Free Broadband For NYC Public Housing?

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."

Comments

Posted earlier in the week

[Crashmarik]

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.

Good idea

[K8Fan]

You can't even apply for a job at Burger King without an Internet connection these days.

Re:Good idea

[ShanghaiBill]

You can't even apply for a job at Burger King without an Internet connection these days.

There are free Internet connected computers at the public library, available for anyone to use. The lack of free Internet is not stopping anyone from getting a job.

Re:Good idea

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

By that same token, if the nearest major grocery store is an hour bus ride away from an inner-city neighborhood, that distance is not actually STOPPING poor residents from getting affordable fresh fruit, but it is making it incredibly difficult for them.

Likewise, there are libraries here, but they usually have a one hour time-limit, limited to one or two hours per day. In theory, a poor student isn't being stopped from using the internet, but it might be very difficult for them to do compared to someone who has internet access at home.

If a homework assignment takes eight hours of research, for instance, a poor student might need twenty hours and two weeks to complete the assignment whereas a middle-class student can finish it in eight hours on a single Saturday.

Re:Good idea

[ShanghaiBill]

there are not enough public computers to go around.

Then maybe we should be putting more computers in libraries, where (as you said) they are used 100% of the time, rather than putting them in public housing where they may be used 5% of the time.

Most libraries provide free WiFi in addition to terminals, and many people bring their own devices. So there is less contention for the terminals.

Not enough

[Richard_at_work]

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

Re:Not enough

[nbauman]

Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom:

        Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.... Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken.

Re:Not enough

[nbauman]

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.

Re:Not enough

[Pax681]

free CHILD CARE? does ANYWHERE have that?

Yes, it's quite common in Europe.. for example here in Scotland we have free childcare, free healthcare, free education, free prescription medicine.
But we also have private childcare,private healthcare, private education.. we have choice.

Why not?

[nine-times]

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.

Only 15 comments and this trash is +4?

[Rujiel]

Trolls sure have itchy trigger fingers in these municipal wifi threads. Don't bring up comcast? Why, because you'd be obligated to defend them? Nice appeal to vague conservative outrage with the obama phone namedrop, though.

In reality, there are many poor areas where no one can afford broadband, and sedentary ISPs like comcast have no incetive to develop infrastructure or lower their prices. That's the problem--not a bunch of poor folk who want "hand outs".

Municipal Broadband

[the eric conspiracy]

What they should do is put together a municipal broadband system and let the citizenry choose.

Use taxes for this

[hawguy]

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.

Re:and?

[nbauman]

Public housing worked out pretty well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Bribery used to be more honest

[silfen]

Actually, this is pretty standard stuff. Adam Smith described this kind of corruption already in The Wealth of Nations. It was pretty much the same then as now: big cities and guilds passing legislation to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the country.

Re:and?

[Shados]

Im a bit dicey about a lot of this stuff (and I'm canadian... some of it is a good idea, ie: health care, school, etc, but there are limits), but internet IMO makes sense, because its the best tool to get your ass out of poverty. It makes looking for a job, learning, school, making connections, finding ways of saving money, etc, a bazillion times easier.

When I was young, I was very, very poor. Computers were not common. As I hit 5th~ grade or so, they started being quite common, and some teachers started giving bonus points or other advantages to people using computers. Then they would give certain research assignments that could be done in minutes with Encarta at the time, but would take forever with books (gathering pictures, snippets, quotes...).

So someone who didn't have a computer would have to -put several times as much effort in the same assignment. That was time they couldn't put in another subject. Let's put aside how retarded/unfair those assignments were at the time, and put it in today's context...where some college work would be downright impossible. Sure, you can use the school's infrastructure, but that prevents you from being at home and multitasking (doing chores, cooking, taking care of siblings) at the same time.

I'm definitely not for free lunch. If there's no difference between rich and poor, there's no reason to get up your ass and help yourself. But in 2014, the internet is the ultimate tool to get out of a shitty situation. Knowledge is just too important, and a basic connection is too cheap to not give it to everyone. You'll spend more money with all the bullshit social programs, or worse, jail, if they stay in poverty a single more day because they were connection-less.

Re: and?

[ShanghaiBill]

cheaper the them having to get all of that in prison / jail.

So your theory is that giving people free housing, food, internet, etc. makes them less likely to be criminals? Do you have any evidence to support that? By conditioning people to believe that they are entitled to something for nothing, we may be creating more crime, not less. Many crimes occurs in criminal "hotspots" where there are few jobs, and few social barriers to a criminal lifestyle. Prior to the 1960s, this was not true, because with no income flowing in, those hotspots were economically unsustainable. People would move away to where they could get a job. But now, with welfare, food stamps, housing projects, etc. people can stay even without an economic base and little hope of honest employment, and crime festers. Instead of helping people stay in poor neighborhoods, maybe we should be helping them to leave. A good place to start would be to ban discriminatory zoning laws.

Slashdot: AM Talk Radio For Nerds.

[westlake]

Simply an observation:

When the geek posts about poverty or gender issues, he seems to come down somewhere to the right of Rush Limbaugh.

Re:buh

[uncqual]

2, how about free internet access for all?

Because this is impossible.

Someone has to pay for purchasing, installing, and maintaining cables in the ground/undersea, switches, routers, head ends, etc. (And, being government provided, likely means the associated labor would have to be Union in many areas which will increase the costs).

I assume you are you offering to pick up the cost. (You must be very wealthy although I don't recall seeing drinkypoo on Forbes 100 list, but I assume you're Bill Gates or someone similar using a alias). Or, perhaps you think I should pay for it? Who? If everybody pays for it, then it isn't free for all and, in fact, is free for none (even those who don't use it).

The government doesn't provide electricity, water, food, sewers, phone service, bus service, or trash pickup "free for all". Why should they do so for internet access?

Re:Bullshit

[YrWrstNtmr]

And what are the immigration policies like to move to rural Finland?
(and I pay $45USD/month for 50/50 unlimited, so not a lot of difference)

Because that is what people in public housing need

[Karmashock]

... More free stuff.

Lets assume we gave all the people in public housing 100 percent of everything they want/need free.

Have we encouraged them or given them the opportunities to better their lives?

Nope.

Public housing should be seen as a temporary solution to temporary problems in a person's life. That or permanent if someone is very disabled which most of the people in PHing are not.

People are raising SECOND generations of children in public housing. That is madness. Get these people out of public housing if they've been in it for more then a couple years.

That might mean encouraging them to leave big cities they can't afford to live in. Tough. If you're poor, why would you think you can afford to live in places with high costs of living?

PHing the way it is implemented is bad on so many levels. I almost don't know where to start with it.

Re:and?

[dk20]

I'm Canadian as well, and strongly disagree with this.

Not sure where you are, but head by Regent Park in the summer and watch them out on the lawn enjoying a few beers while you are on your way home from work.

The more we (taxpayers) give the more a certain percent of the population takes. We already have "welfare queens" who have multi-generation welfare bums.

If they want/need internet, go to the library. Once they get internet access it wont be long before they need a PC, and other things everyone else has to go to work to pay for.

Want to make a bet over how many of the gvt subsidized houses with free internet will be sitting around watching netflix all day?

You seem to come from a poor background and worked your way out of it, but you are not the norm, many of those living in gvt subsidized housing make a lifetime out of it and never work a day in their life to better themselves.

Re:and?

[Shados]

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?

Hardly "impossible"

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

Right now, if your house is burning down, you can call the fire department, and they put it out free of charge. It's a government service that is paid for, usually primarily by tax dollars and rarely by specific usage fees.

Most government services are paid for by a combination of usage fees, general fees, usage taxes, and general taxes. For instance, transportation is paid for about fifty percent from usage taxes (like gas taxes) and about fifty percent from general taxes, with a bit also paid for by usage fees (like toll bridges and carpool lanes, registration fees, et cetera). Something similar is true of public transportation, which comes about 50% from usage fees (usually in the forms of fares) and about 50% in the form of general taxes.

Right now, the road outside my house is, for the intent of what the OP meant by "free" provided gratis by the government. The government makes sure that I can walk, drive, or bike from my house to wherever I want to go by maintaining public roads. Everyone pays for it in one way or another, but nobody makes me pay a bill every month to walk to the subway station or drive my car to the grocery store.

Absolutely nothing would stop a municipality from doing the same for the internet. Provide basic service to every home in town from the tax general fund, like we do with roads. Charge residences a premium for broadband speeds and raised data caps, charge businesses, and provide discounts or free broadband speeds to children enrolled in school or poorer residents.

It is hardly "impossible". It is really nothing more than a question of some city deciding to actually do it.

Re:Hardly "impossible"

[uncqual]

It's true that Police, and usually Fire, services are included in your tax bill (directly or perhaps indirectly if you're a renter for example). However, these are not easily "metered" utility services. And, at least on some areas, you will get a bill from the City if you call the Paramedics come to your house unless you pay an annual subscription fee. These services are also for the common good (the person who calls the police is not the one that necessarily benefits from getting the murderer off the street for example or if your neighbor's house is on fire even if it's a complete loss by the time the Fire Department gets there, it's in your interest tha they attack the fire before it spreads and burns down the entire block). These services realistically can't be "metered". Also, it was once fairly common in some areas to subscribe to a fire service -- if you didn't subscribe, and your neighbor did, the service they subscribed to would protect your neighbor's house and not lift a finger to put your house fire out unless doing so would help save your neighbor's house.

Internet service is really much more similar to a utility - in fact it IS a utility. Few cities provide free utilities. Sometimes they offer subsidies for low income residents (life-line rates for example). Private companies often provide the service instead of the city (where I live, all these utilities are provided by a private company -- the resident pays the private company, not the government, for the services - just as they pay Comcast or AT&T for their internet service).

Re:and?

[NotSanguine]

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.

I'm not sure how illegal immigrants fit into this discussion, since they aren't eligible for most Federalwelfare programs. Eligibility for state benefits varies from state to state. I suggest you educate yourself, friend.

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?

Good for you. But that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand either. Are you complaining that you pay too much in taxes? Are you unhappy with how your tax dollars are spent? If so, these folks may be able to help.

No sympathy

[msobkow]

I'm on disabiliity in Saskatchewan, which is run by the same people as social services/welfare. I get an extra $200 a month compared to someone on welfare. I have a freezer full of food, wear nice (but not fancy name-brand) clothes, paid for my own glasses, and pay for an upgraded internet connection (mid-tier) as well as my landline. I have a modest single bedroom apartment, but not in one of the big apartment blocks where they gouge you on rent.

A friend of mine is also on disability, and gets the same, but is in subsidized housing so her rent is $200 a month cheaper than mine. Yet while I can afford my internet and have $100/month left over for spending money, she's perpetually broke. Why? She smokes like a chimney.

Most of the people I knew on social services or disability in Regina were also perpetually broke, because come pay day they'd buy a bottle of booze, a case of beer, and order a pizza instead of going shopping for food they could cook themselves.

I know for a fact you can get by on what the programs provide -- I've done so for years. There is no excuse for "suffering" and "having no food" or "not being able to afford the internet". You choose to party it up, go out to bars, and buy frozen foods instead of learning to cook.

So suffer.

You'll not get one whit of sympathy from me.