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."

Comments

So we've got a duopoly

[Duradin]

And just imagine all the complaints if every tom, dick and startup were given permission to plow in new cable or fiber. We'd go back to gravel roads. Then all we'd have to do is dig down in the trench with a shovel and add yet another layer of soon-to-be-dark fiber or copper.

We're a geographically big nation once you step outside of the starbucks ridden cities. The population can get pretty damn sparse. It seems easy if you're going the CLEC route and just buying access to already existing infrastructure. But you'd be in for one hell of shock if you suddenly had to start plowing out to every customer.

I hate to break it to ya, but dropping fiber to every home is very, very, very expensive. 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?

Re:Big Surprise

[Chabo]

Did you get turned away from an emergency room because your heart attack isn't serious enough of an injury to warrant you cutting everyone else in line? You're probably a customer of Canadian government-provided healthcare.