mistaken, for one simple reason: your ideal government is not ideal for others, such as those who support the entirety of the UDHR (which includes stuff like access to medical care, and had it been written in the light of current technology, would probably have a clause relating to the freedom to access the web).
In my opinion - and it is of course only an opinion - the only way to get close to some kind of utopia politically is a system which recognises all political views as valid. The best way to do that is to decentralize government as much as possible. That may mean "more" government in a way, but it is done at a far more local level - your street, neighbourhood, or town, rather than state/federal.
I disagree that A) a national government should protect citizens from foreign invasion, but then I don't like the idea of sovereignty of nations. Rather, I would prefer to see multiple blocs have sufficient military power but also sufficient political power for negotiation within a UN-type construction to be able to take action on people such as Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe. To rephrase: Invading Iraq and taking control would have been much easier if done with the full support of the UN.
There is little difference between your B) and D), unless you meant physical harm. But the best way to prevent crimes with victims is to educate, in my opinion: both the victim (how not to get stung), but also the criminal (be that a rogue stock trader or a drug addict fencing your car radio). Zero tolerance is an awful policy to have at the million+ people level, but with total decentralization, it is not a problem.
For example, if public transport is available then it is realistically possible to have residential areas be alcohol-free (in addition to whatever other drugs you want to decriminalize). Similarly, it would allow larger areas (1M+ cities/states) to officially be against such things as gay marriage and abortion, yet guarantee the rights of minorities all the same. My thinking here is not that there be ghettos for gays, but rather that those less tolerant do have clear options where their local environment is as they prefer.
As to C) I'm all for backing currencies with something tangible, but despite the fact that I would prefer to live in a high-quality commune (kibutz/5-star hotel cross), I simply don't understand the obsession with gold. The true value of man's endeavours is the "average labour hour", but that's rather hard to make a currency out of. Instead, I'd propose that every level of government is run similarly to a company or charity, and that currency should be based on a basket mutual fund. This might have 5-10% precious and useful metals, but also similar percentages of land and real estate, futures on essential foods, etc.
My ideal government would have people like Ron Paul continuing in their day jobs, but spending a day per week, plus a week per quarter, plus perhaps a month per year as volunteers (paid standard wage plus costs). A position such as "president" might be full time, with limitations (even 8 years is too much!), but national/state senate/representatives would have only roughly 1/4 FTU "working" on politics.
I do agree that it should not be the top level government to implement this, at all. They are OK for national defence and serious crime, as well as co-ordination and describing ideals, but most other things should be handled at (much) lower levels. For example, if it decided that broadband is equivalent to a basic right, then the federal government should not try to implement it by itself, but rather provide a forum for states (which in turn provide forums for the next level
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.
It's not just Europe.
Even in the US, medicare is far more efficient than private insurers, with overhead less than 1/10th the private sector average (despite medicare serving an older population).
Social Security has overhead of less than 1/000th of 1%, while no private pension system can ever come close.
Even the overburdened VA hospitals continue to rank well above the private sector in quality of care and cost.
The Government consistently operates with far lower overhead than their private sector counterparts, especially for cookie-cutter projects that take advantage of scale.
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.