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Broadband Rights & the Killer App of 1900
newscloud writes "Tech writer Glenn Fleishman compares the arguments against affordable, high speed, broadband Internet access in each home to arguments made against providing for common access to electricity in 1900 e.g. '...electric light is not a necessity for every member of the community. It is not the business of any one to see that I use electricity, or gas, or oil in my house, or even that I use any form of artificial light at all.' Says Fleishman, 'Electricity should go to people who had money, not hooked up willy-nilly to everyone ... Like electricity, the notion of whether broadband is an inherent right and necessity of every citizen is up for grabs in the US. Sweden and Finland have already answered the question: It's a birthright.'"
Let market forces decide who gets it. Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
...but this is not Soviet Russia.
In Soviet Russia, broadband comes to you
I have a serious problem with the government spending my tax dollars on rural broadband lines, and then still enabling the dumb cable companies to monopolize and charge whatever they want for internet service.
If we are paying for the infrastructure, we should own it, and we should be able to share it. Sure, there will be costs. But let's share the costs then, not pretend some capitalist market magic will make us all happy with great service, healthy competition, and constant innovation. I have horrible service, only one company to choose from, and my DVR is a piece of shit. It freezes for 5 seconds then goes through every button I pressed all at once.
Man, am I proud to be an American.
Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
Sadly you are doubtless going to be modded troll, but really, what's wrong with this? If you want to live out in the rural sticks then you should be prepared to pay the cost of doing so. It will cost you more money in taxes, more money for running water (pump and septic system upkeep), your roads will be less maintained, you may not have access to cable and will have to rely on satellite, you'll pay more for energy (having oil or propane delivered vs. natural gas out of a permanent connection), more in gas money to get places, blah, blah, blah.
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Electricity isn't a right in the USA. There are plenty of places without electricity that people still live. There are even more places without safe, drinking water and indoor plumbing.
Universal access for telephones is the law, but it doesn't apply to everyone either.
When you don't have safe running water, internet service is really, really low on the desired rights list.
Pull your heads out from where ever you've had them shoved please.
Electricity is not a right. It will get cut off if you don't pay the bill.
If electricity is a right like free speech then at some point maybe we'll get to cut off free speech because it's a right just like electricity. Forget to pay your free speech bill and off it goes.
We have inalienable rights endowed by a creator. In other words, not given to us by men and as such cannot be taken away by men.
We must be pretty well off in this country when we can start calling commodities and the inventions of men "rights."
"Materialism" is not a right. You do not have a right to stuff. Free speech, the right to bear arms, a common trait of all things that are actually rights is that they do not cost money. They are intangible.
You do not have a right to tangible things. They cost money. All you can do is help lower costs so you can afford them.
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I think we may need a new word because "rights", at least in my humble opinion, don't lay an obligation on anyone else or society in general, to fund. If you desire to express yourself by yodeling on a street corner you come fully equipped to do so and society has no obligation to buy you a megaphone or lessons.
If anything, this issue is more about those asserting the right; about their assumption of a right to impose their views on others or assuage guilt for being relatively wealthier, then about those who are supposed to enjoy the right to free internet access.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Seems to be some folks attitude to universal healthcare too.
Except it's not universal healthcare. It's "universal what-uncle-sam-thinks-you-need care". The future of government run health care is the future of unelected bureaucrats deciding whether or not your treatment is "cost effective". Care that may have saved your life might not be covered if it doesn't meet the cost benefit analysis. The best and brightest will have less incentive to enter medicine when their salaries and reimbursements are slashed by Uncle Sam in an effort to rein in costs.
Your freedom of choice will be constrained by government laws and regulations that proscribe what kinds of insurance policies can be sold. Want a high-deductible policy with an HSA? Sorry, our "Health Insurance Choice Commissioner" isn't going to allow those types of policies to be sold. Here's a nice PPO policy that costs three times as much. Don't worry though, your $80 office visits will now only cost you $20. No, you can't refuse to buy it, else we'll tax you more. What, you make less than $250,000 and thought Obama wasn't going to raise your taxes? It's not a "tax" silly, it's just money collected by the IRS under penalty of law. Ante up or go to jail.
Maintain a healthy weight and abstain from tobacco use? Sorry, we can't offer you a cheaper policy, because everybody has to pay the same. Have fun subsidizing the people who live off beer, big macs and marlboros. Have only one kid? Sorry, we can't charge you any less. You'll be paying the same rate as octomom.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Let market forces decide who gets it. Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
Differentiate between the right to get broadband and the right to get broadband cheaply. The former makes sense, and the latter is just uneconomic; an unjustified subsidy of rural areas by urban citizens.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
If a tax were levied that placed a $1000 burdon on anyone who drives a red car, it is effectively a subsidy on the non-red car population. In this case, the non-red car population ends up $1000 ahead of the red car population.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
In Europe this kind of thing is seen as helping the development of economically challenged regions. The EU has been spending lots of money on that kind of things for a while, and it started long before broadband. But BB is obviously now a part of the solution.
But there were a few people out there (like Edison's lab and Tesla) that could see and profit from innumerable uses awaiting.
There, as is the custom on /., I fixed that for you. It's worth paying attention to who will profit from a massive rollout of new infrastructure. Your main point still remains valid, that the masses need to be convinced of all the new empowerment (pun intended?) they'll receive from the new technology, and I would simply add that part of that convincing needs to show how everyone can profit. If not everyone can profit, it might be socialism!
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Who said it has to be free? In Finland, for example, you have the right to have access to an Internet connection in your home. No one said it needed to be free.
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The reason why the health reform as proposed by the Dems lacks popular is because, it does not go far enough. No chance to escape from whatever your employer dishes out in the name of health care. No recourse if your employer decides suddenly to drop health coverage from the compensation. Have to just bear it if your "contribution" is increased, your copay is increase and your doctor is dropped from the list of preferred providers.
No relief to the employers either. They are competing with Europe and Japan and their competitors do not have to pay for health care. If GM did not have to pay 2000$ per vehicle to provide for health care for its 1 million employees and retirees between 1990 and 2004, it could have competed effectively with the imports.
Already there is public option in so many areas where the private sector refuses to serve. National Flood Insurance Program to insure homes that can not get private insurance. Postal service to serve mail and parcels to places where FedEx and UPS wont go. The examples are endless.
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This is actually a big issue when talking about 'Rights' across national borders.
The US has historically stuck to negative rights (ie rights of non-interference). The virtue has been that the burden such rights impose upon others is limited (ie the government just has to not go out of its way to impinge upon your 1st amendment rights).
Internationally, a lot of 'rights' talk is based in some way on (or related to) the human rights movement and positive rights (the right to something which must be provided by someone). Such rights inherently impose an obligation upon some party which is far greater than an obligation to NOT do something. This works, to an extent, in European nations because they have 'big government' traditions.
If you are serious about bringing positive rights to the US, you need to have a serious plan for changing the consensus view in the US for the role of the state in the day to day lives of the citizenry.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
I'd concur with that. Vice taxes in particular annoy the hell out of me.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
When this Country was created and you wanted to share your views and exercise your freedom of Speech you went to the town square and spoke. This was what free speech was all about.
Where is the town square in the 21st Century?
Where do we share our views?
Why Its right here at shashdot. Yes its on the Internet.
Now we pay the ISP's for Speech. Thats not the Free we should be talking about. The ISP's want to block traffic they do not like, traffic that does not make them cold cash, we have to watch this closely.
The founding fathers could not have invisioned that speech would stray into the gigahertz bands. But if they had, Some of that bandwidth would have been by law given to the people. Other parts reserved for the public good, like the military and fire/police etc. Come to think of it, a working radio infrastructure would also be useful to the fire/police.
We should have the right to own the infrastructure. We should have the right to put a radio router on our roof. And share the connectivity. We are talking 300 megabit channels, in the GigH. frequency ranges. How many places do you go where there is not a house with in 5 miles. Its like a Gun, you have to buy it and buy ammo. The same is true for a radio router, You have to buy it and feed it electricity. But we should have the right. Not be ignored by the FCC for the good of the duopoly's/monopoly's.
A radio last milewould give ISP's a level playing field And There could then be 100s not 1 or 2 ISP's to provide backbone connections. It might even be better if the backbone was public as well. Its infrastructure like the Highways. It can make or break this country.
I understand that most of the population on /. is not rural, but your blatant stereotypical prejudices are amazing!
Your outrage is wasted. I grew up in the rural sticks. My town had a population of 500. It had so few people that not only did we have a single telephone exchange but we all had the same first four numbers, i.e: 895-6XXX. The nearest grocery store was 14 miles away. The nearest gas station 8 miles away. The nearest traffic light was 10 miles away and was only a flashing light at that.
Do you think we live in shacks, don't wear shoes, and cook over the fireplace?
Where did I say that?
Taxes are higher because I live out in the sticks? Really?
Around here they are. Most people who live in rural areas where I'm from do it so they can own a decent amount of land. Having a large amount of land in NYS will raise your property tax bill above and beyond that of someone in the city, even though you aren't paying for all of the services and extra government of the city.
OK maybe it costs more in gas... nope .. S.C. has some of the lowest prices of gas in the country, and gas is usually 5-10c cheaper near my house than in the city.
I don't know the particulars of your situation but my point was that you'll usually have to drive more by virtue of living in the country. My point wasn't that the price of gas is higher in the country. Driving more miles will cost you more in gas money.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Let's say I have $1000. I can pay it for health insurance premiums, or I can go without health insurance and spend the money on whores instead. That's 'choice'.
If the government tells me I have to use the money for health insurance (the "individual mandate") or they'll take it away, that's not choice.
Perhaps the writer overlooked this one little fact: Since when did we have a right to electricity? We don't. His argument is a non-starter.
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
Only if the people who aren't useless decide to support the people who are.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Living in the rural Ozarks, we have decent broadband, with the exception of one provider that absolutely sucks.
It eventually comes down to property rights, though. The government lacks the legitimate moral authority to confiscate an individual's property to provide that property to someone else. Taxing one person to provide for someone else is theft, pure and simple.
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Presumably though, when you're older and less indestructible, you'll want to enroll in health insurance though, right? The way insurance functions is that young healthy people are effectively subsidizing those less healthy, and then when those people eventually need that care, the new crop of young healthy insurance payers are effectively subsidizing their care. Keeping your money now to "spend on whores instead" short circuits that system, and puts you in the position of burdening everyone else by never having payed your share earlier.
Unless of course you intend to never have insurance, and just die as soon as you get a little older and can't afford medical care. In that case, go for it.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
The real problem with health care is that too many people willingly take on a car payment and exorbitant cell plan yet are offended they have to pay to take care of themselves. Too many put more effort in taking care of their cars than their own health.
Sums up my views pretty well. I have a hard time finding sympathy for people who claim they "can't afford basic health care" when they could obviously afford things like a computer, jewelry, a fancy cellphone, beer/liquor/cigarettes/recreational drugs, or designer clothes. Apparently they stopped teaching about needs vs. wants in elementary school or something, cause it seems to me that your first priorities should be providing for the basic necessities: water, food, shelter, healthcare. Only after those are taken care of can you start buying other things.
Conversely, if you can afford things like a new car, a cell phone, etc., then it would follow that you obviously have taken care of your basic needs first.
I don't have a problem with helping people out who truly need it. I do have a problem when that assistance is used to subsidize non-necessities. It's like seeing those people at the grocery store who use food stamps to feed their children, but then turn right around and buy cases of beer, cartons of cigarettes, etc., all the while yapping away on their iphone. I worked at a grocery store for a couple of years, and saw plenty of this.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
And if there's any reason left in the world, you will fail.
Declaring something a "positive right" means you are declaring a "right" to a portion of someone else's life.
No. Just no.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
Electrification of the USA was not mainstream in some areas until the 1950s. My late grandmother in law told me that she didn't get electricity until well after the war. Frankly, for her, it wasn't even really that big of a deal to have it.
Bottom line is, a lot of people didn't get electricity not because it wasn't provided, but because they just simply didn't want to have it. It's like, if they were content with life without it, why have it?
It's the same deal with broadband. Everyone keeps saying that broadband should be everywhere, but, really, does everyone want it? There's enough of a sense that when choosing a place to live, the availability of broadband is a consideration. If people are choosing to do without it, well, maybe they just don't need it as much as the corps we work for would make them think they need it.
For the most part, for many people, broadband is just entertainment.
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Vice taxes don't tend to have much of an effect on the addicted (the addiction outweighs long-term financial concerns), but they tend to drive down usage of those not addicted, but using regularly. It can help prevent another addiction case.
It doesn't always work (especially if not carefully considered), and rarely if ever does it work perfectly, but it can have positive effects.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Do you intend to die as soon as you cease to be young and healthy? That condition is not going to last forever, and "I'll just stay in perfect health all my life" is a pretty stupid plan.
Health insurance is a for-profit industry. If the only people who subscribe to their services are making claims, where do you think the money to pay the claims comes from?
As for car insurance, the payouts for a healthcare insurer are inevitable, they aren't for a car insurance company. That's one of the reasons I hate the idea of "healthcare insurance". Most people don't make major claims against their car insurance company. Those that do are comparatively rare. In healthcare, as long as you have a plan, you can consistently be expected to make more claims against it as you grow older. Even if you live a healthy lifestyle, the likelyhood of needing care go up as you age, plain and simple.
If you really want nothing to do with that system, fine, but I suspect that as you get older, you'd be regretting having no healthcare option other than to pay for everything out of pocket.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Bravo, sir, for backing into the real issue here - who "owns" the infrastructure. Like all utilities which must be delivered over a physical infrastructure that must be built within a limited right-of-way, or delivered over a limited band of the radio spectrum, the operation of a broadband infrastructure is a "natural monopoly". As such it needs to be heavily regulated, or better yet, owned and operated by the people it serves. Open it up to all comers as a platform to deliver service, but take away the ridiculous telecom monopolies.
Look, I can't speak to world where there is not a telecom monopoly, but I can when it comes to electricity. I come from a part of the country where the electricity (usually) delivered by a public utility. Service there is exemplary. I could count on one hand the number of outages in a decade. I now live in a place where one for-profit company owns the wires and there is a pretend "free market" when it comes to choosing electrical companies, all of whom "deliver" over the same infrastructure. The service is universally shitty. Brown-outs, surges, and outright blackouts are common weekly occurrences. The physical infrastructure is a joke. Poorly maintained would be generous description of it. This condition will not change because there's not enough money in doing it right and more importantly, because there is no alternative.
Again, when it comes to utilities, free market = fail.