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Major Carriers Shun Broadband Stimulus
jmcharry sends word that as the deadline looms for requesting broadband grants from the $4.7 billion available in stimulus funding, Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are conspicuously absent from the list of applicants. Quoting the Washington Post: "Their reasons are varied. All three say they are flush with cash, enough to upgrade and expand their broadband networks on their own. Some say taking money could draw unwanted scrutiny of business practices and compensation, as seen with automakers and banks that have taken government bailouts. And privately, some companies are griping about conditions attached to the money, including a net-neutrality rule that they say would prevent them from managing traffic on their networks in the way they want. ... Yet those firms might be the best positioned to achieve the goal of spreading Internet access to underserved areas, some experts say." Reader Michael_Curator notes that while the major carriers may be holding back, there were still enough applications to slow government servers to a crawl, resulting in a deadline extension.
I second that. I know in my area Verizon's roll out of FIOS was delayed by two or three years because they wanted Washington state to subsidize something like 70% of the infrastructure upgrade cost.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
I don't know what their real reasoning is, but you can be assured that it is not because they want to be responsible and expand with their own money.
The real reason is because these grants are a Faustian Bargain: there are never-ending strings attached to government money. And it's not just the net neutrality issue. If you take that money, there's a whole host of demands the government can make. I work in aviation, and have seen some of this stuff in action with FAA grants, where you accept money for a project, and then there are costly consequences years down the road.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Some say taking money could draw unwanted scrutiny of business practices and compensation, as seen with automakers and banks that have taken government bailouts.
Ha! You mean like finding out how profitable broadband really is and how that caps and traffic shaping would be largely unnecessary if the carriers spent the money doing the upgrade? Money we all know they have. Or would that be finding out how a few people at the top of the corporate pile are enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else? Extracting revenue without adding any real value and justifying it by saying their compensation packages are "in line" with industry norms?
Hard to figure out which one of those topics they're not interested in having become public knowledge. It would probably be wise to select "All of the above". And probably a couple more we don't know about.
Maybe we need a public broadband option? The our Congresscritters could start raking in millions of lobbyist money from the major carriers. It would give those hordes of fat, old people screaming at public health care meetings a new opportunity to get free bus rides and box lunches. And then they could accuse Obama of trying to take over the internets.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Does it even matter why they aren't taking the money? If the application system is being flooded, that means that the market will potentially be flooded with companies that are required to respect net neutrality. Since they will by default provide a service that is better than the incumbent monopoly, then assuming that it is not a true natural monopoly the market place will become competitive. That can only be good news for consumers and companies that rely on ubiquitous broadband.
Perhaps we have a communication problem here. From TFA, "And privately, some companies are griping about conditions attached to the money, including a net-neutrality rule " From the summar, "And privately, some companies are griping about conditions attached to the money, including a net-neutrality rule "
It seems pretty clear, from that, as well as a myriad other articles on the intartubez, the monopolies aren't even slightly interested in implementing net neutrality. They want one thing only, and that is as much money as possible for the use of the tubez, on top of extravagant rates attached to the infrastructure underlying the tubez. (cable, telephone, satellite, fiber - you name it, they want us to pay for it a few hundred times over)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Yeah, try $200K and they will STILL fuck your neighbors for the "cost". How do I know? Because they had been telling my folks that they would run the two block to the house since they built in in 1982. Guess how far away they are now? That's right-two blocks. They haven't run any line anywhere in my area in decades.
So, since I had some cash from a settlement in the mid 90s, and there were several SOHOs down that round, that was only a quarter mile from end to end. I had a friend that worked at the cableco figure our roughly the cost of the line, he figured at the time $12k. We got together and offered them 15K PLUS guaranteed 5 year full package sales from the entire route. We figured it as over $230K over the 5 year contract. Do you know what their answer was?
They wanted $75000! PLUS FIVE years PLUS a 'fee for the cost of the line! That's right, they wanted a good $70k in profit (since the line layers here were on salary at the time) before they ever layed a fucking inch! And THAT is why we will end up having to seize the last mile, because we have PAID once already, and all we got in return was the finger. We should give them 90 days to repay that money PLUS interest, or we take it. if they want a monopoly? Get off their asses and run to the millions that aren't getting dick from them now! And we'll be nice and give them double time if they run fiber to the neighborhood, and add another five to ten for fiber to the door. Because otherwise we will NEVER get nationwide broadband, and will fall farther and farther behind the rest of the world. Monopolies are NOT capitalism, and as we have seen all we get from the teleco/cableco duopoly is a rotting infrastructure.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.