NY State Grants $9M For Upstate Broadband Projects

An anonymous reader writes "According to a news report, New York State is giving about $9 million in grants to give broadband connection to 33,000 households and 4,500 businesses in rural areas of the state. This works out to $240 per connection. This second round of grants by Empire State Development is part of a Cuomo administration program to reach more than 500,000 residents with no high-speed Internet access, many in rural areas."

Comments

The Onion

[SJHillman]

Are they sure this isn't from The Onion? Cuomo and the state legislature have been trying their damndest to drive everybody out of rural NY to other states. And it's been working pretty well so far.

Re:The Onion

[CrimsonAvenger]

Property Tax, doesn't really fairly cover the population so a Farmer with a lot of land, will get a heavy tax, while a millionaire who is renting, will pay no tax (directly)

It should, perhaps, be noted that a famer with an average size farm (~440 acres) worth about the average price for farmland (~$5000 in New York State) IS a millionaire. Net worth, not even counting machinery and house/outbuildings (which will be worth the best part of a million by itself) will be around $2.2 million.

Re:The Onion

[jellomizer]

That is the problem. There are people who have a lot of assets then they are people who are rich.
Farmers have a lot of assets, Expensive equipment, lots of land, however they are barely making it because all their profit goes into assets.
That is different then say a Fund Manager who lives in a swanky house, and uses his money into living a more lavish life style.

Re:The Onion

[SJHillman]

On the bright side, farm equipment is at least a depreciable business expense. Last I knew, farmland property taxes are handled differently than residential or commercial taxes, but I don't know how differently. A lot of farmland where I grew up was unsuitable for any other usage, as fields in NY are rarely flat (unless you go to Western NY).

Re:The Onion

[phantomlord]

NY has a progressive rate starting at 4% for $8200 and going up to 8.82% over $1 million. It ranks among the highest bottom rates and top rates and in addition to that, we also have one of the highest sales taxes, some of the highest property taxes, etc in the country. The state also pushes a lot its costs, like much of the cost of Medicaid, to the county level, where the expenses aren't seen in the state's budget expenditures.

California spent $145 billion last year for 34 million people ($4265 per capita). New York spent $135 billion for 19 million ($7105 per capita).

NY has been strangling business and people economically for years, but as long as NYC was humming along, nobody important cares. We haven't had a governor from outside the Hudson Valley Corridor in more than a century, NYC (one man in particular) straight up controls the Assembly and the Senate has been a farce for quite some time. There's a governor that is simultaneously telling people that they can GTFO of the state if they don't believe the same things he does while also begging businesses to come into NY by granting them a decade of complete tax exemption if they open near a college, even if it screws existing businesses and forces them to close or leave the state.

Frankly, I'm not sure NY does ANYTHING right... the only reason I stay is family, but things are getting bad enough that I may just have to leave anyway.

Re:The Onion

[gtall]

NYS has been going downhill ever since Nelson Rockefeller in the 60's and early 70's...yeah, I'm that old. After him, the state swung Democrat although not many noticed the change because Rocky was really a Democrat in spirit. After their fling with the Democrats, the state turned to Pataki, a Republican. I don't recall much of him, he was that influential. Then they swerved Democrat again.

NYS got screwed because Rocky taught the legislature how to really shake down the companies and the people. The labor unions were right behind those policies and helped drive business out of NYS, though Rocky got the ball rolling. This happened while the older rust belt industries were being decimated by the Japanese. The later free trade agreements only accelerated the decline.

NYS never gets out from behind the 8-ball. It is a shame really since they have decent colleges and universities. Somehow, they always manage to fail to capitalize on those. The taxes are enough to prevent many new companies from getting started in the state. And even if they did have tax incentives for companies, they'd have trouble hiring because NYS believes in taxing the pop. out the whazoo.

The local governments also got into the taxing and bureaucratic treadmill. Erie County, where Buffalo sits, should whack about half of their county politicians and the City of Buffalo doubly so. The decrease in pop. was large yet they are carrying on like their pop. was 3 times what it is currently.

Re:The Onion

[ebno-10db]

Property Tax, doesn't really fairly cover the population so a Farmer

Property tax on farmland and undeveloped land is generally much lower than for residential real estate. And since you point out that real estate taxes are levied at the town and county level, you have to specify where you're talking about in order for your comment to make much sense.

Re:The Onion

[tepples]

a millionaire who is renting, will pay no tax (directly)

A renter pays property tax through the landlord. What matters about "directly"?

Re:The Onion

[ebno-10db]

It is not like they ever take Upstate seriously.

Cry me a river. NYC sends $4.1B more to Albany than they get back. The NYC suburbs (Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland & Westchester) send $7.9B more to Albany than they get back, yet the upstate "we're getting screwed" refrain never ends. How much more of a subsidy do you want?

Re:The Onion

[cez]

Not that I agree with high property tax by any means, to me it's like never being able to truly own a piece of land. But it's not the Fund Manager's fault the farmer spends all his money on more taxable assets nor anyone but the farmer who is (presumably?) investing in assets he's not getting adequate (again presumption wise) return on.

Also, your argument falls flat on the fact that someone is paying the property tax on the "swanky house" . If there is a property, there is property tax. I don't see how you can blame renters for not paying their fair share, that's ridiculous. The cost is built into the rent, and actuality in upstate NY, people owning houses pay they rent out pay more property tax because they don't get STAR credit for owner occupied housing with no children in the school district.

New Headline, Old Pork

[retroworks]

The Economist shined the light on all these "rural internet stimulus" projects when they were kickstarted by the feds with $7B in 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/...

The general subject of rural subsidies, from airports to highways to analog television, is older. http://www.downsizinggovernmen... Geography, unlike race or income, is a choice. I'm not red-baiting tea party-er, but the "last mile of track" forgives a lot of costs the private sector won't ignore, and governments with a mission to ignore costs attracts a lot people who represent the worst of capitalism, eager to exploit the willingness of pork politicians to pay for mountain hermits to view streaming porn.

Re:New Headline, Old Pork

[SJHillman]

I find it hard to believe that geography is a choice if you accept that income is not. Especially given that the lower your income, the more difficult it is to move elsewhere.

Re:New Headline, Old Pork

[thaylin]

Yes, it is a choice, of 10k a month rent or not. But seeing as I dont have a choice to be able to afford a 10k a month rent, where you live is not completely choice.

Northern New York Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

As a resident of North Lawrence, NY (about 15 minutes from Massena and the Canadian border) these grants have been a lifeline to the north country. Most of us have had to use dial up or pay Verizon $60 a month for 5Gbs of spotty service from a 4G hotspot. This next batch of grants will bring a 100mb fiber connection to my house for $80 a month. I'm generally not big on government spending, but we just had our first real data center put in. The nearest one being almost one-hundred fifty miles south. This is bringing a boon to the local economy, as a number of call centers are looking to move into the region because of cheap power (Massena Electric) and the availability of broadband to run VoIP call center systems.

Re:Northern New York Broadband

[wiredlogic]

As a former Resident of Rochester you should be so lucky. Try living 1 mile from a Frontier CO and only be able to get 2Mbps down. NYs upstate cities could use some broadband funding too.

Re:Northern New York Broadband

[SJHillman]

As a current resident of Rochester, I get 30mbps down from Time Warner (whilst paying for 10). Maybe the problem is just Frontier... they're our ISP at work and we regularly have issues with them. That said, I would happily welcome more ISPs to the area.

Re:Northern New York Broadband

[SJHillman]

"Why should the government subsidize the cost of living in a place like that?"
For the same reason Upstate residents subsidize the cost of transmitting power downstate? It's infrastructure that does have long-term economic benefits for the population as a whole.

"$100k household income down here is hardly rich, but it goes a lot further in the North Country."
It may go further Upstate, but it's also much, much less common, even in areas that technically have a higher per capita income than Downstate regions. There's also things like density and scale to consider.

Re:Northern New York Broadband

[SJHillman]

I don't see how any of what you listed is infrastructure. That's the difference. The only reason there's any industry upstate at all is because of Internet access and highways.

Re:Northern New York Broadband

[SJHillman]

Google defines infrastructure as "the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise."
I'd really like to know how welfare, wealth redistribution or medicare fits into that definition.

As for industry before highways and Internet access, industry was extremely limited in upstate NY unless you were right on the Erie Canal/Mohawk/Hudson system, St. Lawrence or Lake Ontario. Route 12 allows Lowville to have the largest cream cheese factory in the world. I-81 is the only reason Fulton Boiler can even exist in Pulaski, because they truck some seriously massive boilers. The benefits of the NYS Thruway (I-90) are pretty obvious - without it, cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica and possibly even Albany would have completely died once the Erie Canal became obsolete. Before the highway infrastructure, there was some limited industry along the Erie Canal but not much else outside of logging. And if you need someone to explain how Internet helps industry, this probably isn't the site for you.

Re:Northern New York Broadband

[SJHillman]

That's a pretty big roundabout way to qualify that stuff as infrastructure and is clearly different than what most people would define infrastructure as... including most dictionaries. I think you left a few straws while you were grasping.

Yes, it was limited when waterways were the best way to do it. Now that highways are more efficient than canals, they're the only reason there's still industry upstate... without the highways and other physical infrastructure, it would have moved elsewhere. And now that some of that infrastructure isn't being maintained like it should, they already are beginning to look elsewhere.

$240?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Seriously, $240? If the connections could be made for $240, customers would be paying for it themselves.

I'm in a similar area and the cost for extending cable broadband is quoted by the incumbent at $60,000 per mile. That works out to about $5K per household in the typical area.

Oh, and I've had a cable contractor spec out the build cost* - the lines themselves are under $12K per mile, fully installed to spec and terminated. Still, that's closer to $1000 per household, before cabinet costs.

Don't believe for a minute that the cabinet costs $48K or that the provider should have $0 investment (since they'll be collecting monthly fees), but still $240 doesn't do much at all.

* we were looking to DIY the neighborhood but ultimately could not get/rent pole space from the ILEC. There is currently 1 wire on the pole, owned by the ILEC. Supposedly the Town probably had lease rights on the pole, but the contracts burned in a Town Hall fire 60 years ago.

think of AM/FM radio as a free product

[swschrad]

if the haters shut off rant radio and tune in music, raising the ratings, more stations will go back to rock jocking. radio programmers are sweating little furry squirming kittens as listenership continues to tail off, whatever they try. only one way to prevail: tune out the talk and turn up the tunes.