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WSJ Says Gov't Money Injection Won't Help Broadband
olddotter writes "According to the WSJ, The US government is about to spend $10 Billion to make little difference in US broadband services: 'More fundamentally, nothing in the legislation would address the key reason that the US lags so far behind other countries. This is that there is an effective broadband duopoly in the US, with most communities able to choose only between one cable company and one telecom carrier. It's this lack of competition, blessed by national, state and local politicians, that keeps prices up and services down.' Get ready for USDA certified Grade A broadband."
So the WSJ, viewed by slashdotters as a heavily conservative news source, is advocating a position that most slashdotters agree with?
Head explosions commencing in 3...2...1...
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
They don't think government can help with anything.
Do you think the government issuing franchises that creates monopolies backed by the power of the state has helped?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The article does a poor job of identifying two separate problems: rural areas with no broadband vs all other US areas with crappy and overpriced broadband. We need to solve both problems, and the WSJ article doesn't offer a real answer to either, so the main point of the article appears to have been to whine about the stimulus package.
The way to stimulate the economy is to get the banks lending [slashdot.org] again and get consumers spending again.
Ah, the hair of the dog. Wasn't it poor lending standards and people living beyond their means (i.e: greed on everyone's part) that got us into this mess? Just once I'd like to hear somebody talking about people needing to save in addition to talking about them needing to spend....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You think that a non-governmental for profit company is going to take a massive guaranteed permanent loss to give Joe Redneck in the sticks a 20mb/s connection?
why not? they did it with the copper wires for phone. and last I checked, 4 pair Fiber was cheaper than 4 pair copper.
Oh and laying copper costs EXACTLY THE SAME as laying fiber.
If they could get off their asses in the 60's and 70'stio lay the copper then they can get off their overpaid asses and lay the fiber or upgraded copper. Honestly moving telcos from a regulated agency that had to do things the Govt said to unregulated caused more issues than anything.
Right now they all care only about maximizing profits. They dont give a flying rats ass about the customer or future.. If they could cut 90% of their infrastructure and charge the difference to the 10% in the big cities and tell all rural people to go to hell they would do it in a heartbeat.
The only thing keeping telcos from telling most of america to "GO AWAY" is government regulations.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In other words, the liberal or conservative stance in American politics is a false dichotomy.
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
the reason the usa lags behind other countries is that the other countries are small, compact and densely populated. like korea, or any european country
if you were to examine say, new york and new england, alone, or california, alone, the usa does fine in broadbrand penetration. but the usa is still sparsely populated in vast rural areas in the middle
want proof? look at canada. canada obviously has different governmental mechanisms, but it has virtually the same digital access ratings as the usa:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/list3.htm#dai
broadband penetration has to do with only two factors:
1. how rich the country is
2. population density
all other factors, including government policy, are neglible in comparison
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...years ago? It didn't work out too well from what I hear.
I'm sure they got some nice jets, and while they can hold a tremendous amount of data, the latency on the things is terrible.
Since when has government fixed anything. Tell the children of today that they are already $50K in the red and that there is not financial hope in their future, because that is what the "stimulus plan" will do.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
This massive injection of money, which is being obtained through printing money and borrowing, will not fix the core problems that caused this mess, namely:
All this talk about need more credit and more lending is a red herring. Over-consumption and over-spending is what got us into this mess in the first place. The US$1.5 trillion would be better spent buying up bad mortgages or just giving an equal share to every legal resident in the U.S. than what they are doing with it.
This will only put off the inevitable correction (crash), and it when it does happen, and it will, it will be even worse.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The WSJ article is opinion, and is leaving out the fact that the monopolies will not be broken without government interference.
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
Yes, because the way to get out of a 10 foot deep hole that is filling with water is to dig deeper.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
A mainstream media property actually "gets" something technical related to the Internet. Assuming the summary is right, they've got it dead-on.
The stimulus money should only be permitted to go to non-incumbent providers.
Alternatively, it should only be permitted to be used by a given provider to extend full wired (or fiber) service to geographic areas currently completely unserved by that provider (Eg AT&T would have to extend into non AT&T areas currently serviced by other telecoms, etc, ditto for cable)
A government mandated monopoly whose goal is to maximize private profit is a whole lot different than a government administered network whose goal is public service.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I am unsure about the rest of /. but for me 2009 is the year of 'No Debt'. I've made it my goal to obliterate as much of my personal credit debt as possible. No more use of the magic plastic, and by the end of February, I'm gonna pay off one card entirely and possibly have the second card near paid by the end of May. I'm not going to list specifics of my debt as it is embarassing that I let it happen to me. No more though, if I can't buy it with cash (or debit card as I am a small guy and carrying cash makes me paranoid), then I don't need it now and can do without for a while.
Sorry for getting off topic, but I figure if I kill off my debt, save up my cash to give an emergency buffer and can still once a paycheck afford a nice steak dinner, I should be happy. The 'I need it now' mentality, almost killed me here.
I guess what I'm getting at is this 'Gotta have it now!' mentality and the illusion of easy money got more than just me into trouble with money.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Oddly enough, most so-called "conservatives" today are actually from what, classically, is the center of the political spectrum. It just doesn't look that way because so much of the major media outlets are hard-core lefties claiming that they are the "center."
Let's take a few examples:
- Health care. The "right wing" position would be hands-off government and competition between services. The "left wing" position is socialized medicine. The "center" would have a balance, with people going out of their own pocket for minor things and shopping for insurance for the major, and government assists for those who truly were unable to pay. Unfortunately, we effectively today almost have "socialized medicine" - when's the last time you had a choice of your HMO/insurance instead of having whatever your workplace provided? When's the last time you realized that yes, there are independent clinics out there that are actually cheaper (for the little stuff) than your copayment, except that for anything major you have to go see your bullshit "primary care provider" for a referral or the insurance company will dick you over?
- Immigration. The "right wing" position would be isolationism. The "left wing" position would be unfettered open borders. The "center" should be responsible, controlled, legal immigration so that we bring in people on (a) a sustainable level and (b) fill in spots in the economy where we need workers. Unfortunately, the left-wing open borders crowd insists that the responsible center are actually a bunch of "right-wing haters" when we say that hey, maybe we should know who's coming in to the country.
- Social services. The "right wing" position would be to do away with them altogether. The "left wing" position would be to stick everyone on them. In the center, we would try to provide the ones that are really needed, while getting rid of (or tightening down on) those that are either (a) being abused, (b) counterproductive, or (c) just plain unnecessary. Yet the moment you even try to have this debate, the left wing types call you a "hater."
I'm a proud member of the center. Where do you fall, honestly?
The USA was founded under the assumption that government can't do anything right. I wish people would remember that.
Bad juju.
No likey series of tubes.
Broadband not truck. Can't fill up.
Bad juju cause bad thing happen.
Paper good juju.
Old ways best.
Good juju make good thing happen.
You may not agree with their economic policies, but they have a point here. There has been a lot of fraud, waste and abuse in the use of the funds from the universal service fund that was set up to subsidize rural communications. Chances are, this $10B would just go into the money pit and end up padding the pockets of the major telecoms rather than being pumped directly into infrastructure development.
If you want to see a real change, then get rid of the franchising laws. If the federal government could help the railroads deal with local and state laws in the 19th century, it can do so today with franchising laws that restrict access to these markets.
There, I'll bet you never thought a conservative-libertarian would champion federal intervention.
more bank lending and consumer spending? The problem was consumers spending money they didn't have and banks lending money to people that couldn't pay them back (sometimes approving loans with no proof of income). Consumers need to stop living beyond their means (this applies to the government) and banks need to be run as a boring for-profit businesses (which means no bailouts when they fuck up).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
First of all, as others have pointed out, "liberal" and "conservative" are false dichotomies, most people are somewhere in the middle.
Second, "classic liberalism" is now libertarianism; neo-liberalism is not "liberal" at all.
While "neo-conservatives" may include religious fundamentalists, many modern conservatives are very much more liberal by definition than most people calling themselves "liberal" in the nomenclature of U.S. politics.
Lastly, there's different matters on which to be conservative and liberal, the most common (if overreaching) ones are socially and fiscally. I'm a libertarian, generally conservative based on the common nomenclature, I'm socially liberal (you can do whatever you want as long as you don't violate the rights of others) and fiscally conservative (which grants much more freedom to people and businesses to use their own money as they see fit). Both positions are actually "liberal."
Stupid sexy Flanders.
You cant really call it overpriced if people are buying it.
That argument doesn't really work in a monopoly. For instance, when AT&T was broken up, nearly everyone in the US already had phone service, and yet prices came down. It's hard to argue that AT&T monopoly phone service wasn't "overpriced". At the very least, it illustrates how hard it is to determine a fair price in the absence of competition.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The WSJ is one of the most predictably biased editorial pages I've ever seen. Their very raison d'être is to beat the drum of laissez-faire capitalism. This allows consolidation/ buyouts and produces monopolies and higher prices to consumers.
We need to regulate and provide broadband as a utility like all the countries ahead of us do.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Rural copper layout for POTS was legendarily subsidized. Unfortunately, we didn't get the same guarantees for rural broadband.
The ______ Agenda
And if you happen to live in an area that isn't profitable to run service to I suppose you should just move then, right?
Yes. Just because you want the benefits of living further from other people, don't expect me to subsidize the costs that decision incurs.
The current national duopoly is the result of two extremes screaming at each other for the past 70 years or so.
One said screams that we need to regulate everything and have the government put everything in order so that everything works one way.
The other side screams that we need to degregulate everything and let companies do what they want to do in order to make more money.
Well, we've got both right now. These companies - cable and copper providers - are both regulated and deregulated and we have, in effect, a system that simply looks at numbers and says "this is good" or "this is bad" - and now both sides are screaming even louder to regulate or deregulate.
You know what we really need? More options. It's not about regulating or deregulating an industry, it's about competition.
You can regulate the shit out of an industry so long as there is enough momentum to allow new players to move in and drive down prices. Without competition, over regulation becomes a burden on the business and the consumer - by forcing a business to comply with a standard of practice, they (the monopoly/duopoly/*opoly) will pass costs associated with regulation to the consumer, either in direct billing costs, reduced support overhead, or poor infrastructure maintenance.
You can have a completely deregulated industry as well, but you still need that competitive momentum in order to keep the consumer from being raped in the ass. In a completely deregulated environment, the *opoly turn into the local Barrons of the community and become the almighty gatekeepers of the industry.
In either environment, if you have real competition, consumers become valuable again (as opposed to the business commodity they are in the telco and entertainment industries).
In the end, I think the best fit for America is a mixture of deregulation and dynamic "as needed" regulation (as opposed to the blanket industry-wide regulation that's currently enforced), and a breakup of local monopolies.
Here's a wild idea.
We need a decent rail system in the US, we have trackbeds all over the place in bad shape. Railroads ran through almost every major town. Take the trackbeds, fix them up for a new rail system. While that's being done, since you're digging up anyway, lay new commuinication cables to each town alongside the rail bed. Now you've pretty much addressed broadband and rail transportation at the same time.
Last mile can be handled either through local cables that the town can build out, OR wireless broadcasts at the railroad stations and using the local post offices as repeaters.
There, federal rail, and unified communication. Oh, and don't let the NRPC or the USPS run this, they have enough problems.
than a government administered network whose goal is public service
You'll forgive me if my experiences with DMV don't inspire confidence in the ability of government to run anything.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I think the "authority" model might work. Let a local authority handle the connection to the home, just as they do with water, sewer, etc. Then allow you to utilize the data pipe in any way you wish - select from any ISP willing to hook up to the authority. This way it would be up to the local authority how to best connect each home... fiber, copper, even over-the-air. When it comes to these hookups to the home, you can't have unbridled competition... so why do we pretend?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Of course WSJ says this.
They doctrinally believe, and are paid to amplify the message that the ills of the world can be cured by giving a free hand to the same people responsible for the global financial collapse.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Why not, the good people of our small towns and countrysides subsidize the ever lasting cycle of inner-city welfare recipients. (The modstick will sting for that one) All joking aside, I used to live in a rural area (northern MN), and there were/are currently no options for broadband (parents and lil bro still on dial-up). If they really wanted or needed it, they would move 15-20 miles and live near the "city" (population still less than 3k). If a demand is created, a business that wants a profit will swoop in to fill that demand, as always, for a price.
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
Energy independence Stimulus Package. Tax rebates for people who buy cars made in America
That won't stimulate the economy. That will spark a trade war with our European and Asian trading partners and the resulting decline in industries that rely on imports/exports will more than outweigh the resulting increase in Detroit.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Oddly enough, most so-called "conservatives" today are actually from what, classically, is the center of the political spectrum. It just doesn't look that way because so much of the major media outlets are hard-core lefties claiming that they are the "center."
Actually, both American political parties are what most of the rest of the world would call right wing parties. Just a few examples: neither party argues against unfettered capitalism (although you're starting to hear some from the public after the events of the last six months), neither party argues against massive military spending, neither party argues for gay marriage, and neither party argues for more liberal drug laws.
You may honestly believe that the country is in the hands of left wing lunatics, but let me assure you that, by international standards, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are left wing.
I came here for a good argument
Okay, if you wanted broadband in a village, I would understand. But how would distance affect a densly populated downtown area. Densly populated area in US are no better off than sparsly populated areas
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Ah, blaming the victim.
Ah, selective hearing. It's ironic that you quoted me and still only read part of my sentence. If you'd bothered to read it all you would have seen that I blamed poor lending standards as well as people who wanted to live beyond their means.
Sell people on loans -- for commissions, of course -- regardless of the borrower's chances of being able to keep up with it
And the borrower doesn't share in the responsbility in that scenario? Would you take out a loan that you had no chance of being able to repay even if the bank was willing to let you do it?
they only cry to blame the citizenry while simultaneously begging for handouts from them
The citizenry does share some of the blame here. Have you seen the neighborhoods in CA and FL that were hardest hit by this? They are all filled with McMansions that invariably had two SUVs in the driveway and at least one big screen TV in the house. I have very little sympathy for this "keep up with the Jones'" manner of living.
The people trying to absolve Main Street of blame in this crisis are just as bad as the people trying to absolve Wall Street. We all fucked up. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can start fixing the mess we've created.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And if you can't protect your rights, you deserve to lose them. Why do you think that right to life is less deserving of protection than other rights?
Still, at least you deserve credit for being honest about what libertarian ideology means: the poor should just die. Not that it wouldn't be obvious to anyone anyway, which is why libertarians get so few votes; but at least you aren't trying to hide behind "voluntary charity" or other bullshit.
Since death prevents you from exercising any rights, it logically follows that you lose all of them in the end, and thus none of them are inalienable.
And since we've already established that death strips your rights, it follows that people who would deny me the resources I need to live are included in that list. Not that that matters; I value my life higher than liberty, since without life I can't have anything, including liberty.
Government and companies both. That's why you need to play them against one another; use government to limit corporate power.
I am. I'm voting for politicians who are for regulating companies, thus forcing them to behave.
Like I said above, voting for more regulation is doing something about it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The mortgage industry hardly ever had a free hand. When you have government assuming significant risk by guaranteeing loans, you don't have the necessary risk vs reward considerations that keeps markets healthy. So yes, the government was complicit but hardly the only ones to blame. You do have companies and individuals that took advantage of the situation to increase profit. You also have individuals that took advantage of the situation to get more home than they could afford. There is plenty of blame to go around. What I think is funny now is that you had unsustainable deficit spending by consumers that lead to unsustainable economic growth. That bubble has burst. To fix it we are now going to inject unsustainable deficit spending by the government. What a laugh!
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
That's like saying telephone service can't be overpriced. The internet has become one of the most crucial communication venues just because people are paying for it does not mean it's not overpriced. In any situation where there is a monopoly or duopoly on a utility level service prices can and will be fixed, by the providers, to a point of maximum strain unless otherwise regulated.
People are greedy and your isp is not your friend they make money from you it's what they do. If they can squeeze 30 bucks more a month without you giving up completely and going back to dialup or quiting the internet they will.
Yes. Just because you want the benefits of living further from other people, don't expect me to subsidize the costs that decision incurs.
You already do.
And BTW, this was the argument made against Rural Electricification, one of the most successful social programs in U.S. history. The initial investment was paid back in spades by increased farm productivity.
Whether that lesson can be applied to Internet access is debatable, but you're just avoiding the debate.
And they sure as hell aren't the only ones to blame for this mess.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Perhaps it's because you come into a discussion assuming that anyone that's a "liberal" is evil and hates Amer'ka and wants the terrorists to win, thus immediately putting them on the defensive if a political topic comes up?
I have lots of friends from all over the political spectrum, and we're all able to have rational, respectful debates about what we think is right. Maybe you and/or the people you spend time with just aren't capable of rational debate and instead rely on ad hominem attacks?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
From TFA:
Firstly, note the loaded language, with words like "controversial" and "radical". The bias is obvious. It implies that anyone who would have the audacity to believe that our main information arteries should not be throttled and/or censored is some kind of unrealistic dreamer. Never mind that this openness itself has been the primary reason why the internet has been such a success. Without the internet, we'd be paying exorbitant sums for proprietary services such as AOL. Their bias is short sighted, shallow, and mechanical.
The idea that competition will solve all of our problems in regards to the internet is a fallacy. Network access will always be a monopoly/duopoly or and oligopoly. The idea that the network business could actually sustain enough market players to allow true competition is laughable. And they know it. Other countries that have better network infrastructures have highly regulated duopolies/oligopolies, with strong enforcement of the regulations. The market players in other countries know that if they abuse their monopoly power, they will be punished. Their apparent bias against net-neutrality indicates they are likely against other regulations too.
I would argue that internet access can be helped by "competition", but that such competition will in actuality be a highly regulated oligarchy. As soon as the regulations disappear, the system will break, and the oligarchy players will show their true colors, charging whatever the market will bear for as bad a service as possible. The Wall Street Journal is hypocritical for promoting competition, when they surely must know that true competition is impossible in this industry.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
All because 2 trillion were given to banks - no strings attached. Socialize risks and privatize profits.
You were raped, and think that means someone LOVES you!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Simple. So simple I find it hard to believe that no one else has mentioned the reason yet:
Japan and France (and places like them that score consistently high in terms of connectedness and bandwidth) have significantly higher population density than the US.
Loads of people in a tiny space makes it very easy to justify running fibre all over the shop, for example.
Where free market is a market without artificial barriers to entry, collusive price-fixing, monopolistic prevention of competition, etc.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10