The problem is that pretty much every product these days uses computer chips or various sorts, which WILL have all sorts of copyrights, patents, and such. Since many chips are made outside the USA, that DOES mean that just about everything has at least one element that comes from a foreign country.
There are many places where new highways/freeways are needed, and many places where expanding on existing roads makes more sense. To say that because YOU live in a place where there is no need for a new highway that it isn't a good idea to build new ones just shows the limitations in understanding that so many people have.
One thing that adds to costs of goods is the cost of shipping. If you have a very rural area that has small roads with only one lane in each direction, that means that transportation of goods will slow down, and that increases costs. The whole Interstate system in the USA was introduced to help deal with that issue, but there are still MANY places that have a horrible road system. There are also areas where you can NOT widen the existing highways due to limited space, or where it would help, but not do enough in the long run.
On the flip side, many people do not know what it is like to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and where you need to drive 30-45 minutes just to get to the nearest highway. If you did, then the idea that a new highway that connected your town to the rest of the world would be a really big positive, and would open the doors for more businesses to move into the area, which means more jobs. Adding highways to an area that already has one or more highways just does not sound like it would help, though it CAN.
The big thing is that people should not assume that their own personal experiences apply to EVERYWHERE. People in the Northeast USA really have very little comprehension of what life would be like in a small town in Kentucky for example, because it is going to be VERY different. Then again, most people have a problem with thinking outside the box, or assuming that knowledge of EVERYTHING around you will prepare you for anything that might happen. Isaac Asimov understood this very well, and reading the Foundation series(both the original trilogy as well as following books) will illustrate that idea. The more you think you understand everything, the less prepared you are for the unexpected.
Considering the piss-poor quality of Intel based machines in the $500 and under range, and when AMD based machines do tend to have higher quality components in that range, you could compare buying an Intel based machine like putting a Ferrari engine into a Yugo. Yea, it may be faster, but the overall experience of owning it will be shorter and more prone to failure. Obviously, going to a higher end Intel machine would result in a better experience, but at the low end, Intel based machines have a much higher failure rate across all brands compared to AMD.
In this day and age, CPU performance means less and overall performance is the thing people look for. A quad-core 1.5GHz is easily enough for your average home user for day to day, and at that point, GPU power for things like full-screen youtube or Netflix videos becomes a bit more of a concern. We WILL have to wait and see what the performance numbers come in at, but a 10% bump in CPU performance is expected over the last generation from AMD.
What, Creative Labs can't release a decent driver for a new version of Windows? There is NOTHING new there since they couldn't come up with a decent driver for Windows XP for the SB Live cards, and actually drove me and many others away. Creative has NEVER been good about drivers.
There are a number of things in Windows 8 that look like they WILL be a big improvement, but it will take some time to get used to the changes. If you think about it, we have had "explorer" since 1995, so for most people, a "start" button is very natural and anything different would take time to get used to. With that said, many people are really resisting the change in the UI, to the point where they are looking for excuses to NOT make the switch. Yes, Windows 7 is the best version of Windows to date, and we CAN expect a number of annoying issues with Windows 8 due to the number of changes to "how you use the computer". I suspect we will see most of those issues fixed with service pack 1. The problem is that the longer you avoid the upgrade to Windows 8, the more difficult it will be to adapt and accept the changes.
There really is an almost instinctive fear in humans of change. Moving is considered a traumatic experience...for those who have not moved very often. New jobs involve change, etc. So, embrace change, and adapt. Those who can not adapt will eventually die as others who can adapt will move forward more quickly. It is all just a part of being human.
You can wait, but I STRONGLY suggest doing a multi-boot at least so you can get used to the changes in Windows 8, because it will only continue to evolve, and hanging back will only cause YOU more grief in the long run. Again, expect issues, but the original Windows 95 wasn't perfect either.
Apple has one thing going for it, very few models with fairly little variation between models. This means that the OS can be EASILY updated for every iOS device without a ton of effort. With Android, there are a ton of different hardware combinations from many different vendors, and to offer an OS update, you need DRIVERS that will work on each model. This is also why you have driver issues with each architecture change in Windows, because getting hardware vendors to get good drivers out requires EFFORT.
Now, considering that fairly few devices have come with Jelly Bean on them, it makes sense that the adoption rate would be low. Device drivers seem to have come out, and device makers have been working to certify that JB works PROPERLY on existing devices before doing the release.
Market cap means NOTHING. You could have a 5 employee company with 10 trillion shares going for $1 each and end up as the largest publicly traded company in the world, but it doesn't mean the company is big or even matters in the grand scheme of things. How many employees, what is the gross and net profit and so on is what is really important, and Apple is NOT in the lead in that regard.
If you look at any digital camera that has a flash that only goes off when it is "dark enough", doesn't that preclude this Apple patent since device settings change based on the amount of light in the room? My Palm Pre Plus has it in the camera app, and prior art should be found in most digital cameras at this point. Ford Sync has settings on adaptive audio based on speed, which could also feed into the arguments about "we know about the environment, so adjust settings accordingly".
Piledriver in October of 2012 should answer your question about performance, so you won't need to wait for next year. 8 cores at 4GHz without the scheduler problems SHOULD beat the Phenom 2 generation, but we have another 1-2 months before we know for sure what the performance will be. Socket AM3+ does mean that DDR2 will finally be fading away, so many of us with older systems WILL need all new motherboards and memory on those older machines that didn't get updated yet.
Piledriver(not in an APU) comes out in October of THIS year(2012) with the 8350 set to be released at 4GHz and a turbo mode to 4.2GHz speed without overclocking. Steamroller will be the next step after Piledriver for next year. It is almost a given that improvements to performance per watt will happen every YEAR, so what comes out in a 125 watt max this year will be a 90 watt chip next year for the same performance, possibly even going below that level depending on improvements in the process technology.
The big questions will be in overall performance improvements, such as moving from modules(with shared resources between two cores) to each core getting its own resources. Fab process advances outside of Intel will be a key for that, since a Piledriver design on a 22nm fab process would be a huge improvement in size and power which could also allow for larger cache sizes, which would help with overall performance.
You know the Intel tick-tock strategy, fab process one year, core design improvements the next, back and forth. AMD has been limited in not getting those fab process improvements to allow for better speeds and to allow for design improvements that would require more transistors to make work.
Overclocking compared to the stock speed of 4GHz is two different things. There WERE some issues that held back overclocking in older chips(4GHz was almost a hard limit for some reason), but that has been fixed in the newer chips. Still, the AMD FX 8350 running a stock 4GHz with turbo mode to 4.2GHz should be interesting with the new Piledriver improvements over Bulldozer. That is something that should be interesting to see, just because it may fix all the performance problems with Bulldozer.
You are dealing with some outdated information. The AMD three core processors mostly were gone by the time the Phenom 2 generation came out and once the process technology was a bit more mature. New designs are always problematic, so more "failures" are expected. The Bulldozer issues are the same way, initial batch of a new design was a bit problematic, which Piledriver will fix.
Notice that the A10 parts from AMD have NOT had production issues, and those are based on Piledriver, so now it is just about getting the Piledriver based chips out at high speeds(FX 8350 will be an eight-core chip running at 4GHz with turbo to 4.2GHz stock without overclocking at 125 watt max power draw and due out in October of 2012). That doesn't sound problematic, and should also resolve the performance issues, even under Windows XP/Vista/7.
I am guessing those who want to do more GPGPU type stuff, so if you get a supported video card or multiple video cards, then you can potentially get some great performance. Of course, if running dual-GPU stuff is what you want, you should NOT be bothering with a cheap motherboard.
You have missed the difference between the higher end "expensive" boards and the lower end consumer boards. Things have changed a fair bit over the past two years since consumer level processors from AMD are the A series(E and C make no sense on the desktop) with the GPU built into the CPU. The socket AM3 and AM3+ boards are intended for machines that will be higher performing(video card, not integrated video), so you end up paying more in that segment these days.
You can find cheap boards that support what you want for the most part: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157319
You will generally get what you are looking for, but like Intel, there are low end chipsets, and then you have medium and then high end chipsets. If you go cheap, don't expect the newest features.
Only in select tests, in most situations, Intel graphics still SUCK, and their drivers just can't cut it. Intel keeps claiming PLANS for something much faster, but outside of artificial benchmarks, Intel still has a LONG way to go. AMD also does not have much to really worry about, because at ANY time, they can put in a better GPU in new APUs. There is also something called graphics quality, where the speed doesn't mean much if what you are looking at is ugly.
One thing that many need to consider is that an eight-core processor will be excellent for multi-threaded applications, but if the implementation isn't great or the OS does not talk to it well, it may not be as fast in older applications. Now, Bulldozer left a lot of people unsatisfied, mostly because the performance was NOT where it should have been. Piledriver itself should provide a 10-15 percent performance boost over Bulldozer, and will be available in another few months(FX 8350 from what I have read). Steamroller will hopefully give a nice boost beyond Piledriver in terms of performance.
One issue that I have is when people use "performance per watt". From that standpoint, a very slow chip that does not require much power to run has a very good performance per watt, yet will still be a very slow chip. Boosts in performance per watt can mean the chip is no faster than previous chips, but takes less power to operate, something that MOST people do not care all that much about, they want a FASTER chip. The Phenom 2 955 initially came out in a 125 watt version, and later was released with a 95 watt version. This means you get more performance per watt, but it isn't any faster, meaning most people will not care. If the electric bill goes up or down by $5/month, people just don't care when everything else is so expensive($5 means very little these days and you can't even buy lunch for that little).
We really are at the point where computers for the most part are "fast enough" for most people, and it is only the continual increase in what we are doing at the same time that drives the desire for faster machines. Moving to solid state drives would be a bigger improvement for most these days than going from a quad-core processor to an oct-core processor.
You have to look at the level of the printer before saying it applies to ALL printers. HP has cheap "disposable" printers in the $120 and under range, and they are complete and total crap, but they also have some fairly decent mid-range units that are MUCH better. The old saying about getting what you pay for DOES apply in many situations. There is also the difference in speed for your money as well, where the lower cost laser printers are SLOW compared to ink jet. I agree that ink jet is better for long-term cost effectiveness, but on the flip side, compare what you get from a HP Officejet Pro 8600 and a laser printer at the same price.
Farmers are too busy to worry about sitting on the Internet. 802.22 wireless will solve most of these issues if/when it gets deployed. It may not be good for mobile devices, but service to the home will work.
Let me ask, how expensive do you think it is to provide access, even in a small 2 square mile area? The USA does NOT have a government run backbone that is easily connected to and that would make it easy for new providers to get established. Not everywhere has a university that would even get government grants to bring access out into those areas as well, and that is what many forget.
Now, here's the basic formula for a business to operate at a profit: Income-expenses > 0
If the expenses(and just maintaining the lines is expensive when you have idiots that dig and cut through the lines, storms, and just needing to replace equipment over time) are high, then that makes it difficult in many cases to justify expanding a network into an unprofitable area. Why would you spend $5 million at a minimum to try adding "competition" when you expenses will exceed your revenues for at least 20 years? The only way to do it is to go BIG, meaning $1 Trillion to blanket a large area and then offer something the existing companies do not offer, or do things better, and then you are risking a LOT of money where people may not have a problem with the existing service, so might not switch to YOUR company anyway.
It is more about how expensive it is just to live these days. Those who are living comfortably are more charitable in general than those who are barely able to pay their bills. All those people out of work due to the recession, a lack of jobs, and the people that DO have money being VERY cautious about spending it. When someone is paying your bills for you(including those in academia who get grants and such), it is very easy to forget how difficult life can be, so suggesting that what you have(for free or close to it) should be available to EVERYONE shows a flaw in the understanding of the life of many/most people.
I pay for my service, $50 or so per month....do the majority of people living in areas without broadband want to pay that much, or are they living in financially distressed areas? It isn't JUST the cost of providing service to an area, it is having people willing to pay for the service, plus maintenance expenses. What about the expense to add bandwidth to an area as use goes up, who pays for that when the kids are all streaming movies all day long?
I am all for charity, when I am not broke, but don't ask me to be charitable when I am having problems paying the mortgage. The government needs to be the same way, stop being charitable with other countries without there being some sort of return on the investment. We help countries in the middle east, they should PAY us all our expenses for helping them, either in oil, or in some other way.
It IS an investment, but you can't invest if you have no money. There is always a balance that needs to be struck between how much something costs, and the payoff, and if it is more expensive than the long-term returns, then it is questionable at best to invest in it. Now, what happens with businesses and tax incentives by states is that there is lost tax revenues from the business not paying as much if any taxes, but all the employees who now have work in the state now will be paying taxes, plus the supporting businesses(food industry for example) increasing profits, which in turn means more tax revenues. So, it is a risk to offer tax breaks, but if a business does well, all those employees and other economic benefits make it an acceptable risk.
So, what benefit is there to providing broadband to very rural areas if it does not directly or even indirectly boost the economy of that area. If only three people end up with work or extra work in an area due to providing broadband, that is not enough of a benefit to make it worth the $100,000+ expense needed to bring in broadband, plus the ongoing expenses. You should also keep in mind that since most states are running a budget deficit as well, it isn't as if there is a lot of money available to pay for what goes on in other states.
It is like all the money that has been given to help the starving children in Ethiopia....after all these decades, and all that money spent, has there been ANY improvement in the situation there? The idea of charity, or investments, is that there SHOULD be some benefit and hopefully long term improvements. If there have been no significant improvements, then what's the point? Giving welfare is the same way, people should not be on welfare their entire lives, and if the people on welfare do not give back to the community, then why again is the money being given in the first place, why not just let those people be homeless if they are not willing to work?
It is called the government running at a deficit, and people not being happy with the fact. FAST Internet is also seen as a luxury, not a necessity. There is no human health risk in not having an Internet connection.
You choose to live there, so you either buy, install, and maintain your own fiber to where you live, or accept the higher prices. Basically, it is like intentionally moving into a prison block, then complaining that you have to be worried about getting raped. If you don't like being out of range of good broadband, then MOVE.
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The problem is that pretty much every product these days uses computer chips or various sorts, which WILL have all sorts of copyrights, patents, and such. Since many chips are made outside the USA, that DOES mean that just about everything has at least one element that comes from a foreign country.
There are many places where new highways/freeways are needed, and many places where expanding on existing roads makes more sense. To say that because YOU live in a place where there is no need for a new highway that it isn't a good idea to build new ones just shows the limitations in understanding that so many people have.
One thing that adds to costs of goods is the cost of shipping. If you have a very rural area that has small roads with only one lane in each direction, that means that transportation of goods will slow down, and that increases costs. The whole Interstate system in the USA was introduced to help deal with that issue, but there are still MANY places that have a horrible road system. There are also areas where you can NOT widen the existing highways due to limited space, or where it would help, but not do enough in the long run.
On the flip side, many people do not know what it is like to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and where you need to drive 30-45 minutes just to get to the nearest highway. If you did, then the idea that a new highway that connected your town to the rest of the world would be a really big positive, and would open the doors for more businesses to move into the area, which means more jobs. Adding highways to an area that already has one or more highways just does not sound like it would help, though it CAN.
The big thing is that people should not assume that their own personal experiences apply to EVERYWHERE. People in the Northeast USA really have very little comprehension of what life would be like in a small town in Kentucky for example, because it is going to be VERY different. Then again, most people have a problem with thinking outside the box, or assuming that knowledge of EVERYTHING around you will prepare you for anything that might happen. Isaac Asimov understood this very well, and reading the Foundation series(both the original trilogy as well as following books) will illustrate that idea. The more you think you understand everything, the less prepared you are for the unexpected.
Considering the piss-poor quality of Intel based machines in the $500 and under range, and when AMD based machines do tend to have higher quality components in that range, you could compare buying an Intel based machine like putting a Ferrari engine into a Yugo. Yea, it may be faster, but the overall experience of owning it will be shorter and more prone to failure. Obviously, going to a higher end Intel machine would result in a better experience, but at the low end, Intel based machines have a much higher failure rate across all brands compared to AMD.
In this day and age, CPU performance means less and overall performance is the thing people look for. A quad-core 1.5GHz is easily enough for your average home user for day to day, and at that point, GPU power for things like full-screen youtube or Netflix videos becomes a bit more of a concern. We WILL have to wait and see what the performance numbers come in at, but a 10% bump in CPU performance is expected over the last generation from AMD.
What, Creative Labs can't release a decent driver for a new version of Windows? There is NOTHING new there since they couldn't come up with a decent driver for Windows XP for the SB Live cards, and actually drove me and many others away. Creative has NEVER been good about drivers.
There are a number of things in Windows 8 that look like they WILL be a big improvement, but it will take some time to get used to the changes. If you think about it, we have had "explorer" since 1995, so for most people, a "start" button is very natural and anything different would take time to get used to. With that said, many people are really resisting the change in the UI, to the point where they are looking for excuses to NOT make the switch. Yes, Windows 7 is the best version of Windows to date, and we CAN expect a number of annoying issues with Windows 8 due to the number of changes to "how you use the computer". I suspect we will see most of those issues fixed with service pack 1. The problem is that the longer you avoid the upgrade to Windows 8, the more difficult it will be to adapt and accept the changes.
There really is an almost instinctive fear in humans of change. Moving is considered a traumatic experience...for those who have not moved very often. New jobs involve change, etc. So, embrace change, and adapt. Those who can not adapt will eventually die as others who can adapt will move forward more quickly. It is all just a part of being human.
You can wait, but I STRONGLY suggest doing a multi-boot at least so you can get used to the changes in Windows 8, because it will only continue to evolve, and hanging back will only cause YOU more grief in the long run. Again, expect issues, but the original Windows 95 wasn't perfect either.
Apple has one thing going for it, very few models with fairly little variation between models. This means that the OS can be EASILY updated for every iOS device without a ton of effort. With Android, there are a ton of different hardware combinations from many different vendors, and to offer an OS update, you need DRIVERS that will work on each model. This is also why you have driver issues with each architecture change in Windows, because getting hardware vendors to get good drivers out requires EFFORT.
Now, considering that fairly few devices have come with Jelly Bean on them, it makes sense that the adoption rate would be low. Device drivers seem to have come out, and device makers have been working to certify that JB works PROPERLY on existing devices before doing the release.
Market cap means NOTHING. You could have a 5 employee company with 10 trillion shares going for $1 each and end up as the largest publicly traded company in the world, but it doesn't mean the company is big or even matters in the grand scheme of things. How many employees, what is the gross and net profit and so on is what is really important, and Apple is NOT in the lead in that regard.
If you look at any digital camera that has a flash that only goes off when it is "dark enough", doesn't that preclude this Apple patent since device settings change based on the amount of light in the room? My Palm Pre Plus has it in the camera app, and prior art should be found in most digital cameras at this point. Ford Sync has settings on adaptive audio based on speed, which could also feed into the arguments about "we know about the environment, so adjust settings accordingly".
Piledriver in October of 2012 should answer your question about performance, so you won't need to wait for next year. 8 cores at 4GHz without the scheduler problems SHOULD beat the Phenom 2 generation, but we have another 1-2 months before we know for sure what the performance will be. Socket AM3+ does mean that DDR2 will finally be fading away, so many of us with older systems WILL need all new motherboards and memory on those older machines that didn't get updated yet.
Piledriver(not in an APU) comes out in October of THIS year(2012) with the 8350 set to be released at 4GHz and a turbo mode to 4.2GHz speed without overclocking. Steamroller will be the next step after Piledriver for next year. It is almost a given that improvements to performance per watt will happen every YEAR, so what comes out in a 125 watt max this year will be a 90 watt chip next year for the same performance, possibly even going below that level depending on improvements in the process technology.
The big questions will be in overall performance improvements, such as moving from modules(with shared resources between two cores) to each core getting its own resources. Fab process advances outside of Intel will be a key for that, since a Piledriver design on a 22nm fab process would be a huge improvement in size and power which could also allow for larger cache sizes, which would help with overall performance.
You know the Intel tick-tock strategy, fab process one year, core design improvements the next, back and forth. AMD has been limited in not getting those fab process improvements to allow for better speeds and to allow for design improvements that would require more transistors to make work.
Overclocking compared to the stock speed of 4GHz is two different things. There WERE some issues that held back overclocking in older chips(4GHz was almost a hard limit for some reason), but that has been fixed in the newer chips. Still, the AMD FX 8350 running a stock 4GHz with turbo mode to 4.2GHz should be interesting with the new Piledriver improvements over Bulldozer. That is something that should be interesting to see, just because it may fix all the performance problems with Bulldozer.
You are dealing with some outdated information. The AMD three core processors mostly were gone by the time the Phenom 2 generation came out and once the process technology was a bit more mature. New designs are always problematic, so more "failures" are expected. The Bulldozer issues are the same way, initial batch of a new design was a bit problematic, which Piledriver will fix.
Notice that the A10 parts from AMD have NOT had production issues, and those are based on Piledriver, so now it is just about getting the Piledriver based chips out at high speeds(FX 8350 will be an eight-core chip running at 4GHz with turbo to 4.2GHz stock without overclocking at 125 watt max power draw and due out in October of 2012). That doesn't sound problematic, and should also resolve the performance issues, even under Windows XP/Vista/7.
I am guessing those who want to do more GPGPU type stuff, so if you get a supported video card or multiple video cards, then you can potentially get some great performance. Of course, if running dual-GPU stuff is what you want, you should NOT be bothering with a cheap motherboard.
You have missed the difference between the higher end "expensive" boards and the lower end consumer boards. Things have changed a fair bit over the past two years since consumer level processors from AMD are the A series(E and C make no sense on the desktop) with the GPU built into the CPU. The socket AM3 and AM3+ boards are intended for machines that will be higher performing(video card, not integrated video), so you end up paying more in that segment these days.
You can find cheap boards that support what you want for the most part: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157319
You will generally get what you are looking for, but like Intel, there are low end chipsets, and then you have medium and then high end chipsets. If you go cheap, don't expect the newest features.
Piledriver you mean. Steamroller will be the next generation after Piledriver(which is due in October of 2012).
Only in select tests, in most situations, Intel graphics still SUCK, and their drivers just can't cut it. Intel keeps claiming PLANS for something much faster, but outside of artificial benchmarks, Intel still has a LONG way to go. AMD also does not have much to really worry about, because at ANY time, they can put in a better GPU in new APUs. There is also something called graphics quality, where the speed doesn't mean much if what you are looking at is ugly.
One thing that many need to consider is that an eight-core processor will be excellent for multi-threaded applications, but if the implementation isn't great or the OS does not talk to it well, it may not be as fast in older applications. Now, Bulldozer left a lot of people unsatisfied, mostly because the performance was NOT where it should have been. Piledriver itself should provide a 10-15 percent performance boost over Bulldozer, and will be available in another few months(FX 8350 from what I have read). Steamroller will hopefully give a nice boost beyond Piledriver in terms of performance.
One issue that I have is when people use "performance per watt". From that standpoint, a very slow chip that does not require much power to run has a very good performance per watt, yet will still be a very slow chip. Boosts in performance per watt can mean the chip is no faster than previous chips, but takes less power to operate, something that MOST people do not care all that much about, they want a FASTER chip. The Phenom 2 955 initially came out in a 125 watt version, and later was released with a 95 watt version. This means you get more performance per watt, but it isn't any faster, meaning most people will not care. If the electric bill goes up or down by $5/month, people just don't care when everything else is so expensive($5 means very little these days and you can't even buy lunch for that little).
We really are at the point where computers for the most part are "fast enough" for most people, and it is only the continual increase in what we are doing at the same time that drives the desire for faster machines. Moving to solid state drives would be a bigger improvement for most these days than going from a quad-core processor to an oct-core processor.
You have to look at the level of the printer before saying it applies to ALL printers. HP has cheap "disposable" printers in the $120 and under range, and they are complete and total crap, but they also have some fairly decent mid-range units that are MUCH better. The old saying about getting what you pay for DOES apply in many situations. There is also the difference in speed for your money as well, where the lower cost laser printers are SLOW compared to ink jet. I agree that ink jet is better for long-term cost effectiveness, but on the flip side, compare what you get from a HP Officejet Pro 8600 and a laser printer at the same price.
Farmers are too busy to worry about sitting on the Internet. 802.22 wireless will solve most of these issues if/when it gets deployed. It may not be good for mobile devices, but service to the home will work.
Let me ask, how expensive do you think it is to provide access, even in a small 2 square mile area? The USA does NOT have a government run backbone that is easily connected to and that would make it easy for new providers to get established. Not everywhere has a university that would even get government grants to bring access out into those areas as well, and that is what many forget.
Now, here's the basic formula for a business to operate at a profit: Income-expenses > 0
If the expenses(and just maintaining the lines is expensive when you have idiots that dig and cut through the lines, storms, and just needing to replace equipment over time) are high, then that makes it difficult in many cases to justify expanding a network into an unprofitable area. Why would you spend $5 million at a minimum to try adding "competition" when you expenses will exceed your revenues for at least 20 years? The only way to do it is to go BIG, meaning $1 Trillion to blanket a large area and then offer something the existing companies do not offer, or do things better, and then you are risking a LOT of money where people may not have a problem with the existing service, so might not switch to YOUR company anyway.
It is more about how expensive it is just to live these days. Those who are living comfortably are more charitable in general than those who are barely able to pay their bills. All those people out of work due to the recession, a lack of jobs, and the people that DO have money being VERY cautious about spending it. When someone is paying your bills for you(including those in academia who get grants and such), it is very easy to forget how difficult life can be, so suggesting that what you have(for free or close to it) should be available to EVERYONE shows a flaw in the understanding of the life of many/most people.
I pay for my service, $50 or so per month....do the majority of people living in areas without broadband want to pay that much, or are they living in financially distressed areas? It isn't JUST the cost of providing service to an area, it is having people willing to pay for the service, plus maintenance expenses. What about the expense to add bandwidth to an area as use goes up, who pays for that when the kids are all streaming movies all day long?
I am all for charity, when I am not broke, but don't ask me to be charitable when I am having problems paying the mortgage. The government needs to be the same way, stop being charitable with other countries without there being some sort of return on the investment. We help countries in the middle east, they should PAY us all our expenses for helping them, either in oil, or in some other way.
It IS an investment, but you can't invest if you have no money. There is always a balance that needs to be struck between how much something costs, and the payoff, and if it is more expensive than the long-term returns, then it is questionable at best to invest in it. Now, what happens with businesses and tax incentives by states is that there is lost tax revenues from the business not paying as much if any taxes, but all the employees who now have work in the state now will be paying taxes, plus the supporting businesses(food industry for example) increasing profits, which in turn means more tax revenues. So, it is a risk to offer tax breaks, but if a business does well, all those employees and other economic benefits make it an acceptable risk.
So, what benefit is there to providing broadband to very rural areas if it does not directly or even indirectly boost the economy of that area. If only three people end up with work or extra work in an area due to providing broadband, that is not enough of a benefit to make it worth the $100,000+ expense needed to bring in broadband, plus the ongoing expenses. You should also keep in mind that since most states are running a budget deficit as well, it isn't as if there is a lot of money available to pay for what goes on in other states.
It is like all the money that has been given to help the starving children in Ethiopia....after all these decades, and all that money spent, has there been ANY improvement in the situation there? The idea of charity, or investments, is that there SHOULD be some benefit and hopefully long term improvements. If there have been no significant improvements, then what's the point? Giving welfare is the same way, people should not be on welfare their entire lives, and if the people on welfare do not give back to the community, then why again is the money being given in the first place, why not just let those people be homeless if they are not willing to work?
It is called the government running at a deficit, and people not being happy with the fact. FAST Internet is also seen as a luxury, not a necessity. There is no human health risk in not having an Internet connection.
You choose to live there, so you either buy, install, and maintain your own fiber to where you live, or accept the higher prices. Basically, it is like intentionally moving into a prison block, then complaining that you have to be worried about getting raped. If you don't like being out of range of good broadband, then MOVE.