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FCC To Halt Expansion of Broadband Subsidies For Poor People (arstechnica.com)
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced today that the FCC will be "dropping its legal defense of a new system for expanding broadband subsidies for poor people, and will not approve applications from companies that want to offer the low-income broadband service," reports Ars Technica. The Lifeline program, which has been around for 32 years and "gives poor people $9.25 a month toward communications services," was voted to be expanded last year under FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. That expansion will now be halted. Ars Technica reports: Pai's decision won't prevent Lifeline subsidies from being used toward broadband, but it will make it harder for ISPs to gain approval to sell the subsidized plans. Last year's decision enabled the FCC to approve new Lifeline Broadband Providers nationwide so that ISPs would not have to seek approval from each state's government. Nine providers were approved under the new system late in former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's term, but Pai rescinded those approvals in February. There are 36 pending applications from ISPs before the commission's Wireline Competition Bureau. However, Pai wrote today, "I do not believe that the Bureau should approve these applications." He argues that only state governments have authority from Congress to approve such applications. When defending his decision to revoke Lifeline approvals for the nine companies, Pai said last month that more than 900 Lifeline providers were not affected. But most of those were apparently offering subsidized telephone service only and not subsidized broadband. Currently, more than 3.5 million Americans are receiving subsidized broadband through Lifeline from 259 eligible providers, Pai said in today's statement. About 99.6 percent of Americans who get subsidized broadband through Lifeline buy it from one of the companies that received certification "through a lawful process," Pai wrote. The remaining 0.4 percent apparently need to switch providers or lose service because of Pai's February decision. Only one ISP had already started providing the subsidized service under the new approval, and it was ordered to notify its customers that they can no longer receive Lifeline discounts. Pai's latest action would prevent new providers from gaining certification in multiple states at once, forcing them to go through each state's approval process separately. Existing providers that want to expand to multiple states would have to complete the same state-by-state process.
The only way to get a robust solution is to build one that is self-reinforcing; that is, the only way is to build a solution that is *profitable*, so that there is an incentive to maintain and improve it.
So it's all toll roads and for-profit prisons in your world-view?
Look, I get it, government is not always the answer. But by your logic, it is also never the answer, and that just is not true.
WE do.
It's called, TAXES.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
When that "stuff" is a luxury yacht, or three month-long vacations in luxury resorts every year, okay.
When the "stuff" that the poor get less of is the very "stuff" that enables everyone to be more productive, participate more fully in our culture and democracy, find and get better jobs, develop more marketable skills, learn new things, then you're not just being callous and cruel, but also self-destructive and anti-freedom.
Throwing procedural hurdles in front of the disadvantaged is even more salt being rubbed into the open wound.
Let them drink Starbucks!
Seriously, I think local access (rural vs. urban) is a bigger issue than rich/poor. There are lots of free options if you're in an urban area, you only have to expend a little effort.
Think 1930's rural electrification. And, that's coming from a (small "l") libertarian. If ISPs want to make profit from using public resources (RF spectrum, physical rights-of-way), make them build extended networks. Otherwise, let them negotiate with every landowner (including governments big and small) whose property their services cross.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
..."and to provide for the general welfare"...
That clause alone justifies laws. regulations, and taxes aimed to improve the lives of the poor. It makes economic sense too because keeping poor people poor does not benefit the wealthy. A rising tide raises all boats.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
It's like politicians don't understand that poor people vote too.
Of course they do. That's why they gerrymander districts, "steal" Supreme Court nominations, and attack access to voting rights under the pretext of near non-existent voter fraud.
Poor people are poor for a reason. They are red-lined into neighborhoods of poor people. They and their children are raised to execute suboptimal reasoning. That makes them manipulable voters, and ineffective in protecting their self interest. Then they knock up the local poor girl, and the cycle perpetuates itself.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
While you are correct that people need access, and that many people need assistance in getting access, the issue should be at the State level as FCC Chairman states. The Federal Government was never intended to be the source of Welfare systems, that is a function of the State.
For some reason, over the last 70 years or so, all social welfare programs have been pushed to the Federal Government. This has caused a massive amount of bloat and comes with an excessive amount of problems. Social Security is a great example of a good idea, but the bureaucracy has completely destroyed the system. Instead of actually saving the money people put in, it has been spent as discretionary funds. There is no money in Social Security, and nothing has been saved since the very early 1970s. People paying in today are the only source of paying people that collect. There is no interest on the money as was promised, and no guarantee that you will get what you are supposed to get. Being 20Trillion in cash debt and 220Trillion in debt when you include entitlements, there is a good chance that you won't get yours.
People should really read the Federalist papers and see where the Founders said power should go and why. They knew that a bloated Federal Government leads to what we have today. Massive corruption, massive cronyism, massive waste and fraud, and it's extremely difficult to remove at that high of a level.
That is not to say that States don't run a risk of corruption, but the corruption at a more local level has numerous benefits. The Federal Government can investigate and charge for corruption at the State level, where they won't touch their own for fear of harming their own budgets. People unhappy with the State Government have more direct control of the elected officials.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
If a poor person needs to use high speed broadband (they have computers, right?) then they can go straight to the public library and use it. For free.
Because public libraries are funded by money that poofs into existence?
Actually, you haven't yet given me any evidence that you're a racist. I haven't looked at your previous postings here or elsewhere on the net, and you didn't say enough in this one. But I certainly would say you were a racist if you convinced me that you were, and the last time I checked the constitution, it gave me the right to do so. This is a Slashdot discussion, and Slashdot is not actually obligated to provide a podium for my first amendment speech, but they generally have done so.
Regarding whether I can tell you that you have to pay the telephone lifeline subsidy fee, the fact is that it's still required, the money is just not going to pay for internet any longer. It still pays for phones for poor people. So, yes, I factually state that you have to pay it.
Now, I understand that you're just trying to express a vague tax-revolt sort of sentiment. I get that, even though I obviously don't agree with it. But IMO you need to put more thought into it. If you can express it better, it might be worth arguing about. That's what democratic discourse is.
Bruce Perens.
Democratic discourse is more than just directing schoolyard words at people. I looked over your words and didn't find a political argument, just abuse aimed at "the left" and at me.
Try to come up with a cogent political argument. Play with the grown-ups instead of sounding like a kid.
Bruce Perens.
We do have the issue that Congress granted the responsibility to regulate communications to the FCC with the Communications Act of 1934. So, this is not really a state issue at all. I also question that all 50 states are uniformly set up to make this approval, or are interested in taking it on.
Bruce Perens.
But poor people definitely get the same public education.
Not even remotely true. Income inequality resulting in public educational inequality is one of the biggest problems in the US today.
But I think your point was that Internet access should be a basic utility (more like electricity or water, which as long as you don't live in Flint, are much less variable than education) which I totally agree with.
Actually, we do. We counted the votes, and not just the Electoral College votes, but the votes in every district across the entire country.
If you are trying to say that people would have voted differently if the rules for counting votes were different, that might have been true if the rules gave the people a different way to actually influence the vote, for example the Condorcet method or its variants that are commonly called "ranked choice" or "instant run-off".
But you seem to be saying that the popular vote would have been substantially different if there was no electoral college. Which is difficult to buy given the polarity of this election. There wasn't much middle ground.
Bruce Perens.
Anything ? No. Not at all.
But some things ? Yes.
And there is a class in between which is could be done either way but turns out better when it is done with public funding.
Farming food ? Historically government is bad at this.
Building roads ? Historically government has been the best way to do this, toll roads only work in certain very narrow conditions. And we all benefit when everybody can use the road without paying for use.
The internet fits in that middle group. Lots of large private networks were built around the same time - but they didn't take off like the internet. The internet did exactly because it LACKED an owner. The web followed a similar pattern. It's been said that in the early 1990s every company was wondering "How can I make the web mine" while Tim Berners-Lee was asking "How can I make the web yours". Designing the technology was not the hard part, in fact some of those large privately owned networks had technology that was, arguably, far more advanced than the internet technology at the time. Yet they didn't become the internet - because to BE an internet you needed a hands-off approach, and a willingness to let everybody use it and evolve it and expand it in all sorts of ways without trying to make money out of them all. A central controller or owner would have prevented it from succeeding. The internet was the exact OPPOSITE of a tragedy of the commons - it was a technology that couldn't happen UNLESS it was a commons.
You need some sort of public funding to establish a commons - that may or may not involve a government but it has to be public and devoid of profit motive.
Profit-seeking companies can make use of the commons AFTER it's established (and provided it's either designed or managed in such a way that they cannot in the process take control of all of it) - but they cannot establish it. Well maybe they could - but they never would, there's no visible way to profit from it.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Internet access in our society is now a need because more and more official documents are sent by mail, official information is only available through internet and job offers are more and more only on internet. Now, you say that a family who can barely buy enough food to feed them should throw 29.95 a month (~1 week of food for a poor family of 4) to be able to find jobs and communicate? Get out of your mom basement and look out what it mean to being poor. Go to your nearest association who help poor people and ask them and you will see that even a 9$ internet connection is weighting a lot in some poor family budgets.
I've had $90 DSL that wasn't fit to fill out job applications. College-student jobs don't take paper applications or resumes any more. Just saying - if you can't log onto a "careers" website, you will find it hard pressed to get a job unless you know someone who can pull strings for you.
BTW, the DOT, NHTSA and EPA keep those cars from killing us all, and the DOE and FCC allows most electrical devices to work (rather than just the most powerful and/or interference-immune ones). You're welcome! :-)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel