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FCC Wants To Shift Phone Subsidy Funds To Broadband
An anonymous reader writes "FCC chairman Julius Genachowski revealed plans yesterday to overhaul the U.S. phone subsidy program and shift its focus to providing broadband access. He said, 'Broadband has gone from being a luxury to a necessity for full participation in our economy and society. If we want the United States to be the world's leading market, we need to embrace the essential goal of universal broadband, and reform outdated programs.' According to BusinessWeek, the program currently 'supports phone service to schools, libraries, the poor and high-cost areas.' Last year it spent $4.3 billion to provide support to over 1,700 carriers in high-cost areas. Genachowski hopes the change will put the U.S. 'on the path to universal broadband service by the end of the decade.'"
I'd like to see what carriers would be getting, vs what we will continue to pay.
Fee hikes every year leaves me bouncing between two carriers that I hate, just because they're the only two in town.
Something witty.
Three years ago, the FCC defined broadband as 768 kbps down. Two years later, it was changed to at least 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up, which would imply 400 to 500 kB/s downloads.
I guess it's okay for the FCC to give money to telephone but not to broadband? But you know, I guess this will help to end the argument that "the FCC doesn't have jurisdiction" over the internet in the US.
Agreed. I'd go for this plan on one condition: That large ISPs (e.g. Comcast sized or so) are forced to do what AT&T was forced to do back in the 1950's or so - string out a reasonable broadband speed to even the most remote rural area, upon request, at a fixed price ceiling. Then I'd demand that independent and random sampling be done (both in-town and out) to insure that speeds and quality are consistent nationwide. Finally, set up a hotline or similar means by which consumers can lodge complaints, and for each valid and provable complaint, the ISP has to pay back a fixed sum of money to the FCC - low enough to not kill the system immediately, but high enough to get their attention.
No improvements, no money.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
But then again, I never heard parties say "we need government to stop giving subsidies to business..."
You're listening to the wrong parties. http://www.lp.org/platform
How many degrees is that from a 'right'? Will 'three strikes and yer out' be the same as the death penalty?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
"Yeah, it's time to stop paying the rapists."
Don't be an idiot, stop using hyperbole, and try to figure out why there are subsidies.
The 2 you mention are pretty good ones.
The phone subsidies help ensure everyone can communicate and participate in society. This is good.
The Corn Subsidies help ensure we have a stable food supply. This is also good.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The FCC was basically established to maintain and regulate the phone companies in 1934. We have basically always subsidized the phone companies so that they could provide phone service to all americans and not just the areas where it was profitable. In order for many rural communities to even have phone service, the gov't had to step in and shove huge piles of money into phone company hands.
The phone companies have been sucking off the government teat since their inception for the most part.
I think unless they are going to start dropping rates when they start getting more and more money they shouldn't get shit. It's not like the broadband companies that start getting the cash are going to be different from the ones that are currently providing phone service. That's like the government taking money away from the marketing department of a company and giving it to the sales department. Sure different people might be getting the money, but the same company is still collecting the same stipend.
I got here through a series of tubes
We currently pay them to build phone lines in rural areas where they will never make a profit. We do the same thing with the postal service and electricity. The free market provides these services to cities and suburbs where the marginal cost to add another customer is low. If you live in the middle of nowhere your getting big fat handouts from the goverment to do so.
...and the fast-path treatment they're getting from Obama's FCC.
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I guess you've never heard of the tiny towns in the Louisiana swamps that still don't have landline telephones?
Those towns are so out of the way, there's no profit in providing phone service. The idea of the universal telephone fee was to save up enough money so towns like that get connected to the rest of the world. We did the same thing with electrification in the 30s and 40s. It works. Every now and again, there are news stories about some small podunk town getting phone lines for the first time.
Switching those fees to broadband is supposed to serve the same purpose. Since landline telephone service is no longer as important, it makes sense to shift the priority from giving those people landline phone service to broadband internet access.
Subsidies are not universally a bad thing. This is a service that would not otherwise be provided because of the high cost. It's not like with farm subsidies, where farmers will probably plant some kind of crops no matter what. There are some folks who will never get broadband service of any kind unless we spread the costs of providing it across society. Whether or not that's a good thing or not is a more philosophically complex question than the one you seem to pose ("giving" money to companies to do what they would do anyway.
It isn't just "Get the government out of business" (think Solyndra) but also get Business out of Government (No more Lobbyists). I want to hear more politicians talk about Liberty (thanks Ron Paul) more.
Nothing is too big to fail, if it sucks let it fail. Screw those that got us into this mess.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Broadband IS Telephony ... and more. It is Communication, you know, as in "Federal Communication Commission". My broadband has proven more reliable than my POTS line.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
This sounds like the kind of thing that should be decided by Congress and the President, rather than by an unaccountable political appointee. We're talking an awful lot of money here, and I'm quite leery of letting a government agency decide more-or-less arbitrarily to redirect billions of dollars in such a manner.
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They are not subsidizing the business, they are subsidizing customers who would otherwise not have service. The electric/phone/broadband company is not going to run miles of wire to an individual house for the same $40/mo someone in a city is paying. The cost to the customer would be astronomical. So the government (via taxes on your phone/electric bill) pays the companies to do that on behalf of the customers. The alternative is that those customers go without those services, and we as a nation have decided that is not a good alternative.
My in-laws live in rural SC and the only broadband option they have is sattelite (which isn't really broadband at all.) Trying to fix their laptop is a nightmare since they only have dialup. It's not profitable for the cable or phone companies to run out an entire line to one house on the end of a dead end road when there is no guarantee that the people at that road could even afford it, so they don't bother. Extending the subsidies would knock out one more excuse the broadband companies have against universal access.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Indeed. Libertarians have the solution, but it is a painful one to those dependent upon the Nanny State and her tit.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You're reading it wrong, to a certain extent. The reason the subsidies exist is not to line the pocket of the corporations, but to pay them to put in service where it would otherwise be impractical (from a business standpoint). Call it welfare or socialism or whatever you want - it's there to make the financial burden of "necessities" on the far-flung communities in the US less onerous.
If you want to make the argument that if you live out in the sticks, you should pony up the $50,000 to string a telephone line and $10,000 a year to maintain that line on your own, then we're talking about something of substance. Otherwise, you're just twisting the facts to suit your view of the universe.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I think there are good ways to be involved and bad ways to be involved in the market. IMHO the anger over Solyndra's loans is justified not just by the facts that were apparently readily available about that company, but by the way the government was essentially picking winners in the market and providing money before any good was delivered rather than promising to support companies that had already proved their own value. I'd much rather the government say "we're going to start buying electric cars for our own fleets on X date, and we'll do it from whoever can make the best product" than say "we're going to give new company X some money to design and build electric cars." You could do the same thing by committing to buy green power from nuclear/solar/wind providers rather than providing or guaranteeing loans from unstarted companies. I think if we can make commitments to buy products from companies that have already worked out the details and have proven themselves to investors we can get a healthier outcome. Not only does that get them value for the money that they did spend, but it will multiply that value by adding itself to money from investors in the other startups that didn't get picked but produced second-best products or valuable new technology. If the market knows that there will be a buyer, then someone will get the investment that is needed to become a producer.
I know it won't happen, but it seems like the best way to spend this subsidy money would be for the government to defray the cost from the best and cheapest rural Internet providers (or give out vouchers that people can use to pick their own supplier). That way there will be incentive to provide good service, and there will likely be service provided by more than just the companies that end up coming out on top and getting government money. I'm sure what they'll do instead is just throw money at anyone who provides even crummy service, and as a result they'll get the lowest denominator return on that investment. Maybe this plan won't work as well in monopoly industries like cable, but it seems like the majority of the markets would work better this way.
Corn subsidies help ensure votes in Iowa and other corn growing states. We also pay farmers not to grow corn for food usage. We also ensure them a great ethanol market with the 10% ethanol requirements in our gasoline pumps.
Other subsidies include milk and eggs. While you might think this is the best thing ever, it removes consumer choice. You are already paying for it. Don't consume milk products, eggs, or corn for either allergies or personal ethics? Too bad sucker, you're going to pay more for your alternatives along with the taxes that pay for the established food subsidies.
Without subsidies, milk would be more expensive than soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, and coconut milk. It will still have an advantage over hemp milk so long as it is illegal for farmers in the United States to grow it, forcing those who want it to pay outrageous amounts because we have to import it from Canada.
A more fair way to do this is to move the subsidies from the farms and to the grocery markets where customers can decide what they want to get for a reasonable price. The grocery stores buy what their consumers demand for full price and then get the subsidy rebate from the government. If a farmer sells direct to consumers, he can apply for the subsidies.
Before subsidies, the United States government used to keep grain silos so they could cover the country's food needs if the farmers had a bad year. It is sad that we don't do it that way anymore.
The libertarian side of me disagrees with this. Why should the people in the city be subsidizing the lifestyles of the people in the country? It means higher prices for everyone. If the people in the country want broadband service, they should move to where there IS broadband service. Same goes with phone service, electric service, etc... All these policies ended up creating a society where the population is widely spread out, horribly inefficient, and highly dependent on automobiles.
People in the country want the benefits of living in the city without the negatives of living in the city, and they want the people in the city to pay for it.
Now the socialist in me says that if you didn't "spread the wealth" in this manner, you'd end up with huge swaths of poor people in the country not unlike what China has today. That's a pool of workers that would work for low wages and depress wages for everyone. But I guess the broadband would be cheaper.
You know, every time I hear various parties say "get government out of business" and all that, I think "okay... maybe... but some regulation is needed because when there isn't, big business ends up raping the country." But then again, I never heard parties say "we need government to stop giving subsidies to business..."
I think the next time I see the argument "keep government out of business" I will ask what their position is on subsidies to business is.
As it turns out, there are far more subsidies going on than any of us are collectively aware of. I am well aware of corn subsidies and the like, but telephone subsidies? That's news. Seems the phone business is a huge public rapist and they are getting subsidies too?
Yeah, it's time to stop paying the rapists.
You make a good point, and many conservatives would agree with you. Subsidies aren't free market. If you subsidize something, that will tend to cause more production than the free market would dictate. The consumers will buy more and pay a lower price, while the producers sell more at a higher price. It almost sounds good except that the subsidy has to come out of the consumers' pockets in some way, so they (as a group) are actually paying more than they would have for something they wouldn't have wanted (or wanted that much of) at that price. It will typically work out to income redistribution. The people who pay more taxes are funding the lower prices for everyone and the increased profits for the subsidized businesses.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
You do understand that one of the concessions given to AT&T for mandating tariffed services was a guaranteed monopoly in those areas, right?
I'm not suggesting this is bad. The capital costs of deploying services like these to rural areas can be prohibitive. The monopoly guarantee allows the carrier to amortize the cost over a long term without fear of losing money.
Though today the inflation-adjusted costs should be lower because of the viability of wireless communications means many fewer miles of buried or strung wire, which is an expensive process.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Maybe the country wants food, and figures that the people who grow it ought not have to do without modern necessities in order to do so.
Why do you all hate freedom... kidding. I just moved 4 miles out of a town 60 miles west of DC... no high speed internet. 4 miles.....4 god damn miles.
Various actual corn production subsidies seem to total about $3 Billion this year, down from $3.7 Billion last year, and an extraordinary high of $10.1 Billion in 2005. Corn ethanol subsidies this year will amount to about $5 Billion. Maybe more.
I'm not at all in favor of subsidizing corn for fuel. This makes no sense. Stablizing food prices is attractive, consider the dairy industry in particular as a fairly good example. Ethanol? Nope.
Subsidizing telephone service made sense when the telephone was the only useful means of instant communications. Farms surely used them to call the doctor, fire department, and even to check on commodity pricing.
Today, though, landline service could be replaced with broadband data. Skype etc. could replace landline voice, and decent Internet service provides all sorts of opportunities for rural residents, from schooling to commodity pricing data and sales for farmers. They do this now where it's available.
The real questions to me are:
- Will subsidized service also be relatively unrestricted? Will the FCC enforce rural service that is unfiltered, uncapped, and unthrottled? Will users be able to make use of any Internet service or protocol as they wish?
- Will subsidized service that replaces landline voice be permitted without penalty or punitive cost hikes for both rural and urban landline service?
- Will the FCC extend protection for free Internet usage to urban users also?
While the USF was a good idea, it resulted in the minimum service being delivered in many cases, and at very high cost. The school/library component was just a direct redistribution to local government in most cases. Moving to broadband might largely result in shifting the subsidy to school/library data services, and not so much to rural residential service. And much of the same infrastructure that was paid for with USF over the years will probably be declared useless for broadband, spurring another round of upgrading the rural telecom plant. that shoudl take a few years, and give the industry time to figure out how to make money from both ends of this candle. Nice.
Good idea. Wasteful, and inevitably so. Worth it if done right.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that the internet is a great learning tool, but "If we want the United States to be the world’s leading market for innovation" then we should focus more on our failing test scores in the school systems. Giving children access to the internet is not going to suddenly spur their interest in schoolwork and it certainly isn't going to make their parents sit down and do homework with them. Pushing billions of dollars so that everyone can get to facebook faster isn't going to teach math and science, it isn't going to magically create jobs like they kept referring to in the article (without really soundly saying HOW it was going to create jobs), and I really feel that money would be better spent if it were directly funneled into the school systems.
The FCC needs to compel broadband providers to actually provide service in some instances. My parents live a mile off the road in a deep valley. The "mile off the road" part precludes cable because the cable company wants $15,000 to run line. The "deep valley" part precludes cell service and satellite. Literally, their only option is DSL, but BellSouth's local DSLAM has no free ports and they have refused to add a new one for several years.
We've raised the issue with the Tennessee Regulatory Commission (the TN service nominally in charge of overseeing utilities) and even they won't/can't do anything due to our braindead legislators handicapping them.
I can find 24 port VDSL2 DSLAM's on Google for $100 a port. I'm presuming AT&T, with their much larger negotiating power, can do even better. I'd be willing to buy the whole DSLAM for them, but they have no internal way of even handling that.
When the customer has no other option from whom to buy, there is no "free market". In that particular circumstance, the seller should be compelled to provide service.
The problem with that argument is that VERY few people who live in the country are farmers (about 1.4%). And nothing is stopping them from paying for these services themselves (i.e. satellite service). Who knows what kinds of technology would have evolved to serve rural populations if we hadn't mandated this socialized approach?
Let's cut the tax that gives the FCC its subsidy money so that the companies have cash to do this on their own. The FCC is acting like they own this money and are willing to throw the serfs some alms from their carriage as they go by.
Define Necessity please? What does broadband give them that dial up does not? Your asking me to pay for it, so I don't think the quesiton is unreasonable.
No one needed a phone originally, and it was cost prohibitive to get those phone lines out into rural america as well. Then the government stepped in with these subsidies and initiatives to get everyone a phone. Now it's time to replace all those phone lines with fiber lines. Telco and ISP industries are already merging together thanks to VOIP let's just finish the process and mandate a project to officially merge the infrastructure. It might even add a job or two if we're lucky.
Is there a price point where it simply isn't worth the cost to subsidize service?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
...have already been given to the telecom companies to expand broadband to under-served areas. I want to know where that money has gone - because it didn't go into expanding and improving broadband.
I have a wild suggestion and I actually don't believe I am suggesting this, as I dislike interference by the government in general, but... make all telephone and cable transmission lines national infrastructure. Virtually all of the current infrastructure built by the Bells and cable companies runs on or under what is the "right of way" governed by either local, state, or federal authority. Without them being able to run their infrastructure on or under this property they would not have a business - and, yes, the USA would be in the stone age. The idea is still valid - turn all the infrastructure of the telecom and cable companies into a common pool from which ANYONE can dip - small telecoms, large telecoms, competing cable companies, multiple ISPs, etc, etc. Open it up to true competition because every company would pay the exact same amount for each connection to the national backbone. The differences would be customer service,l quality of service, and number of offerings.
Make each company pay $X.00 per connection for maintenance and upgrades and a base fee of $Y.00 for each connection. Also make it a stipulation that NO company can loss lead a connection or charge only what the connection cost. Limited specials to entice new customers can be allowed, but no charging only the connection cost over a long span of time (for instance, limit specials to 6 or 9 months maximum). This would remove significant barriers to entry and actually bring competition to the market. Disband all of the cable monopolies. Decimate the telecom strongholds. Make companies compete on a common ground and let's see who wins the hearts, minds, and wallets of the American broadband market.
Of course, it would need to be legislated that this national infrastructure would be completely OPEN and not running through NSA headquarters or the like. No snooping, sniffing, or tracing without judicial oversight. You know, that whole pesky 4th Amendment thing.
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Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I know- not the main argument here, but:
satellite internet != broadband
its marginally better than dialup for a couple of very select things.
The Government is our democratic institution FOR AND BY THE PEOPLE and until people realize that and defend it instead of hating democracy it'll die and only represent the powerful (and those they sucker,) as it does today. If you hate government conceptually (as is a popular thing to do today) then you hate democracy. If you hate our corrupt government which is no longer a functioning democracy that is a different matter; too many people get confused.
Public land is the basis for our roads, phone, cable, sewer, water, gas, and power lines.
Government roads serve society quite well despite all our bitching about them and the occasional foolish management (hey, we put them there-- its not like HP hiring 2 horrible CEOs was a public decision...happens everywhere.)
Why we must have private corps build/design new infrastructure POORLY when we have a long history of successful government efforts defies reason! Its not like these private efforts don't bribe some government subsidizes at our expense then pad their profit margins pulling every trick in the book. Their management is always biased towards maximum profit not the public good. Trying to regulate the beasts without being bitten is always foolish in the long term; its like playing with fire. (fire has many good uses but also has many downsides.)
Government should run all the lines that go over our public land. It is done NON-PROFIT. I have cable AND phone lines over here which DOUBLE the cost as two monopolies maintain their mildly subsidized lines... running on the power company's subsidized poles. We have old gas lines which need replacing and every year we have a few explosions ("accidents") because the corp is too greedy to invest in a system upgrade so they only insure themselves and fix messes... A government system would have been slowly upgrading the system already and investing in something that would LAST LONG TERM (something MBAs can't comprehend.)
Internet is a perfect technology for sharing services. Many DSL companies are forced to allow other ISPs share their network. Just as ROADs provide the MARKETPLACE for businesses to run upon it. Wireless can't compete with a huge singular network that digitally splits services vs the current analog bandwidth splits we do now (which lower capacity each time we sell off another bandwidth monopoly.)
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Distance learning, consulting a specialist when the local Dr. is in over his head. I haven't tried to do two way video communication over dial-up in a very long time but I can't imagine it's improved much.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
...the reason companies aren't investing in customers that they probably can't make a profit on is because they don't have enough cash laying around. Funny how whenever a corporation is caught screwing their customers, we're told they have to do that because they're required by law to maximize profits, but when we suggest regulating them we're told that if we'd only leave them alone they'll gladly do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Finally, a rational answer, thanks for that. I'm all for paying 100% to have schools, hospitals, libraries and even local doctors offices to have the utmost in communications ability, just not individual houses.
Then let them have satellite!
Why wold any one have a phone. Land lines are replaced with VOIP. And who would pay long distance with services like skype where calling around the world is like $0.08 cents UDS. to make the connection on the far end.
Then with the air waves stolen away. We all should be boycotting cell phone air time. Until we replace the piracy with our own roof top infrastructure.
So in reality there are no phones so it foolish to pay money for that.
Really? Name one thing I use that I don't pay for, and I'll name three that I pay for and will never use. I'll gladly give up the one in exchange for everyone else giving up the three.
Yeah, it will be painful, but that doesn't mean it isn't good. Surgery hurts, but it is better than dying. We're just on a Morphine drip now, dulling the pain while ignoring the death that is coming.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I was at a dial up client a few weeks ago in a major metro area. (she was moving soon and did not want to sign a contract)
The service was horrible. she was getting connection speeds below 28.8 most of the time. frequently as slow as 4800.
Also websites are really designed much more for high speed now.
I think the next time I see the argument "keep government out of business" I will ask what their position is on subsidies to business is.
They'll typically be against the subsidies, as well. Why do you think this is an interesting question?
OK,"No Taxation without Representation" is not exactly what I mean. What I really mean is this: No subsidies without quid pro quo. If we're going to recognize it is a necessity and start handing them our hard-earned money, I want the public to get a big fat return on its money: I want common carrier restored -- the same level of protection from scrutiny and interference, public and private as mail or POTS.
Well, on the public side, the same level we would have if the Bill of Rights were still being observed.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I want a pony too.
How about this: Julius, at least show a little bit of balls here: Trade the money for net neutrality. That is what is really going to piss me off. We're going to give them these new subsidies and they're still going to sue to be allowed to turn the Internet into television.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
A past FCC person and a telco guy followed the money trail and found agreements were made, taxes and subsidies were given to the tune of a 300 billion telco scandal. Just hold the past agreements accountable. But of course that won't happen. Hell my local congressman was head of the telecommunications subcommittee and always sided with his top donors - big telco, go figure.
Or put the 1996 telco reform back in effect, the one that demanded opening up the government mandated monopoly to competitors. This was stripped of power under Bush Jr when Powel's kis was put in charge of the FCC. Verizon sold their landline operations to Frontier. It's still a mandated monopoly, but Frontier did just put in the first DSLAM in this area. Some minor innovation a decade late. Those changes which initially allowed the local ISPs to open killed them when they were removed. Thousands of local ISPs dead because they couldn't compete against government mandated monopolies.
Subsidize LTE build-out. The best of both worlds. Cheaper, too, to reach the remaining masses.
"The capital costs of [insert government pet project of the day] can be prohibitive. The monopoly guarantee [or subsidy or bail out] allows [government chosen favored entity to profit]." FTFY.
This is always a ridiculous argument. Capital takes risk in hopes of reward. What you're actually saying is that no private capital considers the potential reward worth the risk to the capital, therefore it is tay payers who should bear the risk, in the form of government forced monopolies (ie govenment taking away your right to a free choice) in this case. The government in these instances decides to forcibly take a little out of the pocket of everyone to achieve a goal they think is desirable, but which no private investor (or group of investors) considers to be a good idea.
This is the same brand of reasoning that supports bailouts for private investors at tax payer expense, whether that's bank bail outs or sovereign bail outs, whereby capital is put at risk, that risk turns out to be realized, and the government argues tay payers should foot the bill because the losses to investors would be "prohibitive". Nonsense, all of it.
At root, the people who live in the sticks want a service but are not prepared to pay what it would cost for that service. The also choose not to move to areas where the service is available at a cost they are willing to pay. So the solution is to forcibly take from the rest of the people so some very small group of people have the services of their choosing at a price below what that services costs because they voluntarily live in areas that don't enjoy the services of their liking? It's this kind of thinking, couched as it usually is in co-opted words liked "fair" and "equal" (which actually are code for "unfair to the vast majority" and "anything but equal"), so mistakenly taken to be accepted wisdom these days, that's at the root of things like a government debts and deficits. These programs can all be summarized as "Some very small group of people want something for nothing and they expect you to pay for it".
Ethanol is even worse than just the mandate. There is the blenders credit that is paid to refineries for each gallon of ethanol that the blend in with fuel (I believe it is at something like $0.45 per gallon). Then you have states like Minnesota that also subsidize the construction of ethanol plants. I wish that I could get the government to mandate the usage of my product, pay someone to mix it in, and then subsidize my creation of that product. Add to it that the cost per mile with a fuel like E85 is still higher than the price per mile with gasoline and it really doesn't make sense.
Time to offend someone
It's not that complex a question at all. Why should I be responsible for financing the cost of bringing phone service to individuals who have chosen to live so far out that they can't get it at a price that they're willing to pay?
--
$tar -xvf
You mean he answered your Concerns.
The right way to overhaul these subsidies: eliminate them. Why should the federal government be paying for people's Internet access?
If there are truly issues in particular localities, then it's a job for the towns, counties, or even the states. The federal government has zero business interfering here...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
BULLSHIT. Complete and utter bullshit. I found out from a lineman how much it would actually cost to run the cable the TWO block to my mom's house, it was $1600. I offered them $3500 to run the line just so my mom could something better than sat or dialup. you know what I was told? I would have to come up with $50,000 and a guaranteed 10 year contract (at 40% over what everyone else was paying) or it would be "too risky" to run a line TWO BLOCKS.
Moral of the story? THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN. There is NO competition and the duopolies have NO intention of running shit, it called cherry picking, look it up. We should NATIONALIZE THE LINES and we even have a legal reason...fraud. they took 200 billion from the American people for nationwide broadband and ALL we got was the finger. They pay it back with 20% compounded since 1996 in 90 days, or we take the lines, simple.
so quit with the free market bullshit because in natural monopolies it DOES NOT WORK. the ONLY way to get nationwide broadband, which we seriously need to help grow the economy, is to nationalize.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Since landline telephone service is no longer as important, it makes sense to shift the priority from giving those people landline phone service to broadband internet access.
Telephone service is more important than broadband. Telephone service is how you call 911.
It costs more for broadband than for a simple copper pair for POTS. There is no justification for the extra expense.
Subsidies are not universally a bad thing. This is a service that would not otherwise be provided because of the high cost.
By "this", you mean broadband. It's a shame that people won't get broadband, but hardly earth shattering or life threatening. POTS, OTOH, is important. And, as you admit, lower cost.
There are some folks who will never get broadband service of any kind unless we spread the costs of providing it across society.
And? So what? There will be lots of things that people won't be able to afford if nobody buys it for them. Should "I can't afford" become the sole justification for government handouts to everyone? I'd like a Ferrari, please. I can't afford one. A Cessna 182, also. Glass cockpit. I can't afford that, either. If you buy me an airplane, I promise to use it to search for lost people -- which will have a direct and measurable impact on saving lives, compared to the nebulous "gee isn't it cool" factor of having broadband.
If the fee for subsidizing rural and remote phone service is no longer needed for that purpose, it should be retired. What will happen, though, is that a fee, once created, will never go away. Government will simply find another use for the money and keep the fee.
Example? Our city added a tax to our water bill to fix one specific major street in town. It was built incorrectly, but instead of getting the contractor out to fix it, the city decided they would do it. They started collecting the fee and then ... waited. In the meantime, a local developer screwed up his support wall for the hillside the road was on and damaged the road. He got to pay for fixing a large part of the road that the water tax was intended to fix. After a few years, the city finally fixed the rest of the road. Did the tax go away? Of course not. They had a list of other roads that they could use the money for, so the tax stuck around (without any chance of public comment or debate) and we're still being taxed on our water to fix a road that was fixed three years ago.
Now that everyone is used to paying that tax, they added more taxes on the water supply to pay for tree maintenance and sidewalk repairs, and to make the pitiful excuse for bus service in this town free for everyone.
I expect the next tax on the water supply will be to support the 911 center, since the proposed tax on cell phone bills to do that got shot down when it came up for a public vote.
Really?
So how about you explain why Comcast and Qwest lobbied the hell out of the Utah legislature in 2002-3, when a few towns got together and decided to put together their own municipal Internet network, often in areas that both companies avoided provisioning like it were the plague?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Of course... and you are preaching to the choir here. I fail to see a real difference especially since much of the telephone system is now done over the internet.
Face it, every society on Earth short of pure anarchy is one form of socialism or another. The only difference is in degrees.
Yes, I will happily argue that there are benefits to a society deciding that some services should be provided to the whole and supported by taxes. History will bear out that the near universal availability of electricity, telecommunications and transportation infrastructure (roads) has greatly benefited our society as a whole.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Does that mean that soon if you lose 'net access your house is deemed uninhabitable and are kicked out? Much as they will do now in several cities if you get your water and/or power cut.
Even tho people lived thousands of years without electricity or running water. ( and still do, even rural America )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
People who ride bikes often complain about lack of bike lanes, but rarely ask for an annual assessment on bicycles to cover the cost of those lanes and maintenance.
Hell vehicle drivers don't pay for the cost of roads, try to tell people their fuel tax is going to be raised and see what happens. The US has among the lowest gasoline and diesel fuel costs because the taxes on them are among the lowest in the world. If drivers don't pay their full costs why should bike riders pay, especially when cars, SUVs, and trucks cause much more wear and tear on roads?
I've proposed before and will again now how to pay for roads. Raise the fuel tax as well as a tax on tires, so bikers pay too, but lower income tax. If the average person sees their fuel cost rise $100 a month cost their income tax $100 a month. Those who don't have income tax, or have enough income tax to cover it, deducted from their pay then give them a credit. For cash and food support, ie Food Stamps (oops it's now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), governments give recipients Electronic Benefit Transfer or EBT cards. These cards are used like credit and debit cards with many stores accepting them. Just add the credit to the EBT cards.
Fuel tax may only pay part of road maintenance costs, so also start a mileage fee. Every year car owners have to renew their license plate tags, well when they do have the car's miles driven recorded and have a fee due based on that. Then those who own more fuel efficient cars will pay some too. An added benefit to higher fuel costs is that it can spur people to get more fuel efficient vehicles thus reducing the use of fossil fuels.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What does broadband give them that dial up does not?
They can do more than one thing at a time on the internet or more people can use at once.
problems
As are you. In her book "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression" the political economist Amity Shlaes argues FDR's economic policies lengthened the Great Depression. Economist Milton Friedman goes further, he argues "The Great Depression Could Have Been Avoided if the Fed Had Not So Badly Botched Its Monetary Policy". Why the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act practically shutdown international trade in 1930. In retaliation other nations passed their own protectionist and anti-trade laws. The US was a great exporter but new tariffs drove US employers out of business.
the only entity that can truly stimulate demand is government.
Again BS!!! If you're so dense you believe that then how do you explain Al Capone and all the other MAFIA figures who became rich, and dead, during Prohibition and the War on Drugs going on now? No, people stimulate demand by wanting to buy, and by having the money to do so. People will even steal from others to get the money. Witness the gangland warfare south of the US/Mexican border, which is spilling over into the US. Legal, and taxed, drugs would end most of the violence. And releasing all those non-violent drug offenders will turn them from a drain on taxes to tax payers.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I see no reason why those of who choose to live in urban and suburban areas should have to subsidize those who choose to live farther away.
The middle of nowhere is where a lot of food is grown. If those living there have to pay more for "power, phone, cable, gas, etc." then those who eat pay more for their food. Government should end all subsidies, as well as monopolies. Let markets deliver cable, phone, and power. And food.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You know, every time I hear various parties say "get government out of business" and all that, I think "okay... maybe... but some regulation is needed because when there isn't, big business ends up raping the country." But then again, I never heard parties say "we need government to stop giving subsidies to business..."
Then you're not listening to people in the right parties.
"'It's absurd that we're paying farmers billions of dollars during a time of soaring crop prices,' says Libertarian Party National Media Coordinator Andrew Davis. "Taxpayers should not be subsidizing farmers while paying higher prices at the grocery store."
"We Libertarians propose eliminating federal functions that are not authorized in the Constitution. Furthermore, Libertarians propose ending foreign wars and foreign troop deployments, allowing huge cuts in military spending. Libertarians would cut the federal government down to less than 10% of GDP, and we'd keep cutting once we got there."
"It doesn't help that Congressional Republicans voted for more unemployment spending and ethanol subsidies last December, or that they want to keep increasing military spending. And they haven't come up with any serious cuts to entitlements."
And we want to get rid of ethanol subsidies and other corporate welfare -- while the Republicans vote to increase it."
"We Libertarians have a saying that we're 'pro-choice on everything.' We are uncompromising supporters of free speech. We completely oppose corporate welfare, and we hate the way big corporations often manipulate the government to get subsidies and protection from competition. "
"Alternative" energies are not the only ones heavily subsidized. 2 examples of how oil and nuclear enjoy the largess of the state."
Someone either isn't looking or has their head buried in sand.
Oh, one more link: My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'
In the video Rep Edward Markey (D) brags that his energy bill has massive subsidies for coal and nuclear power among other dirty energy sources, but little subsidies for alternative energy. Fact is is government picks, or tries to pick, winners and losers all the tyme.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
but it is a painful one to those dependent upon the Nanny State and her tit.
Precisely. Whether corporate or social, those on welfare don't want it to end.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm not at all in favor of subsidizing corn for fuel.
I don't favor subsidies at all, no matter what it is. In a free market if some people can not afford something then businesses will be created to help people afford them. Or civil society will donate.
Stablizing food prices is attractive
A function the free market can do. If food prices go up, in a free market that will attract farmers. And when they go down people will either plant other crops or will stop farming. As a matter of fact, there is not a shortage of food and subsidies for corn ethanol affect corn prices more than other things do. A shortage of corn? Look how much corn is going the ethanol. How much is used to make high fructose corn syrup, you know the sweetener in soft drinks. And how much is feed to livestock. I don't recall exactly how much now but it takes several pounds of corn, which cows do not naturally eat, to produce one pound of beef.
Subsidizing telephone service made sense when the telephone was the only useful means of instant communications. Farms surely used them to call the doctor, fire department, and even to check on commodity pricing.
One of two subsides I agree with initially, but they should have been phased out. The other was the Rural Electrification Act.
Today, though, landline service could be replaced with broadband data.
And what does broadband use? Landline services for the most part. Wifi still doesn't cover much area.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The FCC was basically established to maintain and regulate the phone companies in 1934.
Better read that again, the FCC and before it the FRC were created to regulate radio as well as telephone. Of course by requiring radio broadcasters to be licensed it ensured the dominance of large corporations, what has become known as "Mass Media".
I think unless they are going to start dropping rates when they start getting more and more money they shouldn't get shit.
Until they deliver what they were already paid for they shouldn't get shit. In what has become the $300 Billion Broadband Scandal so called providers have been given a lot of taxpayer money to build a broadband infrastructure. Did they? No, they pocketed the money as profits.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I know it won't happen, but it seems like the best way to spend this subsidy money would be for the government to defray the cost from the best and cheapest rural Internet providers (or give out vouchers that people can use to pick their own supplier). That way there will be incentive to provide good service, and there will likely be service provided by more than just the companies that end up coming out on top and getting government money. I'm sure what they'll do instead is just throw money at anyone who provides even crummy service, and as a result they'll get the lowest denominator return on that investment. Maybe this plan won't work as well in monopoly industries like cable, but it seems like the majority of the markets would work better this way.
The government has already thrown money at corporations, and didn't get anything in return. I'd rather let businesses compeat in a free, that is freer, market. Get rid of radio frequency licensing and let people compete to provide wireless broadband.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
and many conservatives would agree with you.
Only if that were true. Facts though show Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed. Red (conservative) states get more of the money blue (big government) states pay the federal government.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
since rural area aren't profitable enough to corporation
One reason providing rural broadband is not profitable is because of licensing. Abolish licensing of the airwaves which cost billions of dollars then SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) can offer wireless broadband.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"I don't favor subsidies at all, no matter what it is. In a free market if some people can not afford something then businesses will be created to help people afford them. Or civil society will donate."
We don't, and have never, lived in anything approaching a free market. Excellent in theory if you're willing to suffer the adjustments necessary, but since a genuinely free market is unlikely to exist on Earth any time soon, let's try crafting something that does work. And no, whatever we are doing in the U.S. isn't working very well right now...
"If food prices go up, in a free market that will attract farmers."
Even in an imperfect market, that will happen. Stabilization policies should be used to minimize pricing variations, which is good. The dairy industry for instance benefited from this, and in return we get stable prices and the government used surplus dairy in many useful ways. Subsidizing corn ethanol seemed like a good idea, but unlike dairy it's causing food price instability.
Corn for beef production has been used for quite a while. Introducing ethanol production seems to be the destabilizing event.
"And what does broadband use? Landline services for the most part. Wifi still doesn't cover much area."
I suspect the first thing to be done to bring broadband to the rural masses will be to replace those landlines. If they could work, they would be used. We don't have much to make use of that old copper, so it's gone.
Oh, and actually I know of an ISP in Maine that drives DSL over some fairly long distances. He's made a nice business, but it requires a lot of work, and capital. And risk. Telcoms don't much care for risk.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The libertarian side of me disagrees with this. Why should the people in the city be subsidizing the lifestyles of the people in the country?
Hmmm, maybe because it might be the right thing to do ? seeing as how the interwebs actually provide a lot of educational content (as well as p0rn, don't ya' know) and that education is to put it mildly, somewhat important to not only the US, but humanity, in general? But what do I know, I AM older than dirt.
It also seems that an old saw might be proven right, as in "A new broom sweeps clean" One can only hope!
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
We don't, and have never, lived in anything approaching a free market.
Unfortunately you're partially right. Except for slavery the 1820s was as close to a free market as we've had. This was when Alexis de Tocqueville toured the USA before writing his "Democracy in America". Almost all politics was local and there were no career politicians. There weren't all the laws, licenses, and regulations running a business. Or a farm, or inn, boarding house etc. Growing up before I was legally able to get a part-time job in high school from spring to fall I went around my neighborhood with a lawnmower and can of gas cutting grass to earn money. I helped people with their gardens, planning it, digging it out, and planting seedlings or sowing seeds. In many places now to commercially do lawn care or landscaping local governments require licenses. In my own back yard my family and I grew our own garden and I composted anything and everything organic. I tossed our dog's feces and the cats' litter in the compost as well. I few years ago the city I live in said I had to hide the composting feces in a box or other closed container. I couldn't just mix it in with the leafs, cut grass, and other yard debris. Unless of course they were contained too. Just this morning before going online I went outside to do some raking. In maybe 15 minutes I filled 5 large compostable yard bags yet all I did was put a dent in the leafs to be raked. And I'm supposed to have a bin large enough?
Stabilization policies should be used to minimize pricing variations, which is good. The dairy industry for instance benefited from this
I disagree, governments should not be regulating or have many of the policies they do have. The sole purpose of government is to protect life. liberty, and property as well as create a climate wherein everyone has equal opportunity, opportunity not outcome.
Oh, and actually I know of an ISP in Maine that drives DSL over some fairly long distances. He's made a nice business, but it requires a lot of work, and capital. And risk. Telcoms don't much care for risk.
Take away Telcoms' and Cable's monopolies and require them to compeat in a freer market. I don't mean a duopoly, allow any body to offer cable, telephone, and electrical services. Same with cable and fiber. It's not ideal but in "A Broadband Utopia" the IEEE "Spectrum" says how a group of communities in northeastern Utah got together to build a broadband infrastructure. Telcoms and cable cos would not build it so they did themselves. Of course having to face competition these monopoly businesses pressed Utah to pass a law outlawing the communities from delivering their own services. We've had articles on /. about how after a small city in MN asked broadband providers build the infrastructure and was refused it decided to build it out themselves.Of course those who refused to build out broadband themselves then sued the city to stop them. Judge Tosses Telco Suit Over City-Owned Network.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
So, there was a service available at a price you didn't like, and you want others to pay for it? The fact a price is higher than you may like isn't an indication a free market has failed (although what you seem to be describing sounds more like a government mandated monopoly, the kind you later argue in favor of). You're making my argument. You complain about duopolies and suggest the solution is a monopoly, of the government variety? What you actually seem to be railing against, in a rather convoluted way, is a lack of a free market. And what "natural monopolies" are you referring to?
"Nationalizing" anything is the surest way to get the worst quality at the highest price.
I'm not sure I understand your question, but I'll try to respond anyway.
Virtually all of the "utility" type companies have a business model that is predicated upon the market not being free and being tilted in their favor by the government, with the usual undesirable results for consumers (ie pay more; get less). When the towns decided to do it themselves, it posed a threat to these companies, because it would reveal just how effiently is could be done (though not as efficiently as a private company in a truly free market), to the benefit of customers (which is also a point about accountability: the towns have a base to which they are directly accountable that is smaller than, say, a state or federal government, or a large corporation operating under govenment endorsed beneficial (to the corporation, that is) market constraints). Naturally, the companies prefer to avoid the public discovering just how much they are being gouged by the governmentally instituted oligopolies these companies enjoy, and these same companies get outsized margins they've grown accustomed to in dense areas, while the margins in less dense areas do not compare favorably.
It's still not right for a city to do it, though, because in all instances whereby any government entity undertakes these projects, it is done so with a gun to the people's heads (ie the only choice you have is to pay, by way of taxes, to support such things or go to jail). Neither scenario describes a free market.
A price I didn't like? Are you fucking stoned? they wanted 50 times the line costs in profits PLUS 40% monthly on top of that? And can you not fucking read? maybe you need me to spell it out... we paid 200 billion already and all we got was the finger.
So sincerely, from the bottom of my heart....fuck your corporate ass kissing free market horseshit. THERE IS NO FREE MARKET as its just one government granted monopoly after another. We the American people PAID 200 BILLION for nationwide and didn't get shit but the finger from the CEOs as they cashed another bonus check.
So don't give us that "waaaah, you want me to pay for your stuff waaah!" Republitard bullshit because WE ALL PAID ALREADY and got nothing but a 56k Goatse.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Thanks - I'm enjoying your amusing argument, sincerely: "its just one government granted monopoly after another" is your argument in favor of a single government monopoly ("We should NATIONALIZE THE LINES" he says, eyes blazing, spittle flying from his mouth, heart pounding, caps lock key intermittently activating)?!?
Buy an irony meter and then re-read your posts. Then get some sleep. Maybe drink some coffee. Count to ten. Breathe deeply. And, most importantly: relax, because there are enough people as confused as you that you may just get your wish: government control of all the things which disturb you. If you're curious as to how that turns out, there's plenty of prior experiments with state control of markets, all with poor results for people just like you.
All your bullshit is just that, bullshit. Notice you didn't have jack to say about your corp masters cashing 200 BILLION dollar checks and giving us nothing but the finger? And I know nationalizing is bring big gov but you know what? LESSER OF TWO EVILS because the corps have made it damned clear if they can't make MASSIVE PROFITS on every. single. install? then fuck you buddy.
And if there has ever been a national interest this is it. Study after study has shown that higher speeds equal more home businesses, more small businesses, more eCommerce, MORE JOBS. fuck the corps and if you think the invisible hand is gonna do anything but reach for your wallet fuck you too.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
By pushing upwards gently from the sides, slowly remove the tin foil hat and place on floor, because I think you have it on a little too tightly.
Now that you have it removed, and the logic and reason beams can fully penetrate what is certainly a thick skull, reconsider your arguments:
- your argument, convoluted as it is, seems to be that the government gave some entity $200bn in exchange for some promise, which was later broken. Simultaneously you are upset because you cannot convince a government mandated monopoly to agree to your offer of cash to string a line to your mommy's house. And your proposed solution is to increase government involvement. I realize the foil hat was interfering with the operation of the irony meter I previously suggested you employ, but perhaps now that the hat is removed it will function in its routine fashion. Your problem, in case you still are incapable of understanding it, is that you are constrained by government from operating in a free market. The government put the company in the position whereby they can laugh you off at your offer of $3,500 to string that line, because absent a monopoly, there would likely be companies lined up to take your money, if there was profit in it (which there may or may not be - it could still be the case that you are simply offering them too little, which is too bad for you, but doesn't equate to the free market failing, because the successful operation of the free market is not defined by you getting everything you want at a price you consider "fair").
- to elaborate on that last bit, just because you want, for example, a nice shiny new BMW but the evil BMW people won't sell it to you for $2,000 doesn't mean the market is failing and BMW should be nationalized because you, in your seemingly permanent petulance, don't feel like paying what someone is offering to sell you something for. Of course, in the question at hand, you don't have the choice of going to the used car dealership and buying a cheap alternative, because the government, so beloved to you, has made that impossible, by granting a monopoly.
- who are these "corp masters" you speak of? Who is it you think I answer to (and make sure the foil hat is completely removed before replying, please)? Is anyone who points out the ridiculous contradictions in your postings controlled by "corp masters"? I think you'd be surprised if you knew how wrong you were on this point, too.
- when you say (and note here how I haven't used the caps lock key), "lesser of two evils" you're quite right: a government-mandated monopoly and a government "nationalized" entity certainly are both evil. You are missing the third option: free choice for everyone involved. I certainly realize freedom, and choice, aren't currently favored in the US, but you should explore the consequences of such a system in a more sophisticated, less reactionary, considerably more intelligent fashion, now that the foil hat is removed.
- "Study afer study blah blah blah" is a nice argument in favor of the ends justifying the means, just like bailouts for banks are necessary because the consequences would be worse, according to the propaganda of your beloved government, which you seem to swallow on a wholesale basis. But I would encourage you to explore, in an intellectually honest fashion (ie breathe deeply, keep the foil hat on the ground, let the logic and reason beams penetrate your skull unimpeded) instances whereby government has "nationalized" industries, in your country and many others throughout the world. The outcome will never be as you imagine it, and will differ substantially and materially from your utopian vision.
Now, breathe deeply and try to relax a bit: I'm sure your posts make you feel like a "big man", but your impotent vitriol is actually making you appear rather small and foolish.
Randian drivel with no basis in reality. The two main problems with the New Deal was that it 1) wasn't big enough and 2) FDR listened to people like Shlaes and cut government spending in 1937, and that is what brought a second bump in the Great Depression.
Which was caused in the first place by speculators inflating a bubble economy and a lack of regulation - pointing a spotlight at trade laws is misdirection to ignore the actual problem.
You BS. When you have 25% unemployment, the only entity that is capable or willing to reverse that is the Federal Government. As was finally and utterly proven with the start of World War II, when universal war time employment put a complete and utter end to any vestiges of the Depression.
Deal. With. It.
I see we've reached the part of the conversation where you start babbling incoherently. WTF do black markets created by Prohibition have to do with Kenisian economics?
Ups to you sir. I wish I had points for you.
I got here through a series of tubes