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Obama's Goal: 98% of US Covered By 4G
alphadogg writes "Ninety-eight percent of US residents would have access to high-speed mobile broadband service within five years under a plan that President Barack Obama detailed Thursday. Obama's proposal, which he alluded to in his State of the Union speech last month, would free up 500MHz of wireless spectrum over a decade by offering to share spectrum auction proceeds with current spectrum holders, including television stations, that have unused airwaves. The cost of the proposal is likely to raise questions from lawmakers, and some backers of government broadband spending have already raised concerns that the plan would give money and spectrum to large mobile carriers."
Not so great for the increasing percentage of poor and unemployed people.
So I have to wonder if this will be very similar to the wired broadband initiatives done years ago which have only started to provide benefits to the people many years later and at a much higher cost than our tax dollars should have required?
And what is '4G'? Is this wireless broadband definition going to be rooted in 2011 or will it be an ever increasing amount which will be viable in 2025 or 2050?
The spectrum is owned by the PEOPLE Mr. President, not you, not the government, and certainly not those you license it to. If they are not performing up to the very flexible definition I am sure you won't create because it wouldn't be at all advantageous to the wireless carriers, can we remove that license from them immediately?
Yeah, I didn't think so. Let's rethink this before you do something insanely stupid and let 'broadband' history repeat itself.
"More Chains We Can Believe In" as I'm sure the few people still working will be forced to subsidize it for the less fortunate.
100% of US having no poverty.
How about taking that money, building out the fattest/fastest fiber network you can and then turn around and let any carrier/company lease it to resell. I'm not sure why you are trying to make "mobile" broadband the thing to invest in, when wired broadband options suck just as much.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
How appropriate to hold down the shift key when typing that: $G
Looks like he wants to make sure that net usage can be easily metered and controlled. Just more pandering to BigCo.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
This is not the job or purpose of the federal government.
500 MHz of which spectrum? 4GS may already be colliding with GPS. http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/news/data-shows-disastrous-gps-jamming-fcc-approved-broadcaster-11029
Vision with execution is hallucination.
Coverage for 98% of the US is different than coverage for 98% of Americans.
would about sum this latest boondoggle up. $5B we all pay to bring broadband to the people who chose, knowing the limitations, to live in the sticks? Outside of that, are there any areas that don't have broadband sufficient to watch at least 480p video? And of course, Government, Inc. knows best what you want, need and is good for you. I'm sure 'creating jobs' will be part of the sell but what jobs are those - telecommuters? And exactly how much are we spending per job created? Meanwhile the budget deficit is on its way to $1.5T for 2011, we are still in Afghanistan and the eekonomy is still a piece of crap. But yeah, lets waste our time and resources on 4g broadband for everyone! As is always the case - left on its own the market will provide products and services more efficiently and at fair price. End the regulation and the subsidies so we can have a real market and not some hybrid corpratism.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Is anyone else angered at the prospect of using US taxpayer monies to build out a backbone to be given to, and then resold to us by the big carriers at rates that the rest of the world finds laughable? One day maybe you can post your discontent on your FaceBook phone at 4g speeds though.
a) 4G "speed" doesn't even exist yet, so it won't be rooted in 2011., it certainly won't be increasing speed 10-fold and capping out anytime soon. b) FCC regulates the spectrum. Just look how hard it was for them to let go of the "white noise" and you'll know why someone needs to force companies to give up their padded wireless spectrums. Companies are squatting on extra spectrum space because they "may need it later" and this needs to be stopped.
'4G' networks do exist and are already being speed tested with T-mobile leading the way. So yeah, I don't want them to be rooted in those definitions.
The spectrum is owned by the PEOPLE Mr. President, not you, not the government, and certainly not those you license it to.
Um. What this means is basically there's going to be a subsidy for private companies to expand their coverage, thus providing more people with the ability to buy internet access from private companies. The government doesn't own the internet now, and will not own the internet in the future.
This sounds just like the rhetoric during the healthcare debate: "government takeover of healthcare", "socialized medicine", etc. when what the bill did was provide an incredible amount of new business for the existing players.
Is this really how far to the right the US has gone? Even giving more business to private companies in an effort to improve our collective quality of life while doing no harm, financial or otherwise, to the corporations that currently run the show is somehow "too far to the left"?
4G technically refers to networks that have "peak download speed at 100 Mbit/s for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 Gbit/s for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users)" http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/index.asp?category=information&rlink=imt-advanced&lang=en Wireless broadband services offering WiMAX (clearewire, DBC) are not technically 4G (unless implementing 802.16m), but are still "mobile broadband" as of 802.16e. Which does he mean?
Is anyone else angered at the prospect of using US taxpayer monies to build out a backbone to be given to, and then resold to us by the big carriers at rates that the rest of the world finds laughable?
No. But then I'm not American.
Now pass a law that forces everyone to buy it.
More people need to read Atlas Shrugged to see where this boat is heading...
Remember - Vote early, vote often, vote Democrat.
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
What's a Bieber?
That enjoy indoor plumbing http://www.eoearth.org/article/Water_and_poverty_in_the_United_States ? If not, how can we determine the percentage of US outhouses that will be in the 4G zone?
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Where are these jobs going to come from, aside from the telecoms building out the infrastructure? Does anyone other than politicians actually believe that if you give everyone broadband internet access, we'll suddenly have this cool new economy where every unemployed worker can start retraining for a STEM job?
Andy Grove (fairly) recently made a sobering speech about how naive the US is about the role startups play. I think the broadband argument plays into his point. You can't rely on just startups to rebuild the US economy. Every would-be Apple that starts in a future Steve Jobs' garage must eventually reach the ability to employ hundreds or even thousands of employees and handle unsexy work like running factories.
No amount of broadband penetration or legions of startups will change the fact that the US regulatory system makes it very difficult for the US to have a robust, diverse and productive economy. The people who advocate broadband as a key recovery point are also the same sorts who often throw out soundbites on this issue. "Yeah, regulations suck, but having dirty water sucks harder, stupid libertarian." Gee, you fucking moron, you notice what the state of the environment in China looks like today, you know China, where your iToy was fabricated? Like a lot of what's wrong with America, this is more duct tape and chewing gum used to hold together a system that is collapsing under the weight of its contradictions and kludgish design and all people want to do is throw out snarky comments instead of getting into the trenches and restructuring things.
I dunno - kind of looks like a girl!
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
Well, seeing as I work on the chips that go into the base stations, at least I and my coworkers benefit from this. And then there's all the people actually installing and maintaining the towers, etc. Not all of the money gets used like this.
Of course, I haven't seen a good argument for what the economic benefits of widely deployed broadband might be. Sure, everyone can now stream YouTube videos at higher definition. But in terms of basic economic benefit, even if you have fairly slow (by today's standards) Internet access, you still can access online retailers, news, government web sites, etc. You just don't get all the shiny baubles.
I surfed the web over a shared 14.4kbps dialup link once upon a time. It wasn't great, and would be unbearable with many of today's ad-laden websites. But, with AdBlock and FlashBlock, 56kbps modems are at least workable, if not great.
Program Intellivision!
it MUST BE BAD!
there, said it for you right wing nuts.
There was a report lately that FCC approved a wide area wireless company for this purpose. Problem is they are putting high power L band (as I recall) transmitters all over the country. The band is adjacent to the GPS band and jams GPS for some miles from each transmitter. The FCC appears not to have considered this. The company involved (name something like lightsquare as I recall) says it will work with GPS vendors to make sure their stuff works. However the deal is a dinky satellite transmitter's power is going to be easy to overwhelm with sidebands and noise from a ground transmitter - several orders of magnitude more power - and while the central frequencies of wideband internet may be off from the central frequencies of GPS, they are both modulated and filters at the edges are not step functions, and cannot be made step functions consistent with the physics.
So is this wonderful plan just another political vote grab idea without taking into account what it's side effects will be? Avoiding this kind of interference was supposed to be the reason for having an FCC in the first place. Maybe we'd be better off without it.
...some backers of government broadband spending have already raised concerns that the plan would give money and spectrum to large mobile carriers
Someone hasn't been paying attention very well over the past decade or so. Giving money to the large mobile carriers is likely the entire the point.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
It's each individuals RIGHT to pay higher taxes so we can have $100+ bills every month from corporations! Glad to see everyone else gets it too!
My god you're right!
Hmmm... the new Slashdot theme eats italics. Does it eat bold? It looks like it lets bold through. I had meant to emphasize "broadband" in this statement:
Basically, the gist of my thought is that, yes, broadband is nice and shiny, but what great innovation are we enabling by bathing the vast plains of Wyoming and Nebraska and Montana with it? I can see the argument that more and more basic services are moving on line, but the baseline level of service you need to access these looks more like a 56kbps modem than broadband. Universal access could mean requiring certain sorts of websites to include a low bandwidth version, rather than building out higher bandwidth to everyone.
Broadband everywhere just makes it easier for ad networks to shovel more crap into each page.
Program Intellivision!
If you have been following Egypt even a little bit then you should be worried about any U.S. plan to implement an internet kill switch. So the question is: who is going to administer this nationwide 4G and will it have a kill switch built into it? Will there be market competition in the form of multiple carriers or will you only be able to get it in one place and therefore be subject to whatever useless rules they come up with? Law enforcement can already triangulate your cellphone's position with little effort.
I believe those "4G" are meant to denote the 4th generation network; and not actual 4G the standard since it's not been finalized/implemented yet. That's why like every carrier has a 4G network, but use different technologies; there is no standard for them to actually adhere to.
3G and CDMA are actual standards and for a carrier to use that title it has to adhere to those standards and use certain technologies.
4G at this time is just a marketing term meant to capitalize on the fact that everyone was touting their 3G networks, and T-Mobile decided to one up the others.
Is this the same 4G that is going to kill GPS functionality? http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/4G_Broadband_May_Jam_GPS_204069-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
I love the fact that we are reserving 2% of the US for those folks who believe they are being harmed by electromagnetic "radiation". After all, we need to give them someplace to live because they don't want to live like a bubble-boy (Faraday cage boy?) just to keep away from that harmful radiation. Perhaps eventually the government will announce where the 2% is exactly and provide government assistance for these people to move there?
Lol Ive read Atlas Shrugged. Your an idiot for thinking it has any resemblance to the real world. You would never find a single one of those ultra rich millionaires striking it out on their own. Lets see Steve Jobs building a railroad (by hand), lets see Ruepert Murdoch running a printing press. It will never happen. Your Dagny Taggert does not exist. There is no Rearden metal. You act like the poor are oppressing the rich, it is in fact the other way around.
I live in an affluent neighborhood in NYC, and I am currently testing two different mobile carrier's latest 4G wifi hotspot phones. Sprint's is really fast one minute, and then horribly slow the next minute. Overall it's very unstable, even when I'm getting a decent 4G signal. T-Mobile's is much more stable and lower latency, but only gives me around 1Mbps. I wonder how much bandwidth and reliability we'll have when 98% of America is using mobile broadband.
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
Most of Chicago is covered with 3G. I currently use AT&T but have tested devices from other mobile carriers as well. Coverage isn't the biggest issue. It's the fact that when you do have 3G, so do more than 1 million other people. They've oversold and underprovisioned their network in dense population areas, which means that while I've got a full signal, I can't really do anything with it since there's no bandwidth left at the tower. If there's only a T1 going to the cell tower, and 100 people are connected to that cell, coverage doesn't really mean jack.
Covering most of rural America is great, it'll (debateably) make education/communication easier in a lot of places. But for the big cities, network capacity is the bottleneck.
Also, didn't we give AT&T a bunch of government/taxpayer money in the 80's to expand it's network? How'd that work out? They're fleecing everyone to pay for yachts and laughing all the way to the bank.
This seems pretty critical. I don't know how my kid would do their homework without the Internet. And don't say, "Go to the library". That's fine if you can spend 4 hours researching, but the teacher's assignments are built around the idea that you've got a text book with all the answers in one chapter...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
More people need to read Atlas Shrugged.
No. No no no. No no no no no no no. Nononononononononononononnonononono.
Ayn Rand was a decent novelist, and a travesty of an economist and philosopher.
I want to feed and cloth 98% of Americans and I will use Magic Fairy Dust and the sale of Unicorns to pay for it. Logistics...Aint it a b!tch?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
And then, 94% of the US won't use it because they will face large overage charges if they use over 3 Kilobytes per month.
I don't know what the advantages of near universal high-speed access would be, specifically, but I can certainly say that it doesn't seem unlikely that there would be some emergent behavior going on where unexpected benefits can crop up.
The main reason I'm in favor of spending money on something like this is because I think that increasing access and convenience to vast amounts of information can be transformative.
From my own experience, the shift from dial-up to an always-on DSL connection years ago was actually pretty dramatic. With dial-up, I really didn't use the Internet very much unless I pretty much scheduled it - signing on took time, connections would break when I got a phone call (or I'd miss calls, and so couldn't use it when I was expecting an important call) etc. When I shifted to always-on DSL, suddenly I started using the 'net and various sites a LOT. Because of that tiny shift - from needing to dial-in to just needing to launch a browser - my way (and a lot of people's way) of using the 'net changed dramatically.
It's also transformed the landscape of the Internet: Easier connectivity = more people using it for more things = more chance of really neat things coming out of it. Back in the days of dial-up it was a lot harder to have something take off like wildfire because there were simply fewer people on-line and the ones that were used it less.
Another transformative thing is wireless access via my phone. I've got a "4g" phone, and it is quite responsive and I carry it with me most of the time. If I run into something where I have a question, I can quickly find an answer. Or, if I'm out and I have an idea that could be really useful, I can very quickly do a bit of basic research into it, make a note, send an email to ask someone else about it, etc.
Granted, 99% of people will use it for porn and cat videos and facebook, but I think that it's very likely that massive access to mobile broadband will change the way many people interact with the Internet, and that could lead to some really amazing things - just like every other time we've changed the way people are able to use the 'net it's lead to some amazing things.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
I would have written a long lengthy response to this article, but I hit my 2Gb per month limit on my wireless plan.
I suspect the *real* strings of this plan will be revealed in the fine print--where license terms will require carriers to police "IP infringement," agree to the Obama's kill switch, and allow the NSA and FBI free reign to monitor individual users.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I dont think so, I think it's also part of a bigger plan, that they have. They want to be able to access all people, no matter what the communication style, cell phone radio, tv, etc....the president needs to be able to address all of his people, not some....
I think this also has a bigger means of allowing access to the military that want to be able to have access to all that is electronic in terms of communication....so if you have a cell, they want you to use something that they can track easily, it's usually a first step to something bigger.....probably in 10 or 20 years from now, we will see the full image....now we are just seeing the first step.
Why do we even need this?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Considering that poverty generally seems to be defined as having less than X% of the average income, that's easy: just pass a law requiring that everyone is paid the same amount.
Or it could just be defined as earning less than $-1, so even with no income you're still not poor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Atlas Shrugged is a fairy tale invented by Libertarians that leads to SOMALIA.
A decent story from NPR (WARNING: contains Ira Flatow) on what U.S. providers are calling "4G" even though they don't meet the ITU definition: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/14/132934022/what-does-4g-really-mean-anyway
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
The administration's proposal to sell 500 MHz of radio spectrum to "4G" expansion is ill advised at best and at worst a boondoggle that will exact untold harm to the citizenry of this country. By selling off the citizen's spectrum our national security will be compromised through the loss of room for military radar, telemetry, navigation, and communications systems and public safety will be put at risk through reduction in spectrum available for police, fire, EMT, public works, SCADA, and marine safety. By taking away broadcast spectrum which allows the consumer to view free broadcast content, they will be forced to go to pay services such as cable/4G to get their previous free content. Scientific advancement and technological innovation in radio/wireless, remote sensing, and others require spectrum available for experimentation. Spectrum for experimentation will become ever more scarce if big blocks of it are sold off to billion dollar corporations. Instead of implementing this bogus plan based solely on short term thinking...lets think of recapitalizing existing wireless spectrum over the long term by using more efficient protocols, standards and spectrum sharing. Government/TELECOM takeover of the public's spectrum should be resisted to the utmost. If the public's interest is compromised for big business; what's next - Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Acadia, Grand Tetons, Statue of Liberty, public schools... ??? Beware before we sell off our national patrimony for the profiteers.
It's a flawed book, I'll grant you... but it has probably the most realistic 'apocalypse' that has ever been put into print. It describes how the world is really going to end: Unprincipled politicians, businessmen hungering for favors from government, creeping ignorance, and slow social devolution. We're probably about 30% of the way into the collapse, if we use the book as a measuring stick.
Good. You begin to suspect the presence of the man behind the curtain. Clever boy.
You just answered your own question. It's because of such wars. In US, our constitution gives a relatively brief list of powers to the government, and war happens to be one of them. And the government can't even get that right. I can't help but think, "show me you can handle your basic responsibilities before you ask for new ones."
You mention oil subsidies, and guess what, that's another one. When the constitution gave Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, it sure as fuck didn't mean subsidizing industries. But even if you take a loose and figurative reading of it and say Congress should have the power to subsidize industries, the fact that they use it to subsidize oil shows that they can't handle that power.
Saying the government should have a policy to improve internet infrastructure really does sound reasonable, but it also sounds reasonable to say government should have a policy for energy, and look what that gets us: oil subisidies. Government should have the power to defend our country, that's reasonable. And look how we use that power: invade Iraq. 30 years from now, will someone write this?
It's not that the original justification for the new projects are dumb. It's that the original justification almost never matches the actual end result. Favoring limited government isn't about saying No to upgrading our network infrastructure; it's about saying No to the practice of spending money on something weird and then dishonestly writing "network infrastructure" on the invoice. You're asking me to trust the same people and system that subsidize oil and start pointless wars.
I do like the idea of a better internet, so let's actually make a better internet instead of spending our limited funds on whatever Congress will actually do in the name of a better internet. You can fire Verizon when you get your bill and it seems too high for the shitty service you're getting. But what do you do about Congress, when you only get a chance to fire them every 2 years, and even if you vote that way, you lose half the time, and even when you win, the bills still get higher and the service shittier?
The only way to win at government planning society is to not play.
And a hypocrite when it came to accepting government hand-outs while she publicly denounced such things.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/02/11/027213/Why-Dumbphones-Still-Dominate-For-Now
I'd like faster ISP service, not a smart-phone-that-is-overpriced-per-month.
That means, 100Mbps down and 50Mbps up - no restrictions on running servers. No ports blocked. Full IPv6 support. Tiny latencies that work for SIP/VoIP and gaming traffic.
Cellular phones are worthless to me due to cost, latencies, and necessary traffic restrictions due to the wireless nature.
Why is 4G greater good? The country suffers from only 3G? I have a very comfortable income, having never used 4G. I fund libraries and thier internet access. I fund buses that make trips to those libraries. I fund vehicles for people that can afford $40,000 cars. I fund cell phones for people making $27,000. I fund people to not make corn. I fund people that make fuel out of corn. I fund mexico not to sell drugs. I fund the rehab for the folks down the street that buy drugs from Mexico. I fund Egypt in hopes of a democracy. I fund Israel to protect themselves from Egypt. I live in Ohio and fund social programs in Alaska. I fund retirement for employees of public companies I have never worked for nor purchased from. I'm up to my ass in greater good. I'm going broke on all my "investments". Hopefully we can offset the cost of all the above with a 4G network.
Aside: that scenario would only effects stand-alone GPS devices. Throw in a receiver that can do telemetry off of the 'blocker' towers, and you should be good to go. Sort of like the smartphone approach...GPS, cellular towers, and WiFi are all used to determine location.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
we need am radio / tv for local weather alerts and how many cable systems work off battery's? Directv has a battery powered sat + small lcd tv system. Do you want to have no tv where the cable system is down? want to have no tv when raid fade is blocking the dish?
And AM radio is needed for traffic and other alerts for people in cars Internet based systems will need to be better and have free with no data plan needed local traffic and weather info.
The problem that this plan is meant to solve are those people who live in places that are not profitable to serve. This is the same as the land line issue. Sure it was unfair in a way. Those of us who live economically have to subsidize those who do not. Places like Arizona and Alaska that requires huge federal subsidies to survive. OTOH we in America do strive to give everyone a basic standard of living, even if they do not deserve it. So now mobile broadband is seen as a quality of life issue. For the most part in places where it is profitable it is now accesible at a price that most people can afford. So we know have to subsidize so that people who can't afford it can have it. Just like we do for land lines. Just like we do for fuel for cars.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Call me a cynic at this point, but I don't believe the US government any more when they claim they are trying to "help" people. It's all about the money lebowski.
... while WIRELESS doesn't get net neutrality ... )
... Well.. except of course the people who are being forced into these crap agreements and who's money is being handed out like candy ...
The money trail -
Step 1: Find the biggest companies who have the most (or at least most potential for) money : Google + Verizon Android Deal (Basically - plans to get android on a bunch of verizon phones to tap into the iphone / apple market)
Step 2: Figure out how the government can step in to get paid while still looking good: Google + Verizon Net Neutrality Deal (Basically - WIRED stays net neutral (government looks good)
Step 3: Show public support for a bill that will help the big companies.. err I mean the people - "YAY! Interwebs for Allz!!"
Step 4: Avoid the headache that is the current wired infrastructure...
Step 5: $ Profit $
and ipv4 too!
Considering that Google was recently given permission to monitor the white space between channels by the FCC, and the political mindset of many Google employees, wouldn't it be great if Google open sourced a distributed White space Wifi network protocol, every transmitter works as a node in the network. The early adopters would get lousy transmission speeds, but over time, coverage and bandwidth would increase until it reached a tipping point where the radio network passes the wired in functionality. The best thing about this would be that short of jamming there would be no way to switch it off.
I'm not sure why you are trying to make "mobile" broadband the thing to invest in, when wired broadband options suck just as much.
The government is already doing lots to encourage access to very-high-speed broadband (which likely means fixed, wired services), but mobile broadband has particular advantages that fixed does not. Fixed is important because it provides the best speed, mobile is important because of its utility to applications where fixed access doesn't work (e.g., emergency responders.)
The FCC is going to redirect $8 billion already in hand from POTS to broadband. In addition to a dictionary, try cracking open a newspaper.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/08/idUSN0828392120110208
How about the gov builds out a national 4G network using european frequencies and standards, and leases the network to cell carriers. And mandate that any phone or device can be used without needing a locked in contract (like you can use any home phone or fax). And regulate the billing rates so that americans -don't- have the highest cellphone rates in the entire known world (yes, that includes Hawaii, sigh.).
Anyone wanna guess what the data cap for our new savior network will be? 5gb? 10gb? Useless. People will be able to check their emails anywhere and update their facebook, but not do anything meaningful.
Ayn Rand was a decent novelist...
Uh, no. Her characters are wooden simulacra of people, her dialog is stilted, and her plots non-existant-to-laughable. Even she said that her main point in writing her novels was to put forth her philosophy. It shows. Her writing is good only to the extent that ones knowledge of literature starts at "Sci" and ends at "Fi" - and not very good SciFi at that. She doesn't even make it to the level of a good pulp writer...
That is all.
1. gov't build 4G stations
2. gov't "discovers" they jam GPS
3. gov't awards $100b contract to replace GPS with new tech!
4. gov't mothballs the 4G stations as "non profitable"
5. gov't sells the 4G stations to Bell, Sprint, etc. @ $1/tower
Look, there are lots of benefits of scale to living in an urban area.
There are also lots of benefits to living in a rural area
These benefits are not the same. If you want benefits like infrastructure, live where infrastructure makes sense.
If you want to live in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself, enjoy your dialup and/or satellite connection.
The top 2% of earners will be given 5G instead.
Sunset of the PATRIOT act? Illegal wiretaps? Extraordinary rendition? Media manipulation? Wikileaks?
Don't worry about it.
MASSIVE GREEN SUSTAINABLE 4G $52B RAILWAY PROJECTS WILL SAVE US. WITH JOBS.
I have no doubt that increased broadband would be a transformative technology (and a welcomed one). However, the crux of my brief observation was that I am not inclined to pay out of tax dollars to build up the infrastructure of a few private companies who will then resell it back to me at an uncompetitive price. The same companies who sue and shut down municipal projects to provide free wifi for the tax payers (I am looking at you Verizon). Now if this money was going to be used to ensure that these companies had a real need to compete in a market place or to restructure their current practices (I don't want a subsidized phone) i want the option of data only on a phone. txt messaging prices are disgusting.. etc. Then yes, I would personally help to make this proposal become action. I do not want to be forced to give my tax money to help a private company build out their infrastructure.
I'm sure I'll fall within the remaining 2%...
I'm someone who lives in the sticks and would benefit from this, having only a WISP now that charges $60 for 765k down. I'd love to have some real competition out here. That being said, access from a cell carrier that is capped at 5 GB a month is not something that's viable. Sure it's enough to check your email and surf around, but if you want to watch movies and backup your files with services like Netflix and Mozy, it just won't cut it. I've been contacting my local rep and I'm just not sure what to tell them. How do you think the government (state or national) could better spend to move forward access for everyone?
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Does he mean 4G that actually approaches theoretical speeds, or the abysmal a-little-faster-than-3G-but-we'll-take-what-we-can-get that we're seeing now?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Besides the previous articles on SD - 4G Broadband May Jam GPS http://slashdot.org/story/11/02/09/1324253/4G-Broadband-May-Jam-GPS/ Nothing like having America blanketed by GPS blocking net :P
It will be interesting to see how long before 4G is antique and the new 42G is the rage...
Will the infrastructure be usable or shall we all pony up for the new stuff when it comes time? What the Hell we have too much disposable income anyway, right?
If bars don't serve drunk people, then McDonald's shouldn't serve fat people...
98% of Americans won't be able to afford yet another $99/month 2-year contract by the time this is rolled out.
Who gives a rats rear about mobile broadband...how about we get better saturation on standard home broadband first. I'm sick of being in the heart of a 40,000 person city and stuck at under 1.5/768 that only works 50% of the time anyway.
No one will be unobserved.
Yours,
Laszlo Toth
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I know of an entity which recently had the FCC tell them to use some licensed spectrum or they would loose it. They ended up allowing a mobile carrier to use it in exchange for use of mobile internet. (not sure how much of this is technically public, although its no secret as I've overheard conversation in public by people not affiliate with the entity).
Obama, while you're out making unreasonable demands, can you demand companies stop shipping my jobs off to India? Perhaps demand CEOs give up their bonuses and instead give their workers a raise, or hire new ones. Or even better, why don't you demand that everyone in the US government stop acting like children.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
Morpheus, God of Dreams.
.. considering you can burn through most plan's miserly download caps in a couple of hours of streaming content even on 3G? For example, T-Mobile advertise a 10$/mo 4G data plan with a 200Mb cap. 200Mb!!! AT&T's 200Mb plan is $35/mo and to upgrade to a 5Gb cap would cost an additional $25! Until cell phone companies in the US move into the 21st century there is no way I am buying a smartphone.
Seriously - who is Obama to make aims for the telco's? I thought he is a president of the USA, not a president of Verizon...
You're either not familiar with smartphones and the costs associated with internet access (here's a clue - that landline you propose people replace with a smartphone is mucn MUCH cheaper than the wireless data plan) or you are one of the middle-class employed people that doesn't really understand how expensive this stuff actually is, and how unaffordable for the poor.
Or you are not familiar with the President's National Wireless Initiative that is being discussed here, which includes:
reform of the “Universal Service Fund” to ensure millions more Americans will be able to use this technology.
I have mixed feelings about this. First of all the government cannot really afford to be doing overarching things like this right now. Is having LTE everywhere important? Yes, I think it is. Can the government afford to fund it for the carriers? NO. There needs to be a massive contraction in spending right now including on the defense budget. I think that given enough time that LTE will probably get close to the government mandate of 98% coverage. It might take longer but it will get there. I only wish that mobile wireless wasn't so darn expensive and limited. 3g is not that specacular. REAL 4g (as in LTE) is pretty good but it is still going to have capacity issues compared to cable and DSL. I think it makes sense for rural areas where telecoms cannot afford to wire every neighborhood or home with fiber. And when I mean REAL 4g I don't mean T-mobile's or ATT's "4G Like" HSPA+ system. It is fine on its own but it is not 4G and should not be marketed as such. It is rather misleading I think.
You must think that the network runs on fairy dust.
Who is going to pay for the customer service operator who you call when you have a problem with your account or want to sign up for a new one? Who is going to pay for the web developer to maintain the company website? Who is going to pay for the technician to repair the telephone lines when they get knocked out in a storm? Who is going to pay for the janitor who cleans up the company office? Who is going to pay for the human resource managers that are required to select and supervise all of these employees?
A network is not a "build it and forget about it" project. It requires maintenance, and that's the useful thing that the company provides -- maintenance and oversight.
So, you can either have the government pay the salaries and wages of all the telephone company's workers, as well as the costs of all the company's equipment and supplies -- or you can have the users of the service pay monthly fees like they do in the current model. Those are your choices. Just don't pretend like you can maintain network infrastructure for free.
And you managed to come across as condescending at the same time.
The network doesn't run itself for free. It requires maintenance and repairs. That is what your monthly service fees pay for -- the gov't subsidy, at least in theory (I don't know how well the telecoms are managed), is used to pay simply for the installation of new lines. If you don't want to pay a monthly service fee, then you're going to have to support all of the company's employees and other business expenses with tax money instead.
As a side note, Obama's "infrastructure" plans as you describe them in the Chinese comparison are actually straight out of FDR's "new deal" legislation that was enacted in 1933. Does your knowledge of American history only go back to the beginning of WW2, or what?
Any GPS I have ever used has been a stand-alone device, personally, I'd rather use a system with fewer potential points of failure.
and a travesty of an economist and philosopher.
And of course, unlike all other Ayn Rand critics, you are able to back up your statement with some evidence, right? Or are you, like most of them, basing your negative opinion of her on the vague notion you overheard somewhere that she is in favor of 'selfishness' which, without reading or understanding any of her work, is enough for you to classify her as a horrible person? I am willing to bet $1000 that it is the latter and that you cannot come with a persuasive argument why she is a "travesty of an economist and philosopher". Please prove me wrong if you can.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I agree, it's a shame William Gibson had a psuedonym name...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
I disagree. She was not a decent novelist.
No, it's that other 4G.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Dude... tower telemetry triangulation is not GPS, in spite of what a phone says.
Real GPS uses satellite alone for latitude/longitude.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
The UK is looking at massive library closings due to right-wing ideology on how to close their budget shortfall:
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/10/133656983/britain-faces-closing-the-book-on-libraries
Plus, it's also been seen here in the states with the big budget shortfalls in municipalities:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6618984.html
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/10/trustees_vote_yes_on_library_closings/
So in the end, we'll have no text books, no libraries, and you'll have to own your own iPad or other tablet, or rent it from the school.
Isn't it cool that our dystopian future is already here?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Let me guess, you live in an apartment in a city? That wouldn't have any shift in your bias, would it?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
...he lost his coverage somewhere for his crackberry??? You know maybe when he was on one of those vacations he seems to take every month.
Joe Investor
I can already guess what this program is going to look like. In my small city, and many other small towns in the country, a company called Open Range (http://www.openrange.net) has recently been offering Internet service that they brand as "4g". It uses WiMax. One of their flyers was left on my door, offering a free one month trial, so I decided to give it a try, just for the heck of it. They provide a unit that looks like an oversized wireless router, with giant antennas on it. This device recieves the WiMax, and it also has a built in wireless router. They also offer phone service through the unit - it has phone jacks in the back. The internet is $40 a month, and it goes to about $60 if you want the phone service as well. The internet is actually unlimited. But it isn't what I'd consider to be broadband. They claim speeds of up to 4 Mbit. In reality, I found that speed varied quite a bit, depending on time of day mostly. Sometimes it could get very slow. And doing something bandwidth intensive on it would take up so much bandwidth it would significantly slow my browsing even. So in the end, I decided it wasn't for me. There are other options in this city, and I think for the price, DSL would be better. I have cable, and while cable is more expensive, it at least provides an 8 Mbit connection that is always reliably right around it's advertised speed. I believe this company is partially financed by government grants and or low interest government loans. Since we're considered a rural area, it was part of the rural broadband initiative. However, this still doesn't help the people who live outside of my city. This wireless doesn't reach them, the cable company won't run cable out there, and the phone company won't upgrade their lines outside of the city to handle DSL. To top it all off, the cell phone service around here isn't great. In the city (of 20,000 people) AT&T hasn't even yet upgraded to 3g, T-Mobile doesn't offer service, Sprint doesn't either, leaving Verizon the only game in town if you want to use data on a mobile device. Enough whining about my city. Anyways, I fail to see what this will accomplish. All the decent sized towns and cities in America already have choices for internet, which are already better than 4g. Still no one will be covering the really rural folks who live outside of town. So. What does this accomplish? Nothing, really, except to waste more taxpayer money. Maybe the competition will help lower broadband prices? I haven't seen that happen yet in my city, the 4g isn't really priced low enough to bring droves of people away from what they already have. Even if it was dirt cheap, it just isn't fast enough for me anyways.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
See?
Just because I say 'yes' a bunch of times doesn't change anything.
I also disagree with you completely on Ayn Rand.
She was not as bad an economist as all the accepted "economists" of current era are: Krugman, Bernanke, Geithner, Greenspan etc.
You can't handle the truth.
Of course it's "within five years." Politicians love making grandiose statements about what we should have while conveniently putting the deadline beyond their term limits.
I'm not saying that universal internet coverage would be a bad thing, but this seems like a purely political move to me. It sounds nice and it promises nothing that can be held to him.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The spectrum is owned by the PEOPLE Mr. President, not you, not the government, and certainly not those you license it to.
Patently incorrect. The spectrum is not owned by either the citizens of the United States nor the president. I don't think ownership is even appropriate term here; can you own light? That's part of the spectrum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_allocation
In a related matter, the allocation of who uses which parts of the spectrum has to be regulated by a government body, otherwise anyone could start hijack any part of the spectrum. For example, one could start broadcasting porn over another FM station's programs with a stronger signal.
Finally, I don't think the purpose of the President's initiative is to define what is viable in 2025 or 2050, nor would it prevent the technology from continuing. It is simply an initiative to get people a certain minimum level of wireless access.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
But not afford to get, or use, with how things are going.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://www.handyvertrag-schatz.de
Or we've taught people to paranoid in the absence of evidence.
Frankly, I've found it strange that people are so much more suspicious of Obama than they were of Bush. I shouldn't be surprised, the country has the attention span of a kitten with a bad coke habit. Still, just on credibility alone, Obama (a real pragmatist) should have it.
The bottom line is, there is no substitute for actual critical thinking. Slashdot and other communities are, unfortunately, very prone to groupthink.
No, from the article:
This article uses 4G to refer to IMT-Advanced (International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced), as defined by ITU-R.
It turns out that U.S. carriers do not use the IMT-Advanced as a definition of 4G. I suspect that Americans will come to know such technologies as 5G. I also understand that there is somewhat of a battle going on between some consumer advocates who want the wireless companies to stop using the term 4G because it doesn't fit the IMT-Advanced protocol. That is a losing battle. For one, consumers don't know or need to know the technology behind it, but they do know (and it is true) that what Americans know as 4G is faster than what Americans know as 3G. Second, the ITU shouldn't be (and isn't) in the business of making marketing terms, which is exactly what 4G is. Let the IMT-Advanced protocol be defined, and let whomever wants to implement it call it whatever they want.
I hope that the Wikipedia article is updated soon to clarify the difference between what 4G means in America (a term which includes HSPA+), and what the term means elsewhere. (I cannot speak on what 4G means in Europe, Asia, etc.)
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
The kill switch wouldn't need any fine print. The IP infringement stuff is impossible to police, as well as the NSA and FBI stuff. Big brother does watch, but not in the omniscient way you think. Its simply not logistically possible.
When the government gets involved in anything it ends up costing more and not working as well.
Soon enough the (intentionally) uninformed conservatives will be running around screaming that Obama wants to start a state-run phone service that will provide everyone with 4G cell coverage for free and instantly put all the wireless companies in this country out of business.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I actually formed my opinion of Rand by (wait for it) reading her work. The problem with Rand's work is that it is all just one big knee jerk reaction to communism that hand waves away all of the details just as badly as Marx ever did. She blathers on and on about how terrible it is for the government to take what is rightfully ours, but neglects to address what we are supposed to do when corporations, in the vacuum of power created by a government that does not participate in the economy, are powerful enough to enact that same force. And what's worse, the government is made up of elected officials, so they at least don't have a direct motive to enshrine additional power to those in their position, because we could vote them out tomorrow, and they don't actually want to be oppressed any more than we do. A laissez faire economy, on the other hand, lets people amass power (money is just a big abstraction for the power to make people do things, which Rand loathes so much) and then hand it off to their children, which means if you can lock everybody but you and your friends into serfdom, you've won the game. When you give the economy free reign, you move first to industrial revolution-era abuse of the lower class, and then eventually into hereditary dictatorship (or feudalism). We know this because that is exactly how all of the old world monarchies formed. If you don't let your government participate in the government in any way, eventually the private sector will amass enough power that it can tell the government no (or more realistically, just control the government by proxy, which we are getting more and more of every day).
The way Rand talks about the free market, it sounds like it is some beneficent force powered by fairy dust and magical unicorns. The burden of proof for demonstrating anything should lie with Rand's followers, because that's as much a leap of faith as believing that some Jew died a couple thousand years ago for your sins. A capitalistic market is not a moral force. It is a tool with limitations. And if we do not recognize and address those limitations, it is about as useful as trying to put together a gun using a wet saw, only a lot more dangerous.
See, I'd repost what I said in response to a reply up above, but that would be uncouth. Instead, I'll say this: calling her an economist is giving her way too much credit.
If I run into something where I have a question, I can quickly find an answer. Or, if I'm out and I have an idea that could be really useful, I can very quickly do a bit of basic research into it, make a note, send an email to ask someone else about it, etc.
God forbid you have to wait an extra couple of seconds for 3G when you're away from home
Sorry if that comes off as rude, but I find it very frustrating that those of us who don't have the latest 4G smartphones should have to pay for the installation of a 4G network, especially since people who subscribe to 4G will still have to pay a monthly fee to the cell phone company.
Even giving more business to private companies in an effort to improve our collective quality of life while doing no harm, financial or otherwise, to the corporations that currently run the show is somehow "too far to the left"?
Except there's one problem: this doesn't improve our collective quality of life. Not everybody wants a 4G smartphone, so not everybody should have to pay for it. I can respect the logic behind things like universal healthcare and food stamps because those are things that can save lives, but I sure as hell cannot understand why its fair that I should have to pay so that somebody else can watch the Dramatic Chipmunk on his phone.
my neighbors in MA, US still don't have cable or dsl access. 4g? i need to go to my backyard to make a phone call. whatever. sounds like more obama sucking at the tit of u.s. telecom.
I am glad to hear that, although it is unfortunate that you didn't understand it.
And this is how I know you didn't understand it. You are in agreement with her when you think you are arguing against her: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anarchism.html
Her entire point is that the government's duty (the only moral duty) is to prevent initiation of force by anybody against anybody else, and here you are arguing that without government, someone (corporations) will be able to use force against someone (I guess individuals?). She agrees! Laissez faire capitalism is not anarchy. Itn fact it cannot exist without the rule of law, which means government.
This is completely wrong. Bill Gates has billions of dollars. In a society where there is rule of law and the government monopolizes physical force, can he make you do whatever he wants? How?
Industrial revolution era abuse of lower classes? Is this how they were abused: http://images.tdaxp.com/tdaxp_upload/real_income_per_person_in_england_md.jpg
You can draw a chart exactly like that for every aspect of the standard of living, life expectancy, child mortality, income, education etc. By today's standards worker conditions during the industrial revolution were bad. But, and this is very important: they were enormously better than the conditions that preceded the industrial revolution. In fact, short of invention of agriculture, industrial revolution improved the life of ordinary people more than anything else in the history of human race. If that is what you call abuse, then your expectations are unrealistic. Note that this huge improvement in people's lives was accomplished entirely by private sector with government in England wisely staying mostly out of the way, something that current governments could learn from.
So, this the problem you have with laissez-faire capitalism. The purpose of the government, as you see it, is to regulate private sector in order to make sure no company gets too rich and too powerful to overpower the government? Because if it does, it is going to disregard the laws, courts and police and use force against individual citizens (by forming a private army?). You seem to believe this to be so self evident, that the onus is on anyone who disagrees to demonstrate why this wouldn't happen.
I think this is nuts. Every example so far known of gross abuse of individual citizens' rights has come from the only place where it can realistically come from: unrestrained government. Every example of countries approaching something like laissez-faire capitalism (Britain in 18th century - industrial revolution, Hong Kong in the 20th, US in the 19th century) has been a huge success. None of them have led to companies building armies and overruling governments.
P.S. I just replied to the points you made. I didn't go into the real point of Ayn Rand's philosophy which is the moral underpinnings of all this, immorality of all initiation of physical force.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
If Obama wants to sell more spectrum and give some of the proceeds to the people who currently "own" it, that's a no-brainer. Do it, and keep the FCC out of it. The rest of his proposal is just more of the same old central planning rubbish.
And I am saying that calling any of the mainstream Keynesians economist is like calling astrologists and sign readers - astronomers.
You can't handle the truth.
And this is how I know you didn't understand it. You are in agreement with her when you think you are arguing against her: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anarchism.html [aynrandlexicon.com] Her entire point is that the government's duty (the only moral duty) is to prevent initiation of force by anybody against anybody else, and here you are arguing that without government, someone (corporations) will be able to use force against someone (I guess individuals?). She agrees! Laissez faire capitalism is not anarchy. Itn fact it cannot exist without the rule of law, which means government.
The problem is that Rand convolutes physical violence and economic coercion when she talks about the government controlling you, but then turns around and only addresses physical violence when it comes to what we can do to each other. She's changed the definition of "force" mid-argument, and you've fallen for it wholesale.
This is completely wrong. Bill Gates has billions of dollars. In a society where there is rule of law and the government monopolizes physical force, can he make you do whatever he wants? How?
You can't really pick an example from within our controlled economy and have it say anything about a laissez faire system. If all regulation today were dropped, Bill's corporation could stomp out products competing with his, and then they could control how you or anyone else interacts with a computer. Or, if he took a more personal dislike to you, he could purchase every piece of food out from under you when you try to buy it until you submitted. At that point, he would have as much control over you as the government does now (the government can't actually currently make you take whatever arbitrary action it desires)
Industrial revolution era abuse of lower classes? Is this how they were abused: http://images.tdaxp.com/tdaxp_upload/real_income_per_person_in_england_md.jpg [tdaxp.com] You can draw a chart exactly like that for every aspect of the standard of living, life expectancy, child mortality, income, education etc. By today's standards worker conditions during the industrial revolution were bad. But, and this is very important: they were enormously better than the conditions that preceded the industrial revolution. In fact, short of invention of agriculture, industrial revolution improved the life of ordinary people more than anything else in the history of human race. If that is what you call abuse, then your expectations are unrealistic. Note that this huge improvement in people's lives was accomplished entirely by private sector with government in England wisely staying mostly out of the way, something that current governments could learn from.
The awesome thing about your chart is that it is not descriptive at all of the quality of life for the bottom quintile of income earners during the same time period. That graph could look like that even if the poorest people got twice as poor, provided the people at the top made enough more money. Even if everything you say is true, though, that does not actually mean that the workers were not being abused. The point of comparison isn't what life would be like if the technology had not been invented. There is not a single shred of evidence you can produce that having laws to protect workers actually stifles innovation (The united states ranks #40 in patents granted per capita, far lower than socialized countries like Sweden and Norway), so they would have gotten the quality of life improvements the technology provided whether they had to work in inhumane conditions or not. The only point of comparison is how those workers would have done if factory owners were not allowed to walk all over them. What you are claim
You are right in that I don't understand what do you mean by "economic coercion when .. the government is controlling you" as opposed to physical force. What is this economic coercion by the government that does not involve force? How can coercion of any kind not involve physical force?
You need to be more specific. By what mechanism can he stomp out products competing with his? How does he stop rival corporations and rival billionaires from competing with him and how does he force customers to buy his products as opposed to the competition's products? The evidence is that even without anti-trust laws, the free market does not tend to concentrate anything like that sort of power in the hands of a one or few people and even when it does in a particular market, it does not last for long.
The chart was just one example. For some perspective, in 1600s life expectancy in England was about 35 years which hasn't improved much for centuries prior to industrial revolution. The % of children who died before the age of 5 in London went from something like 75% to 30% in only a few decades. Population: http://apworldhistorywiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/worldpopulationgrowth2%5B1%5D.gif All charts about the period look the same. Why do you think people moved in huge numbers from countryside into the cities to take factory jobs unless it meant a better life and a chance for all four or five children to survive instead of just one as or two was the norm before.
This is hardly worth replying to. People will sometimes abuse other people, free market or not. This abuse happened in as you say "controlled" economy, so how does that present any evidence in your favor? On the other hand, I have good evidence that government actions (with best intentions in mind) have directly caused over 100 million deaths in the last century through disastrous effects of the central planing of the economy.
Please provide reading material that proves that government planning of the economy works better than the free market, I need a good laugh.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'm proposing an initiative to double the size of flash storage over the next 5 years.
Don't forget to thank me in 5 years when I have achieved my goal.
This will happen eventually, just after pigs fly out of my ass
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
You are right in that I don't understand what do you mean by "economic coercion when .. the government is controlling you" as opposed to physical force. What is this economic coercion by the government that does not involve force? How can coercion of any kind not involve physical force?
Just as a quick example that takes place today, farm subsidies. Or the government can require certain concessions in order for me to obtain grant money that I need to stay competitive with rivals, who are also getting the grant money.
You need to be more specific. By what mechanism can he stomp out products competing with his? How does he stop rival corporations and rival billionaires from competing with him and how does he force customers to buy his products as opposed to the competition's products? The evidence is that even without anti-trust laws, the free market does not tend to concentrate anything like that sort of power in the hands of a one or few people and even when it does in a particular market, it does not last for long.
He doesn't stomp out direct and equal competitors. The two collude until they either merge, or one gains enough of an edge to buy out or quash the other. It is utter hogwash that this doesn't happen. As to what he does to smaller companies, to continue our specific example: Microsoft's mergers and acquisitions. That was usually the easier course, but they could also just Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish. And hell, by historical metrics, Microsoft wasn't even that bad as far as monopolistic companies go.
What you are saying is unfounded religious speak. Please provide specific historical examples where true monopolies resolved themselves.
The chart was just one example. For some perspective, in 1600s life expectancy in England was about 35 years which hasn't improved much for centuries prior to industrial revolution. The % of children who died before the age of 5 in London went from something like 75% to 30% in only a few decades. Population: http://apworldhistorywiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/worldpopulationgrowth2%5B1%5D.gif [wikispaces.com] All charts about the period look the same. Why do you think people moved in huge numbers from countryside into the cities to take factory jobs unless it meant a better life and a chance for all four or five children to survive instead of just one as or two was the norm before.
Again you give overly broad statistics and then willfully interpret them to support your stance. Life expectancy was only in the 40s at the start of the 20th century, and a large portion of even that modest growth came from the other statistic you mentioned: infant mortality rates plummeted. This had nothing to do with living in cities and everything to do with medical advances such as pasteurization of milk. The more interesting statistic is that the rate at which people survive through childhood didn't get better at all until much later, because strangely enough, having 8 year olds operate heavy machinery for huge numbers of hours a week in squalid conditions actually was not conducive to a long and happy life.
You've also just flat made up causation that sounds good to you for why people moved to cities. The reality was that between technological advances and population growth, there actually weren't jobs that they could have taken instead away from the cities. They didn't get up one day and say "hey, all those factory workers with their soul crushing poverty sure seem like they have a great life! Let's quit my job fixing shoes for my local community, which is considered a respectable trade and earns me liveable wag
That is physical force. How does the government get the money it pays out in subsidies and grants? Please say that taxes are voluntary, you'll be in good company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6q0slMhDw8
You are again confused about what force means.He cannot buy out competition by force, only if the money he offers for their business is a good deal for them. He cannot stop new competition from emerging, hell if he is buying competition out all over the place that alone is an incentive to start a competing company - there is a big check coming in. Even Bill Gates will pretty soon run out of money if he had to buy out everybody.
Talking about industrial revolution:
In the words of Nobel Prize winning Robert E. Lucas, Jr., "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth. ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before.
In the words of Nobel prize winning economist F.A. Hayek :the industrial revolution portrayed by the pessimists is the âoeone supreme myth which more than any other has served to discredit the economic system to which we owe our modern day civilization (capitalism)â
In the words of Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman: "Industrial Revolution saw a net decline in child labor, rather than an increase."
The great leap forward, the famines in USSR, China, Cambodia, North Korea etc directly caused by agricultural collectivization, immeasurable and unnecessary hunger, poverty and every kind of suffering in India which despite being democratic embraced centrally planned economy until recently etc etc. All those were done with intentions of improving the conditions of people and had the opposite effects.
No, Hong Kong is NOT an example of how central planning works better than free market. Just the opposite, it is an example of success of the free market: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH06M_nYWAw Some public housing doesn't change that. I never said that Hong Kong was completely free economically, only mostly free, in fact more so than any other country.
They are not. The key
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Shia LeBeouf, is that you? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Check out the FCC's fast track of LighSpeed's high powered ground based transmitters in the satellite band right next to GPS. Not even any buffer space for 40,000 transmitters authorized to run an effective radiated power of 45,000 watts. It can cause interference (loss of signal) to ground based GPS (automotive) in cities to over 3 miles and aviation GPS (complete loss of signal) at over 5 miles. Isn't that a comforting thought with most aircraft now using GPS for instrument navigation. Watch for line wrap on link. http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/news/data-shows-disastrous-gps-jamming-fcc-approved-broadcaster-11029 Even the comment period was far shorter than normal with the FCC giving the OK against the wishes of the Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, and Homeland Security. it was also against the FCC's own policy. Lots of conspiracy theories about this one. :-))
According to the article LightSpeed *apparently* expects the GPS community to fix the problem and not them. They are also the ones who will turn in any report to the FCC on a study of interference to GPS. Basically if they get their way anything presently using GPS would likely need to be either upgraded or replaced which includes all modern cell phones along with both automotive and aircraft GPS receivers.
That is physical force. How does the government get the money it pays out in subsidies and grants? Please say that taxes are voluntary, you'll be in good company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6q0slMhDw8 [youtube.com]
The source of the the government's power and its expenditure are two different processes. Norway's government is largely funded by income generated by money they have invested after selling oil from their large natural reserves. By your logic, if they were to provide grants and farm subsidies, it would not be exerting economic force? Your definition of physical force is as mercurial as Rand's.
You are again confused about what force means.He cannot buy out competition by force, only if the money he offers for their business is a good deal for them. He cannot stop new competition from emerging, hell if he is buying competition out all over the place that alone is an incentive to start a competing company - there is a big check coming in. Even Bill Gates will pretty soon run out of money if he had to buy out everybody.
You don't have to buy out everybody, you just buy out legitimate competitors. What I can't understand is how you can be so delusional that you can pretend it didn't happen when it occured during your lifetime. It is a good deal for them because it is a better option than watching your business crumble when they use any number of other dirty tricks to crush your business. Did you even look at the list of companies that Microsoft bought out?
Talking about industrial revolution: In the words of Nobel Prize winning Robert E. Lucas, Jr., "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth. ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before.
In the words of Nobel prize winning economist F.A. Hayek :the industrial revolution portrayed by the pessimists is the âoeone supreme myth which more than any other has served to discredit the economic system to which we owe our modern day civilization (capitalism)â
In the words of Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman: "Industrial Revolution saw a net decline in child labor, rather than an increase."
Nice, free market economists say nice things about free markets. Tonight on the news: bears shit in the woods! Tune in at 10:00!
Seriously, though, Paul Krugman is also a Nobel laureate, and I bet he'd give somewhat different answers if you asked him. Appeals to authority are just as worthless as your other citations. Of course there was a net decline in child labor in the Industrial Revolution. Social reform programs such as Lord Althorp's Act in Britain had already started to cap the number of hours children could work in the week. My contention isn't that the poor did not eventually benefit greatly from the progress made during that time period. It is that all of their gains come from technological advances, and a mostly free market, at best, didn't do anything to help them along, and more than likely, slowed their overall progress.
The great leap forward, the famines in USSR, China, Cambodia, North Korea etc directly caused by agricultural collectivization, immeasurable and unnecessary hunger, poverty and every kind of suffering in India which despite being democratic embraced centrally planned economy until recently etc etc. All those were done with intentions of improving the conditions of people and had the opposite effects.
If you think the government in places like Stalin's Russia and North Korea have the best intentions, then you're more crazy than I realized.
No, Hong Kong is NOT an example of how central planning works better than free market. Just the opposite, it is an example of success of the free market:
Fast forward to 2016: Lord Obama, He-Who-Will-Save-Us-From-Ourselves, has stated that, "Due to the inability of the evil companies who provide us so-called 'high-speed broadband' over the public airwaves -- broadband which is insufficient for the needs of the Good People of the Union States of Earth -- we are demanding that they upgrade their networks to 'ObamaG' in order to give the Good People what they need for their endless dose of propaganda."
Maybe they should try to balance their checkbook first.