Trump's FCC Votes To Allow Broadband Rate Hikes Will Deprive More Public Schools From Getting Internet Access (theoutline.com)

The FCC voted on Thursday to approve a controversial plan to deregulate the $45 billion market for business-to-business broadband, also known as Business Data Services (BDS), by eliminating price caps that make internet access more affordable for thousands of small businesses, schools, libraries and hospitals. The Outline adds: The price caps were designed to keep phone and, later, broadband, access cheap for community institutions like schools, hospitals, libraries, and small businesses. Now, there will be no limit. A spokesperson for the trade association Incompas, which advocates for competition among communications providers, told The Outline that the increase is expected to be at least 25 percent across the board. Low-income schools already don't have enough money; according to a report last year in The Atlantic, schools in high-poverty districts, where the property taxes are lower, spend 15.6 percent less per student than schools in low-poverty districts. If internet costs go up by 25 percent, it may make more sense to cut that budget item, or, for schools that still don't have internet, never add it at all. Add it to the list of things that well-funded schools in already-rich neighborhoods get that schools in low-income neighborhoods don't. New textbooks. Gyms. Advanced Placement classes that let students earn college credits. Computers. Internet access.

Comments

Let's play a game called "balanced viewpoint"

[SuperKendall]

I had never heard of the website liked, but you could be pretty sure it would be one of those left leaning Fake News sites - the "Trump's XXXXXX" title gave that away.

So I went and found a balanced article (the link that should have been provided by the rabid Trump-Hater to begin with).

From the article:

Supporters of Pai's plan discount concerns that prices will rise, saying there's already significant competition in the BDS market. Critics who see a lack of competition "subdivide this market and make all these distinctions" to reach their own conclusions,..In 2016, the FCC found that competing networks within a half mile of a location served by a single provider "had a competitive effect" on pricing, Banks noted.

One again Trump Haters ignore reality and will end up wondering why things didn't turn out like they thought. If only reality ACTUALLY had a liberal bias as claimed!

Re:Serving his friends against his constituents

[Anonymous Coward]

It never ceases to amaze me how Republicans can convince people to vote against their own best interests. At this point I'm inclined to say fuck it. The only way they'll learn is to let this run its course. Cut the internet access at schools and let the poor people experience offline life, then casually point out why it is like it is.

It never ceases to amaze me how "liberals" arrogate to themselves the ability to judge what someone else's "best interests" are.

Is it objectively in inner-city blacks' "best interests" to keep voting Democrat and remain mired in poverty for generation after generation?

Hmm, you think maybe the Dems have figured that out? "If we fuck up the schools, we'll be able to buy votes with promises of 'free stuff'!" Funny how the most fucked-up failing schools come from Democrat-controlled areas and are run by Democrat-funding teacher's unions...