Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Free Broadband For NYC Public Housing?

Posted by timothy on from the human-righteous dept.

First time accepted submitter nomad63 (686331) writes "Earlier this week, the NY Times reported that a group of city and leaders, with NYC public advocate Letitia James at the helm, are pushing for a commitment from Comcast to provide free broadband to the city's public housing and to extend its low-cost Internet Essentials plan (which was created as a condition of the NBC deal). While New York City might be the center of finance and commerce in the U.S., about 1/3 of households don't have an Internet connection, highlighting the huge "digital divide" between the city's wealthy residents and those who can't afford broadband service.In addition to the free service for public housing, the group wants gratis access at shelters for the city's homeless and its victims of domestic violence."

6 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Posted earlier in the week by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And still misses the real issue here. If you want to narrow the "Digital Divide" stop granting monopolies to companies like Comcast. Once you have some real competition in the market there's no reason that people who need the internet won't be able to buy it for themselves.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

    Is there any reason that internet in NYC should cost 4 times what it does in Zurich or Seoul, except and exploitative monopoly ? The U.S. has places were the population density will make any kind of communication service more expensive but NYC is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet and is not one of them.

  2. Not enough by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Free quality education, free quality medical care and free child care would help more.

    1. Re:Not enough by nbauman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      sure, and free food, free electricity, lets throw in a free car while we are at it.

        Free- that word - you keep using it. I dont think it means what you think it does

      You look like one of those conservabots who searches for every use of the word "Free" and is compelled to add, "It's not free, we pay taxes for it."

      Well, yes, that's the point. There are some services like education, medical care and child care that are cheaper and more efficient for the government to deliver, so we pay for it collectively out of taxes. When we left it to the free market, it failed.

      When we leave education to the free market, children are illiterate. When we leave medical care to the free market, people who can't afford to pay for it die. In fact, even rich people are worse off when they're the only ones who can afford health care.

  3. Why not? by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

    t seems to me that if you're going to give a company a de facto monopoly of both television distribution and Internet, it would be a fair trade-off to require that they provide a very basic level of service to poor people for free. We can quibble over the details, but for example, providing the over-the-air channels and a 1mbps symmetrical connection seems fair.

    These companies don't like to admit it, but they're providing exclusive access to public infrastructure. I think they should be counting their lucky stars that they're not as regulated as other utilities.

  4. Use taxes for this by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wish governments would use taxes to pay for benefits for the poor instead of making us pay through hidden costs by forcing companies to give "free" or reduced cost services, which are made up for in higher fees for the service. The same goes for "affordable housing" where developers have to provide reduced cost housing, which is paid for in higher cost of housing for everyone else.

    I have no problem with providing benefits, but If governments want to provide these benefits, then provide them through taxes where they are shared among all taxpayers (why should a Comcast customer pay to subsidize "free" interenet for the poor, while an AT&T UVerse customer does not?), everyone can see what they are paying to the full cost of providing these benefits is known, and the local taxes are tax deductible themselves.

  5. Re:and? by Shados · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The devil's in the details, isn't it? If you go through my posts, I'm for ensuring everyone has access to internet, but against doing a lot of these things as long as the US doesn't have its undocumented (fuck PC... ILLEGAL) immigrant problem under control. Makes for a complicated problem, and that's why I'm not a politician, or even an activist. I'd just fuck it up.

    That said, I pay more in property tax than a minimum salary worker makes pre-tax, and my wife and I together pay more income tax than the average household income in the US. The only "tax shelters" we have is our 401ks, and only real deductions are the property tax and mortgage interests (I guess I deduct my transit cards too...how greedy of me).

    So that probably pays for my share?