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Would You Pay an Internet Broadband Tax?
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Internet Tax Freedom Act? The whole point was to prevent the government from ever taxing the Internet. But that's the proposal from the FCC — and backed by companies like Google, AT&T and Sprint. Would you pay a buck or two extra for fast access — or vote for someone who thinks you should? 'If members of Congress understood that the FCC is contemplating a broadband tax, they'd sit up and take notice,' said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the tax."
If it means universal service provisions for broadband internet access, then yes.
There are people in rural areas right now that don't have Internet access because telcos aren't willing to spend the money to run it out to them.
Universal service provisions allowed telephone service to reach every single person in the entire country back in the day. The same thing should happen for broadband internet access today.
Looks like this tax appears to just help the existing ISPs who already do nothing but just add fees. Why should we want a tax that does nothing to help we, the consumers, but just lines their pockets even more?
A tax for wireless mesh broadband, yes. A tax so Verizon can charge us more for the same pitiful broadband allowances? No.
Only if the money actually went to improving broadband access and speeds in America. The problem is that it just goes to the government coffers and is distributed, mostly, to Social Security.
If the money went to directly improving the system it taxed, then yes. I would love to see a tax that helped pay for a nation-wide fiber-optic system that replaced the aged copper system we rely on.
Unfortunately, it'll only go to lining the FCC board and chairman's pockets with money.
And what am I getting out of this tax, that I'm not already paying for in other service fees?
I don't necessarily have a problem paying taxes if I feel the government is spending the revenue wisely. Problem is, I feel that way less and less with the current crop of idiots in Washington DC -- both Democrat and Republican.
I would gladly pay a small tax for super fast internet access...but the internet has to be free, no filtering, no censorship, no throttling, no blocking torrents ect. Information wants to be free, but there is no free lunch.
REALLY??
But what about all those billions that were given to the telcos to upgrade their infrastructure ???
Whatever happened to "Your subscription fees make up for the ad revenue, so we won't have to have ads every 20 minutes" ??
Aahahahahahhaa 'scuse me while I piss myself laughing at the blatant avarice of it all
.
C|N>K
If that meant "we" owned the infrastructure, not the media companies. One requirement would HAVE to be net neutrality.
Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt earned a $16.4 Million salary last year.
I fail to see any innovation from my Internet provider.
I would absolutely pay for an internet tax, as long as any service receiving aid from that government tax coffer was forced to provide network neutrality by law.
As it stands, what this is actually earmarked to pay for is probably the "lawful intercept" features that government want to add to everyone's internet.
If the tax were required to be used only for making broadband access available everywhere, then yes. As it stands, broadband access is spotty, at best, with terrible discrepancies in upload to download speeds available. TCP/IP was designed to be symmetrical. :-|
I am European, and I think that fast Internet for free should be available to anyone in EU, as part of basic human rights. I don't care how it is technically done, but this should be long-term goal, especially for social parties, in order to prevent new kind of illiteracy of poor people.
839*929
If the money went to something appropriate, sure. And the tax was what I'd consider reasonable.
I'm not one of those fools who thinks that taxation is theft, or that the government is an evil job-destroying people-eating monster.
It'd be cool if it was, but it's not.
Things I'd support the money being put into:
Spamhunter squads
Free software repositories
Access for the disabled, and for rural customers
Training Ninja Dinosaurs
If paying a small tax will guarantee completely free, uncapped and non-filtered broadband with a certain reasonable speed guarantee, then yes! Otherwise, what's the point?
The UBB Deception
There. Fixed that for you.
If you want me to pay a tax to subsidize broadband then I will never have a data cap. Ever.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, getting broadband isn't free, I pay my ISP for connectivity and they provide it.. and by "extra fast", my ISP has varying levels of service they can give me (subject to the technology available where I live) so I can get faster speeds by paying more money. I can also get faster speeds by changing to a cable ISP rather than a standard ADSL one, or I could even buy satellite link. If I was really rich I could pay to have fibre put into my house too.
So, maybe this is just an Americanism. What you guys need is a working system of capitalism where competition drives innovation and delivery. The rest of us have this kind of free market, where market forces drive things forward, I guess you guys have monopolies that hold you back. Good luck.
Don't we pay tax (like state sales tax) on internet and other services already?
(Assuming you live in a state that has sales tax)
New government mandated charges: $1
New charge to get that $1 to the government $0.35
Extra tax on that extra $1.35 on your bill: $0.14
Total cost of this per bill: $1.49.
So, will you pay a dollar? Maybe, but what about $1.49? If you'll pay $1.49, why won't you pay $3? If you'll pay $3, why won't you pay $20? It can go on and on and on, with promises made every step of the way, but broken through shady legal tactics or just downright failure of anyone with money to call them out on it. Around here, every time taxes get raised 'for education,' education gets cut and some other service gets a boost. The first time people fell for it, it was used to help re-do an already new city building...the next time it was used for a park in the city (quoted at a few hundred grand, total work done was what five guys and a few six packs could accomplish on a lazy Saturday afternoon). The first time it was voted down everyone was screaming about how we hate the children.
Sure, let's all chip in a buck.
Maybe thirty cents goes into "administrative costs" (the inevitable bureaocracy)
Twenty cents, at least, will be sequestered for other failing programs.
Another forty will no doubt be pocketed by recipient telco shareholders and executives.
Perhaps five cents will go for surveys and studies.
Maybe, if we're lucky, a nickel will go toward the intended purpose.
And so it goes.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Physical
Data
Network
Transport
Session
Protocol
Application
Which layer looks like it cares about symmetry?
If the government grew a pair and stood up to AT&T et al, and I was paying a reasonable price for internet and we got a speed more in line with the rest of the god damned world, then yes, I'd be more than willing to pay a tax.
But as it is now? Hell no.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Did anyone consider that those 19 million people without broadband access DO NOT want high-speed internet? Some folks like living off the grid, in the middle of nowhere, hours away from civilization. If that ~5% of the U.S. population wants broadband, they could move out of the rural areas they live in and get high-speed internet. Something tells me that it is not high on their priority list.
sudo make me a sandwich
Weren't the telcos already given a crapload of money to expand broadband access, which they proceeded to piss away? I'm not paying yet another tax, on top of a USF, an FCC surcharge, a tiered-pricing plan, and all of the other ways they already nickle-and-dime us to death. We are already not getting what we're paying for.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
And that new tax revenue stream would go directly to creating a nationwide wonder network of gleaming fiber and BAH HA HA HA HA! Yeah, yeah... uh huh
And we'll all get freshly baked cookies delivered by the new "Keebler Over Ethernet" protocols, and pretty birds singing sweet rock and roll will gives us free porn apps! And Stallman and Doctorow will put up shiny new HTML 6/Web 3.0 web sites detailing the coming enslavement of humanity because some people like the iPhone.
Cue the ACs calling me a horrible person for being so negative about the government and not having a 1500 page solution to the world's problems that does not involve unicorn magic and well timed pandemics.
Wheee! Monday!
The Government will be taxes us for everything we do, including breathing.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I'm sorry but we've already been sold this bill of goods by the companies themselves. They have stated on more than one occasion that they're increasing their cost to the customers to help build infrastructure. Now some (may most) is to help solidify the existing infrastructure, we've been told that it's also for the rural expansion. Those increased costs are also taxed, so in essence, we're already taxed for the rural expansion. Heck some of our regular phone bill taxes are supposed to help support the internet expansion.
Once again, the middle class customer is paying the bill for someone else just because they live in a rural area. /sigh
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Don't we pay tax (like state sales tax) on internet and other services already?
Yes. In my state we pay a local communications tax, a state communications tax, a USF fee and something else I can't remember right now. Fortunately, after already paying three or four taxes, my state does not charge sales tax on this service.
As we have seen time and again with the Universal Service Fund, big health care (Pfizer being let off the hook for defrauding Medicare because punishing them would mean delisting all of their products from Medicare) and big finance (if you cannot immediately think of five major scandals, you've not been paying attention) the big guys get government money and aren't held accountable at all. At all. So, no. Not a single red cent to them. I don't give a damn how high and noble their stated goals are. Until we have an independent prosecutor who can hang one of these companies from the nearest lamp post for taking the money and not doing precisely what the money is for, the answer is "no."
And if you let your idealism get in the way and say "yes," you're an idiot who deserves to have your face rubbed into this when you get betrayed.
We already paid billions for this in the 1990's.
It's called the Universal Access Fund. It's still on your telco bill.
Why would we need yet another tax on our bill just so we can give more money to people that have demonstrated they have absolutely no intention into expanding their offerings.
It's not like the bandwidth is not available. If you have cable, most likely you are already able to get 100/100 Mbps without much of an investment (maybe replace the modem). The fact that you don't have it is because the cable companies don't have any incentive to give you more than 10Mbps because they're the incumbent, they have been granted monopolies in most places and they will rather spend money fighting any competition than giving you more access for free.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
This wouldn't provide extra or faster broadband. It would be a tax on urbanites to subsidize rural broadband.
No, I would not want to see that. Let Farmer Joe pay his fair share.
Not paying my taxes would be a bad thing. Now would I SUPPORT an additional broadband tax? Depends on what it is used for. Initially I would say no, we currently have communication taxes in place that either need to be eliminated or the funds reallocated.
13% we pay.....
There are people in rural areas right now that don't have Internet access because telcos aren't willing to spend the money to run it out to them.
I'm sure they'd also like an international airport nearby, high speed rail, all the best medical specialists, museums, and everything else that you can find only or mostly in big cities. Those things are in big cities because the population density there is able to support such a thing.
There are many things in the cities that i would love to have close by, but I don't demand my legislators to tax everyone else to put those amenities near me - if I really desire those things to be close, I'll move to the city.
tl;dr - Why are folks in rural areas entitled to amenities of cities when they don't have the population density to support them?
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
I've been hearing about this for years but I was under the impression we already paid for 45 Meg up/down under the clinton presidency and while the telco's have been taking tax money for this, they still haven't built out the infrastructure we should have had several years ago.
Anyone know more about this?
It was also my understanding that the National Information Infrastructure was a result of the High Performance computing act of 1991 under Clinton and Gore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Performance_Computing_Act_of_1991
So I have to ask. Why pay for more when we've been paying for it since 1991? I'm curious if other's can help me understand if I've misread what the act is supposed to do.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
and then call the lobbyists and take the money and sell us out. Any idea that this is going to provide ubitquitous broadband service nationwide is a (pardon the pun) pipe dream. And once the tax is in place, it's never going away.
I mean, because obviously we have no sources of funding from our other taxes, so might as well start a new one, right?
Because it's just damn impossible to find funding in the rest of the budget stemming from:
Accounts Receivable Tax, Accumulated Earnings Tax, Alternative Minimum Tax, Aviation Fuel Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Cement and Gypsum Producers License Tax, Cigarette Tax, Coal Severance Tax, Coal Gross Proceeds Tax, Consumer Counsel Tax, Consumption Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Corporation License Tax, Electrical Energy Producers Tax, Estate Tax, Inheritance, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax, Fishing License Tax, Food Service License Tax, Fuel Permit License Tax, Gasoline Tax (8 to 35 cents per gallon), Generation-skipping Transfer Tax, Gift Tax, Gross Production Tax, Hospital Facility Utilization Fee Tax, Hunting License Fee Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Penalties Tax, Land Value Tax, Liquor License Tax, Liquor Tax, Local Tax, Lodging Facility Use Tax, Luxury Tax, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax,Metal Mines Gross Proceeds Tax, Metal Mines License Tax, Miscellaneous Mineral Mines License Tax, Miscellaneous Mines Net Proceeds Tax, Nursing Facility Bed Tax, Oil and Natural Gas Production Tax, Payroll Tax, Professional PrivilegeTax, Property Tax, Proxy Tax, Public Contractor's Gross Receipts Tax, Public Service Commission Tax, Public Utility Tax, Real Estate Tax, Real Estate Transfer Tax, Rental Vehicle Sales Tax,Resort Tax, Resource Indemnity and Groundwater Assessment Tax, Retail Telecommunications Excise Tax, Sales Tax, School Tax, Self-Employment Tax, Septic Permit Tax, Severance Tax, Social Security Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax, Statewide Emergency Telephone 911 System Fee Tax, Surtax Tax, Tariffs, Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, TDD Telecommunications Service Fee Tax, Tobacco Products Tax (Other than Cigarettes), Toll Road Fee Tax, Toll Bridge Fee Tax, Toll Tunnel Fee Tax, Tonnage Tax, Traffic Fines, Trailer Registration Fee Tax, Use Tax, Vehicle Registration and License Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, Wholesale Energy Transaction Tax, Workers Compensation Tax.
We are taxed to death.
I pay a tax when I earn money (income tax).
Then I pay an extra tax when I spend those taxed money (VAT).
Then I pat for goods/services themselves.
So, what'd be the point for this extra tax? Pointless!
If I want super fast giggo broadband, I buy premium.
If I want normal, I buy vanilla. That's it.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
We have been paying it for years. It has also been mismanaged immensely, and is mostly a profit item for the phone companies.
Until there is better oversight over the existing fees and taxes on telecommunications products, there should be no new fee's and taxes. ATT and Verizon have made billions off the USF (Universal Service Fund), which was meant to help offset the cost of wiring under served and rural areas.
Now both Verizon and ATT are abandoning their wireline systems in favour of wireless, yet they are still charging the USF fee to all of their customers... Where is that money going, it cannot be used on the wireless or broadband side currently.. it is not payed to the gov either, it stays in the bank accounts of the telcos.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Another Slow Service user here. I did play a numbers game and pick my plan, I have something pretty low, (too lazy to detail it, maybe 1mbit?).
However I carefully considered my internet habits and discovered I can live with 5 seconds of buffering, and overall the $20 or whatever per month saved is worth more to me than having a "better experience". Generally, you can "spend for experience" until you go broke.
Misc Tips: I have a Verizon Dry Loop. That means it's Data Only. No Phone. But who needs a "landline"? $400+ saved per year. (Guess). Meanwhile, I have an AT&T GoPhone, that charges per minute, not per month. Another $700/year saved there. Here's the fun part. Get a VOIP service (I like Magic Jack Plus) and plug it in, and then you have a landline after all! Whee!
So instead of spending cumulative $150+ per month, I think I spend $40 per month tops.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If someone makes an uninformed comment, just dismiss it as uninformed. If someone says something true you find upsetting, you need to examine the root of what they say.
Advice that europeans would be well advised to heed. Instead whenever something about America is brought up, out comes the half-informed snark in droves.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So they are far left and far right at the same time?
Fascism is inherently based in socialism .
After all, Fascism is all about the elite knowing what is best for the people - just like socialism, or many modern day progressives.
If you don't want the government to interfere with your life then why would anyone vote for more government?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
$300 Billion Broadband Scandal
Alliance for Customers' Telecommunications Rights
The problem with these taxes is that they end up outliving their original purpose. IIRC, there still is a tax on wired phone service designed to support rural telephone connectivity. If there was a new tax it should have some quantitative measure and a hard sunset date after that in case the measures are designed to prevent sunset.
The telephone taxes maybe made sense in the 1950s or 1960s, but even as early as the 1970s all my relatives who lived in rural areas (a farm in south central Kansas, a house 10 miles outside of Washburn, MO in the Ozarks) had 'normal' telephone service with direct dial long distance to/from their houses.
I don't doubt there may be places that lack phone service to this day, but I doubt the tax still imposed does anything for those people. The places unserved are either super poor areas where there's not enough demand for service or super remote locations where the people aren't willing to pay to extend service.
And when it comes to broadband or any other technologically sophisticated service where the cost of providing the service increases as density decreases, I'm not sure we should always subsidize services like this. At some point, choosing to live in a remote location is a lifestyle choice.
I like gourmet food, and in the city I can't go out to eat often enough to keep up with the restaurants with this kind of food. If I decide to live in a remote location, should the local diner be subsidized so that I can get steak au poivre instead of chicken fried steak?
If you want something urban, live in an urban area. If you want a rural lifestyle, live in a rural area. If you want both, open your checkbook.
And ensured that it is a dumb pipe with consistent upgrades as needed and access for all. No content regulation of any kind shall be permitted, none. But in the present situation? No way! The money will just go into somebody's Cayman Island account, or other slush fund. Thanks, but no thanks.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You just painted every foreigner with the same broad stroke that a select group of foreigners did to you. Congrats. You are part of the problem, and so are they.
Canada has the CRTC who regulates providers to provide universal service.
Mention UBB to someone from Canada and see just how well your idea works.
If we are going to acknowledge that the market has failed to provide Americans with internet service roughly similar to what other people have at similar costs and begin spending public funds on communication infrastructure (again) it's essential that we take steps to make sure that this does not once again become a mechanism to transfer public funds to corporations. This means not only removing all barriers to municipalities and other small communities from forming competitive last mile public ISP's but we also should get some sort of clawback program to go after the corporations which benifited so much from the last round of public funds and *did not deliver as promised*.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
"Would you pay it?" I hate to be a pessimist but it's not like we have a huge choice. If it does become a reality, then you either pay it or don't have broadband (and I have a feeling that the marginal benefit from broadband exceeds the $1-2 extra a month for the tax). The real question is: "Is this a big enough deal for you to support a different representative who opposes the tax (if your current guy supports it)." Personally, when choosing a candidate, there are at least 50 other topics that I'd consider before their support/opposition to this tax.
Would you pay a buck or two extra for fast access â" or vote for someone who thinks you should?
If I thought that I (and others) would actually get the access in exchange for paying the tax, then yes. But the experience with existing "universal service" fees in the United States has not been encouraging. It's basically just an excuse for the existing cable and telephone companies to pocket more money.
More generally, this is one of several reasons why Americans are far more averse to taxes than Europeans. The Europeans have more competent governments on average (I'm talking about Scandinavia, Germany, France, etc., not outliers such as Greece) and ordinary Europeans see more return on their tax money than ordinary Americans do. In the US, most federal tax dollars go to senior-oriented programs (Medicare, Social Security) which are great, but don't directly help working families, and to the military, which is absurdly over-bloated, spending about as much as the rest of the world put together. Most of this is corporate welfare, going to politically connected defense contractors. The state governments are even more corrupt and inept than the Feds. Localities are a mixed bag, but in general it seems that people are more willing to support property taxes for tangible goods like schools, libraries, and better roads.
I disagree with people who act like taxes are some kind of evil government plot. I don't mind paying taxes as long as I get something back for it.
I'm just not seeing a win for taxpayers in a broadband tax. I'd rather see the government take back the internet and regulate it like any other utility. Privatizing the internet has been a big win for telecos and cable companies, not so much for the rest of us.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Fie on this tax. The standard argument from 'conservative business' concerns is that they can do it faster, cheaper and better then the government, so it's truly of universal importance then Congress should pass a law requiring the giants of this industry to come up with their own plan to accomplish this mission. There is no need to call a responsibility a tax in order to preserve the mythical Wall Street mandate.
Let the executives of industry hash out a fair and balanced allocation of responsibility, based on costs, technological capabilities and the economies of scale they already enjoy. The cooperation between these behemoths could and should lead to a more efficient approach to building the 'solution' to this trumped up 'problem'. The FCC doesn't possess the necessary information or the power to extend their mandate without legislative decree anyway.
I don't believe it's in the best interest of the general public to provide universal service to every inch of rural America, and telecommunications is already wildly profitable, we don't need to subsidize those profits by giving ISP's, Telco's, Cable or Satellite companies free money.
Something like this was tried in Canada where the province mandated the telecommunication companies to provide high speed Internet access to every rural customer. I wouldn't say it was a disaster, but it was pretty bad. The rates are high, the speed is low, the connections often drop. You can tell when people are using the service because at night the speed increases to around 156KB/s and during the day (especially late afternoon and early evening) most websites timeout. Most of the time the mandated "high speed" is better than dial-up, but it's not high speed access as the rest of the world (or even the urban parts of the province) know it.
This has been part of a long tug-of-war between the major ISPs and regulators for a long time. The questions comes down to whether internet service is "content delivery" or "data transport". Is it a utility, which has other significant fairness requirements, or is it a buyer-beware unregulated luxury? We've been dodging this question for over a decade. In exchange for not getting internet access called a utility, the major ISPs have made (and broken) major roll-out promises, and have kept the data transport at least somewhat network-neutral.
But I would think that philosophically, internet access is far more of a utility than cable TV, and that is regulated as a utility.
So the way we're doing things is really hiding our heads in the sand, pretending it's all going to come out OK. I'll have to agree with what someone else said, with a little modification... In internet tax is just corporate welfare - unless it's accompanied by declaring internet access to be a utility.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
First they should actually show that this is a significant problem that requires the heavy hammer of government intervention.
Given that we're still paying a tax on our telephones that originated from the Spanish American War, I think we're taxed more than enough right now, thanks.
Plus it appears that fully 50% or more of my tax dollars goes to pork or horseshit that nobody cares about. Well, nobody that isn't a billionaire.
Do I get a choice?
many taxes already exist for "helping broadband" to rural places. the cell companies took the money out of the rural assistance pool and expanded their cell towers on the basis that they can provide internet from cell towers (mostly true), but they only do it at rediculious costs! however, the cell companies got a significant portion of their tower install/upgrade costs offset by doing this without actually doing much to help the rural areas without broadband.
another tax is not needed, as the same pattern of behavior will repeat.
There are trade-offs to living in the country/city. This is one of them. Sitting in traffic sucking down pollution is another. Add up to pros and cons and live where you want, but don't expect others to foot the bill for your choices. Broadband must not be as important as the benefits of pastoral lifestyle.
This opens the floodgates for a barrage of I would believe, service fees and taxes for virtually everything from obtaining an IP address to how many characters you write in an email. Don't believe me? Just look at the 5$ monthly fee charged by Verizon to keep an unlisted phone number.... unlisted (as previously covered on Slashdot http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/15/2143213/verizon-bases-5-fee-to-not-publish-your-phone-number-on-systems-and-it-costs ).
How long have we had to pay the extra fee to help cover the initial "costly" expenses of helping telcos setup the ability to port numbers? Pretty sure that's been covered just fine (even small wireless carriers can do it.. Vonage, google voice etc)
So when are we able to quit paying that as I'm sure everything has to be covered by now....
Or the alternate energy education fee I have to pay my power company every month here in pa? (Which isn't a flat fee but based off kw used?)
I am about ready to discontinue services for a bundled system of basic cable TV, internet and landline telephone, it costs over 100 bucks a month for it all, and one of these days I will call them and cancel all of it, i have a cellphone if i need to make a call, i will still have a computer to do miscellaneous tasks like personal accounting/book keeping, listen to music & video, photo editing & etc... i do have a laptop i can take to town if i need the internet for a few minutes for something but my dependence on the internet is minimal, it is more of a leisure time luxury that i can live without if i must. all i need is just another annoyance like a price hike or a tax on top of what i have to pay for now and BAM! and wave buh bye to all of it as a kick it all to the curb
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The Telco's will NEVER provide quality service to everyone. I live 3 miles from the down town pop sight and all that Verizon will run here is slow dsl over the old copper, no new infrastructure since the 1950s. Oh perhaps a new pedestal when a car took an pedestal out. So yes anything but bypassing the telco's will simple be corporate welfare.
So no two bucks will not get us anything. I all ready pay 5 bucks extra, and got nothing for it. Sure paying $25 for my slow DSL (700kbits/sec) is all Verizon can get away with, but the deal was $19.99 per month. before the bait and switch. Oh, and there is no alternative to the monopoly at this location. So I an stuck with what ever I can beg for. If the last mike was open access, the it would allow other ISP's to do business. That's what we call capitalism, where many people compete to provide the best service st the best price. What we have is Monarchy where one, tells us what to pay for a level of service that they are embarrassed into providing.
So you keep your filthy hands off my two bucks.
I already paid an internet tax to pay for more infrastructure. did it 10 years ago with everyone else in the USA. what did the ISP's and telcos do with that money?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
A buck or two extra per what?
Per bit?
Per byte?
Per Megabyte?
Per Gigabyte?
Per month?
Per year?
And how much faster?
And will we really get faster or will it just go to the urban and pseudo-urban areas with denser populations. I rather detest paying a buck a bit and not getting any byte back for my money. I'm truly rural. I laid a mile and a half of my own phone wires to get very slow 'aDSL' and they've been making promises for years of more speed but I doubt we'll see it. Instead it will go to the larger population centers. Let them pay for their own cables and fibers.
If fast broadband is defined as putting us in the top 10 countries for broadband speed. I would most certainly pay an extra tax. Otherwise it's like paying more taxes for your Ma Bell line.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
It's become a universal tactic in government these days: "Would you pay a little more for [insert popular item here]?" All government has to do is find Popular Item and then sell the people on the idea that they can have it if they'll just consent to having their pockets picked. Even better is if the pockets to be picked are 'their' pockets, 'they' being some unpopular group like 'the rich' or 'the smokers'. The first thought that ought to come to mind when hearing one of these solicitations is ":"What the hell did you do with the money I've already been paying you?" There already is a 'universal service fee' tacked on to your phone bill. If we're already funding deployment of phone service to rural areas, why can't we require that it be DSL? And then there's the gazillions in 'stimulus' that we've spent and are continuing to spend. If we have this worthy and 'shovel-ready' project of making broadband universal, why not use that money for that purpose instead of trying to wheedle more?
I would be happy to pay a tax to fund a publicly run network, one where due process still exists and net neutrality would be automatic under the equal protection clause. Requirements such as transfer limits would exist, of course, but they would be fairly imposed and users would have usage meters. They could monitor their own usage. Limits would be determined by formula and adjusted as networks were improved, improvements would be done evenly so everyone gets speed increases instead of blazing fast in the city, slow ass DSL in the village, and dialup in the sticks.
Oh you mean corporate welfare for cox/comcast/att/verizon/time warner
fuck that
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Do I want to pay a broadband tax? No.
If I had a choice, would I choose to? Maybe - lots of good discussion here on that very topic. Ultimately will I have that choice? No.
That leaves me with: when there is a broadband tax, will I pay it? Yes, yes I will. It is not like I am not going to have broadband Internet.
I already pay extra to have higher speeds and no bandwidth caps on my Comcast Business-class service.
If the tax went toward making a ubiquitous, carrier-independent service available everywhere, even with a lower bandwidth (being free doesn't mean it has to be the best), I'd be all for having everyone who pays for more cover the costs for those who can't (or won't) pay.
End the FUD
... being persistent with getting more and more out of the public but to oppose it takes impossibly ALL the public?
A: because the public unwittingly pays the government either way in this vote-less republic/democracy.
Would you Pay to have a sharpened #2 pencil slowly shoved into your eardrum?
I'll pass, but thanks for the "offer".
No.
Best application of this law to date.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes. Broadband or fast for *everyone*.
Sounds like a slashdot poll, to me.
mark
I thought only Congress had the power to TAX. I don't recall voting for anyone in the FCC. I think the question people should be asking is not whether or not they think a broadband tax is right, wrong, necessary, prudent or otherwise; what they should be asking is where does the FCC get the right tax anything, a power clearly reserved for Congress.
will they tax the internet? if so it reminds me of the days of cable t.v. where the where no commercials then once everybody joined on they ran commercials.
Right now there is no broadband tax and there are plenty of commercials. taxing add revenue could be quite favorable to the government as far as revenue is concerned; there might be another aspect to taxation of broadband, ie.. dictating what services can run on the connection, which could lead to discrimination. As it is now with filters and such, there already is a form of discrimination to users however there may be a technological free market solution to counter that, but to the down and out small guy, taxing broadband might be useful to insure peoples constitution rights are protected. As the free market dictates, there is already internet competition to the big isp's, however there might be discrimination to the smaller isps on who gets to join and produce, making the situation a little bit tricky. With the advent of xen and openstack producers could be taxed using big isp's. overall, i'd tend not rush into taxation of isp's, because the small internet providers who already offer match upload/download speeds could be forced out of business from the larger isp's.
I'm old enough to remember the days of Fidonet. Email was relayed from one node to another.. mostly along a free call path. I believe WE NEED to build an underground internet. Local Metropolitan Links would be easy, long haul well that's another story. Wifimax can get @ 19 miles per hop. That's a lot of hops to get from Massachusetts to California. Maybe we can use the existing internet to build a vpn tunnel to connect the local metropolitan links.
Didn't get it.
Your premiums for Internet access DO NOT guarantee improvements to that network. This tax would.
I'm not fundamentally opposed to paying a broadband tax, but what would I get for it? I would happily pay a 5% tax if it meant that my broadband received government-imposed price controls, minimum bandwidth guarantees, and net neutrality.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
I thought Internet access was already "taxed" in the form of ad banners and being spied upon by various government and corporate entities.
Also, that people already pay for more faster access and higher bandwidth caps.
The parent has the truth well in hand. Rural US is not what you think it is. This is not about shoe-less waifs huddled in plywood cabins. The sort of rural households that might benefit from 'universal internet' are typically well off.
Besides, this 'problem' is easily solved without a tax. Just open the right-of-way to competitors and then jump back and let the dirt fly as phone/cable companies suddenly discover new enthusiasm for complete coverage.
That solution does nothing to feed the statists, however. No opportunity to collect billions and then haggle over which politically favored constituency gets to play with it.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
No
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
I already pay extra for a "gaming" speed internet. My downloads don't exceed 100 k/s. Its idiotic.
Sorry, I have no intention of paying an extra tax such as this.
I will only agree to such a tax if the city, state or nation I live in makes a government operated internet service provider can any citizen can use without paying extra for. Similar to our public road system or public education system (Honestly think we should have college campus's paid for by taxes and letting private campus compete with them if they choose to do so as well).
But no, I refuse to pay an extra tax just for some private company to get more cash. They already pissed enough of the tax payer money away when they got the cash payout a few years ago on top of the tax payer subsidized lines they got to lay when they got started and the government protection they have gotten from competition.
I honestly think we should take back all the lines we payed to bury and lease out the last mile to any company that wants to host a server and let the competition begin at least once before I die. Let our taxes pay for the construction and maintenance of any must have public service as it is too important to allow to be controlled by a not-so-free market.
Same here:
$5 cell
$15 internet
$7 dialup (for hotels)
$10 wired phone
free AntennaTV
===
$37
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Does anyone remember when cable was first introduced? This might not be an exact comparison, but the concept was we all pay for TV and get it commercial free. Well THAT worked out well.
The point is, as soon as anything gets "nudged" closer to the private sector, they, their lobbyists, and their political friends will find a way to monetize and control it.
And they WILL be relentless in their efforts. Just note how many variations of ACTA we've seen so far. When they want something, they can make more attempts to get it than any of us can imagine.
NO way! They can take some of the money out of those obscenely huge executive compensation packages to finance the effort to expand into rural areas or whatever.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
State sponsored municipal broadband has been sued away because apparently competition with corporate monopolies is illegal.
God spoke to me
Broadband used to refer to the Cable companies' high speed internet based on the technology that it used. However, Verizon FiOS is fiber to the premises, is that considered broadband? What about facilities who's internet connection is a 10Gbps fiber ethernet connection? Is that broadband? I wouldn't be in favor of it just because "Tax on broadband" is too vague.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
In Canada we have been taxed on our Internet data services from the outset of its availability to the public. I am currently on an unlimited broadband data plan and despite it being relatively slow by today's standards I keep it because I can run my servers on the connection. Most every new data plan explicitly prohibits running servers on consumer broadband data plans and the data caps are suspect in light of the "download speed up to N Mbps" which in my experience have never actually reached that promised maximum throughput. And the wireless carriers offering 3G/HSPA/+4G/LTE rarely seem to provide consistent data throughput anywhere near the advertised speeds. I require two ISPs to properly validate the configuration of various services running on my servers; the broadband is primarily for the servers while the wireless carrier connection is primarily for everything else.
If it did, then since there has been a large contraction at least twice recently in the network industry, the pay of these CEOs should have dropped drastically.
Thing is, the board set those salaries. And it's not their money. And they are a C*O on another company, where this CEO is a board member. So if he scratches my back...
Not to mention the downsizing SHOULD mean a pay cut because the company is *smaller*.
Doesn't happen, does it.
Look at the pay of the workers, the ones doing the work.
We already do, and we don't need yet another tax to be squandered and wasted.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...Only if the Girl Scout cookies are made of Real Girl Scouts. And only if the tax really did something for broadband - but it won't.
Why do foreigners think it's okay to insult Americans again and again? You're calling us "opossums". I had one British guy say if we don't reelect Obama it will prove we are a "backwards nation". And on and on. Lately everywhere I go I see Europeans slagging-off on Americans.
It makes me think the U.S. should quit NATO rather than be allied with people who hate us.
Ok, so you are saying that because someone criticized this country, we should abandon a 60+ year military alliance that helped preserve freedom for millions of people the world over by presenting a unified opposition to communism. You sir, are a true idiot. What kind of isolationist idiocy is that? Don't cooperate with others because they might have hurt your feelings?
Yeah, people criticize other people, get over it. We mock the other countries for what we feel are bad choices on their part, and they do the same to us. What, do you feel we are so fucking special that we should be above criticism?
Reading between the lines of your post, you seem more upset over the implication that 'Mittens' Romney is a imbecilic monkey who couldn't lead a platoon of marines to a whorehouse, and that electing him would thus reflect poorly on us. (Disclaimer: I am in no way a pro-democrat, I am just strongly opposed to electing a degenerate retard the the White house) So, there, I said it: If we elect Mitt Romney, it will show the world that we are a nation of backwards opossums. I am an American, so by your measure that makes it ok, right?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"it's illegal to inject yourself with Draino"
GODDAMMIT!
*puts down needle*
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
No matter what they tell you it is for, it isn't. I've seen billions of dollars a year, that originally was passed "to fund schools" and yet those schools never have enough funding and lo-and-behold all of the money is going into the "general fund" and being spent ensuring that political friend X gets a profit on "useless project Y"... Just vote against every tax, bond, etc, and those people who back them...
> Would You Pay an Internet Broadband Tax?
That is not a question or maybe only a question in the "to be or not to be" sense. Either pay tax or end up like the "Scarface", Al Capone, who, despite murdering dozens of people, was locked up eventually on mere tax avoidance charges and was only freed on his last breaths due to liver disease.
Governments usually think tax avoidance second only to capital treason and worthy of more punishment than homicide.
The government already does tax the internet, If you dont believe it then go and get out your last internet bill and look at the amount of federal taxes are included in that bill. SEE! They already do tax the internet. they JUST WANT MORE MONEY from the 99%.
If it means I can have a much easier time at work by not needing to use remote desktop on a remote user with a shitty Sprint Air Card or Dial-up; I'll gladly pay the tax for that.
The German GEZ practically established such a tax this year at 18 Euros/household. If you own a PC, TV or radio you have to pay. And it doesn't even matter whether you have broadband or not. And GEMA continues to block YouTube content. So pay an additional tax for a broadband that I cannot legally utilize? No thanks. I am already paying enough crap taxes.
If the tax dollars would be used to build, improve and maintain the Internet: hell yes. If the dollars would be siphoned off for other uses: fuck off and die.
I'd be less concerned with the tax itself and more concerned with what the money would be used for. The fact that AT&T supports this just about eliminates my support for it. If I'm going to be paying the tax, it seems reasonable to expect that the resulting benefit would somehow help me, or at least those with comparatively less money/influence than I.
If this were a bill to fund the enforcement of net neutrality principles, for example, I'd be all for it. But something tells me AT&T wouldn't be supporting a bill like that.
I maintain a Verizon landline with Caller ID at my house. We pay $430 a year. I keep it because we have poor cell reception indoors, and are susceptible to power outages (Can't rely on VoIP).
I'm still waiting for my fucking Fiber Optics that was promised in the 1990's when the Gov gave permission to the phone companies to raise their prices because they are going to build a fiber optics network for their customers. http://www.newnetworks.com/BroadbandScandalIntro.htm
So, now I need to pay a tax to maybe get a better internet connection, even though I live in the fucking heart of Seattle? What, thru one of my 2 choices, Comcast and Centurylink? Really?
Will this tax keep them from sending me notices about how much bandwidth i use?
Will this tax keep the internet free from corporate interests?
Will this tax keep the net neutral?
Will any of this tax go to the overbudgeted military?
Pretty sure I'm going to say, Fuck you, give me what I was paid for in the 90's, and NO NEW TAXES!!!!
Be seeing you...
It's called VAT, though where the value in an overpriced, oversubscribed underperforming service is is a mystery.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Fund it with existing income or property taxes
The problem in the US is that the government was big enough to actually save the assholes on Wall Street.
The problem in the USA is that politicians in both political parties do not follow the Constitution of the USA. The Constitution set up a small and limited government however both Democrats and Republicans want big government. The main difference between them is what part of government is big and what part is smart or nonexistent.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Fascism is just Communism implemented where the industrial revolution has already occurred.
Fascism is authoritarianism built on top of nationalism - WE are better than THEM (everyone else) and our Leader is the bestest ever because he is of us and we are the best ever and as such it is foretold in our culture that we shall have the bestest Leader ever.
Everything belongs to us, but since the Leader knows best, he is the one running everything.
Communism is all about equality - EVERYONE is essentially the same, everyone should have the same rights, no one should be lesser than others, no one is oppressed.
No one owns anything really but everything exists solely for the benefit of everyone - so you don't really need to own anything. Everything is run by those who's duty it is to run things, and they are best for that job because they've been taught how to do it according to the available scientific knowledge.
Communism is an impossible utopia. Humans being imperfectly empathic and selfless it can easily become totalitarian if the people are not careful.
Fascism is a very possible insane asylum. Totalitarianism is basically a prerequisite.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
again, wtf does the FCC have to do with the internet?
Is this a joke? They're the Federal Communications Commission. Are you contending that the Internet isn't a form of interstate communication?
Where does the word "Communications" make it's appearance in the Constitution of the USA?
In a letter to Albert Gallatin Thomas Jeffersonwrote “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” James Madison, the father of the Constitution, once wrote “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” when congress undertook to appropriate $15,000 "for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo (now Haiti) to Baltimore and Philadelphia". In the Marbury v Madison case in 1803 Justice Marshall wrote:
The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.
Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I didn't know.
Would I want to pay one? No.
What would it pay for? I would assume copyidiots but maybe it was for other things? Others bandwidth? Of course I could pay for infrastructure costs. Additional revenue stream for Google? No, probably not.
I would pay a flat fee, not for faster access, but to be able to freely download, and share with other licensed downloaders, everything I download.
Hell no. No. NO.
I watch time and again while big bells keep getting grants and tax money as it is and all these breaks to sit on their arse and not do anything. We had DSL installed but shut off to our house for the better part of 4 years. We called and begged them, offered to pay for installation hardware (My father ran a business from home that required high speed) and they claimed it was impossible. We saw a guy working on our phone box one day and stopped and talked to him -- they had DSLAMs installed 3-4 years ago, if not prior, and didnt switch them on because they didnt feel like it.
Then you get charged like crazy, worthless support people who shut your internet off when you pay to have it upgraded to a higher speed, then audited because "something is wrong" and you have to wait for that to finish before they'll hook you up and try to charge you. This isnt isolated, I've moved every other year for the last few years, and DSL and Cable are just as bad. Screw them until they try.
I would be in favor of it, if it were used to build infrastructure for the internet (Rural Areas anyone). Unfortunatly it will probably be used like the 911 tax did, for everything else. Even if they explicitly say that it will be used for something like infrastructure, two years down the road it will be used for something esle.
suq my dix, nigrafaggot!
Considering they modded it down, and all others like it:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137991
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139385
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139461
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137655
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137507
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137569
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41136945
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137263
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137379
Good let them heve it! Enough is enough! If they tax it we will leave!
If I were to be taxed on promised bandwidth ("up to....),then, no.
If it were calculated based on what I actually used, maybe.
If it included having to pay for all the crap, adverts, popups and other garbage that I don't want and never asked for, then again, no.
Considering they modded it down, and all others like it:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137991
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139385
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139461
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137655
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137507
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137569
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41136945
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137263
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137379
Considering they modded it down, and all others like it:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137991
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139385
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139461
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137655
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137507
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137569
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41136945
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137263
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137379
I'm paying too much as it is for cable internet. No, I don't want to pay more.
Considering they modded it down, and all others like it:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137991
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139385
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139461
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137655
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137507
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137569
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41136945
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137263
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137379
Considering they modded it down, and all others like it:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137991
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139385
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139461
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137655
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137507
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137569
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41136945
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137263
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137379
All govenmental/societal philosophies are about the elite knowing what is best. Including libertarianism.
Possibly, but since they would then excert no controls over you based on that superiority how does it differ from them not believing they are a better informed elite?
In short Libertarians want to take over and leave you the hell alone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No fascism is the union of the state and corporate power
Which does not contradict what I said; I included modern progressives.
Obamacare is a breathtaking transformation forcing taxpayers to give more money to insurance companies than they would otherwise, by way of one example.
Non-fasicm is people being able to buy whatever insurance they like. Fascism is forcing everyone to buy a plan, and the most expensive one to boot...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Considering they modded it down, and all others like it:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137991
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139385
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41139461
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137655
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137507
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137569
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41136945
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137263
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3075261&cid=41137379
but I do support an internet sales tax. Most people buy online partly to avoid paying sales tax. This is not fair and local brick and mortar places are paying the price.