Non-Cable Internet Providers Offer Faster Speeds To the Wealthy (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When non-cable Internet providers -- outlets like ATT or Verizon -- choose which communities to offer the fastest connections, they don't juice up their networks so everyone in their service area has the option of buying quicker speeds. Instead, they tend to favor the wealthy over the poor, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity. The Center's data analysis found that the largest non-cable Internet providers collectively offer faster speeds to about 40 percent of the population they serve nationwide in wealthy areas compared with just 22 percent of the population in poor areas. That leaves tens of millions of Americans with the choice of either purchasing an expensive connection from the only provider in their area -- typically a cable company -- or just doing the best they can with slower speeds. Middle-income areas don't fare much better, with a bit more than 27 percent of the population having access to a DSL provider's fastest speeds. The Center reached its conclusions by merging the latest Federal Communications Commission (FCC) data with income information from the U.S. Census Bureau. The non-cable Internet providers -- the four largest are ATT Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, CenturyLink Inc, and Frontier Communications Corp -- hook up customers over telephone wires that are Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), or they use hybrid networks that include some fiber connections near (and sometimes directly to) homes. The Center included all types of connection in its analysis. These companies account for nearly 40 percent of the 92 million Internet connections nationwide. Cable companies, such as Comcast Corp and Charter Communications Inc, operate under a different set of conditions. These providers offer the same fast speeds to almost every community they serve, in part because of franchise agreements with local governments. But a previous Center investigation and other reports have shown that cable firms sometimes avoid lower-income or hard-to-reach areas based on how franchise agreements are written. Poor areas not served by the cable companies are not included in the Centerâ(TM)s analysis, which results in what seems like an equitable distribution of speeds across income levels. "Society said it did not matter if you could pay for electricity; we wanted everyone to have it. Society said we would not limit dial tone to those who could pay the most, we gave it to all," said telecommunications lawyer Gerard Lederer of Best Best and Krieger LCC in Washington, D.C., in an e-mail. "Broadband is quickly becoming that utility, and if applications only work at high speeds, then the universal availability of that speed must be the goal, otherwise you are providing everyone with water, just some of the water is not drinkable."

Comments

That would be fine

[rsilvergun]

if we weren't paying them billions and billions of dollars in both tax and direct subsidies to bring high speed internet to the everyone; especially the poor. Fuck them. They built none of the infrastructure they profit from. They're rent seeking parasites. Take it away from them and nationalize it. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Anything more important than a twinkie shouldn't be left in the hands of private industry.

You're kinda missing the point

[rsilvergun]

They get the spending right back in the form of tax breaks and subsidies. They're not really spending it. It's like saying my kid spends $150/mo on food and ignoring that the CC account she uses is mine.

You don't get rich by investing. The real money is in ownership. There was just an MIT study that compared Bill Gates the Microsoft entrepreneur to Bill Gates the rich retired guy. Gates #2 made way more money for not working. They also compared him to one of the wealthy heiresses who'd never worked a day in her life. She was neck and neck with Bill Gates the idle rich guy and trounced Bill Gates the entrepreneur. This is the reality they don't teach you in high school economics class.

Re:The assholes do spend over $1billion / year eac

[naughtynaughty]

That sounds shocking if not for the fact that everyone eligible for Social Security can start collecting at age 62 and has been able to do so for decades.

Nearly 50% of people eligible for Social Security make the choice to collect benefits at age 62, they receive a smaller check for the earlier payout.

Social Security disability payments virtually ALL go to persons under age 65 because a disability payment converts to a regular Social Security check at retirement age. So that skews the numbers lower.

Let's look at actual numbers (https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/fast_facts/2015/fast_facts15.pdf)
About four-fifths of all OASDI beneficiaries in current-payment status were aged 62 or older,
including 22 percent aged 75–84 and 9 percent aged 85 or older. About 15 percent were
persons aged 18–61 receiving benefits as disabled workers, survivors, or dependents. Another
5 percent were children under age 18.

Anything shock you there?

Not even sure why the age 65 thing bothers you, age 62 is when you become eligible for a reduced Social Security retirement benefit and almost half the people who become eligible elect to take smaller checks at age 62 instead of waiting till full retirement age.

You don't even provide a basis for claiming that Obama has anything to do, much less "has done everything he could to expand", with Social Security spending. As the baby boomer population ages there are more people eligible to start collecting their Social Security retirement check. Look at the chart on p 14 of the link I provided above, the number of NEW retired workers has jumped dramatically since about 2003 Obama didn't make people older and the retirement age hasn't decreased.