Why We Have No National Broadband Policy > Priorities people

Priorities people

Here's an idea. Put your money where your mouth is. Don't want to hear about problems with broadband, then move your ignorant ass off of a broadband forum, and go to an energy forum instead. Seriously, WTF is in your address bar, and why are you surprised?

Who said anything about low latency? We're talking about penetration, speed, and fair competition. Not the current profit saving stranglehold that is in place today.

So high gas prices, high debt, high medical costs and crazy Islamists are less important than some farmer in Kentucky getting his broadband?

He is merely stating his opinion, obviously one you disagree with. You calling him names makes you seem ignorant not him.
--
"I hate conservatives, but I really hate liberals." - Matt Stone
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reply to wentlanc

reply to scrummie02

reply to scrummie02
I never said it was more important. Feel free to quote where I did. Nobody ever said anything about what priority this is.

The OP said F a BB policy, which implies that it's not worth the effort at all. We will all be the losers if we don't protect ourselves from corporations who only care about their profits.

reply to Sammer
Farmers aren't going to go out of business because they can't get low latency broadband or can't download more than 100Mb / day. And supercorps like ADM which dominate the farming industry can afford $299 for a T-1.

reply to wentlanc
Not that anyone gives a sh!t but here is the story of my 'hood. Where I live AT&T ex MediaOne hadn't deployed cable HSI yet and Verizon didn't have an RT deployed yet. I had dial return satellite and it worked just great for everything but gaming. However a few of my neighbors, looking to game got together and started a WISP (Unplugged Intenet), got a T-1 and started re-selling. I signed up and it was great. $25 and even though shared I rarely saw less than 900/500. Even after ATTBi deployed (becoming Comcast then TWC) and Verizon deployed an RT and recently FiOS, they're still in business offering a great service. Their WISP competitor Coastinet is still running strong too.

If these people (it's always farmers being brought up and that we will starve if we don't buy them fiber) crying for broadband would put 1/2 the effort they spend whining into actually doing something about it whether it's doing what my neighbors did or passing a local bond measure to fund deployment, they would solve their own problems.

The gov't isn't a solution but is an utter failure in nearly EVERYTHING they do.

reply to ColorBASIC
Yeah that is a great attitude to have.

Then you drive up the cost of everything in your area ! How about a million bucks for a 2 room shack because every one and their mother wants to get a place where they can get broadband, then take your little commute to work and double it, maybe even triple it.

Next you start stressing the highway and road systems of the cities and more money has to go into that. Guess what ! Taxes go up ! You don't understand the changes that can happen when people have a mass exodus.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!"

Yep, deploying DSL will bring Peace to the Middle East too.

reply to ColorBASIC
How many non-urban people have broadband? Oh... gee we don't really know, because the numbers are crap, because we have no one setting a strategy for reporting our penetration. So maybe we are talking about the people in the neighborhood next to yours, and not some rural farmer in Kentucky.

Why do consumers have to be ok with being discriminated against because it will cost more than normal to service them. Meanwhile, the company bitching is making record profits.

Why should we accept it when we work to get alternatives like Muni-BB, and the companies sue the city costing taxpayers money so the company can protect their profits?

Maybe you like being robbed like the rest of the sheep who believe the FUD handed out by the telcos and cablecos on BB. But I for one do not.

Satellite is not a viable option for most people because of the latency. I, for one, cannot use it because of my work requirements. So just because everyone could get an expensive slow satellite that will not allow them to use services like VOIP, VPN, gaming, etc., does not make it the filler for everyone else. It's not the same. It's not even close.

Discriminated against? LMAO. Am I discriminated against because I sit in SoCal traffic? Should I have a 'right' to a congestion free commute? Crap, you cry for cheap farmer John broadband while I'm paying $9.50 1 way for tolls on the SR91. I guess there should be a national 'congestion' policy? Am I discriminated against being I pay $3.75/gal for gasoline while farmers in Iowa pay considerably less? How about a national energy policy? Am I discriminated against because the average OC home is close to $600,000 while a comparable home in rural Iowa is likely 25% of that?

Of course not.

Again, it's not the job of Joe Taxpayer or the gov't to provide for people's luxuries like gaming and VoIP.

And for those who need VPN for their jobs, they should have thought about that when they chose their place to live just like everyone else does when they consider their proximity to work.

As for expense, I don't think $50 for satellite internet is prohibitively expensive.

Slow is a matter of opinion. Some who have FiOS would consider 6Mb cable "slow". Personally I don't consider $50 512/128 "slow", I consider it adequate for the normal websurfing, shopping, and email activities that the vast number of people do. I had dial return satellite and surfed the net, sent emails and all kinds of stuff without issue. Did I play Team Fortress on it? No. But the world didn't end because of it either.

Simply put, helping farmers to grab 10GB/mo in pr0n and playing CS isn't a national emergency.

Let them call Wild Blue, Starband or Hughesnet.

Yeah and I see that California contributes more to the Federal budget than they get back; so much for the highway fund argument.

Let them get and pay for their own low latency broadband. In the meantime they can STFU, call Wild Blue and get HSI for $50.

Last post from me on this as this is derailing the thread.

You're only talking of excise taxes. You ignore the rest of the Federal taxes collected from California, New England and New York meant to subsidize rural states.

California gets back less than .80 of every $1 paid (and there are substantially more dollars being paid) to the Federal government while rural states like OK and KY get back 1.5X the money paid in. OK and KY make quite an ever growing profit at the expense of New England, New York and California.

And in the case of California the percentage of money received per dollar paid has decreased nearly every year for the last 25 years. Meanwhile a state like Kentucky saw their share balloon 50%.

You talk of the big "$197 million" California got in excess of the excise taxes paid ignoring that California paid in more than $250 billion while Kentucky paid in less than $20B. California paid $15.5 billion more in taxes than they received. $16 billion is more than the entire budgets of some of these states. Hell our State budget deficit alone in 2003 was $35 billion, due in no small part to the shortage from the Federal gov't.

Even on a per capita basis the average Californian paid in 50% more in Federal taxes than the average Kentuckian.

»www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/347.html

But that is our progressive tax system and I can accept it in terms of providing ESSENTIAL services like water and electricity.

Low latency broadband is in no way shape or form an essential service and prior to 1996 was non-existent. You don't go from non-existence to essential in 10 years.

So don't cry me a river about how California got $197 "million" more in excise receipts than we paid in. $197M is NOTHING compared to the $16 billion we were shorted.

So let rural folks call Wild Blue, Starband, HughesNet or any of the other broadband satellite providers LIKE I DID when I didn't have cable or DSL internet service. Or God forbid, let them start a WISP (like my neighbors did) or pass a LOCAL bond measure to fund their deployment just like California passes BILLIONS in local bond measures to build schools and freeways because we can't get anywhere near our fair share back from the Federal government.

As abstract 469 demonstrates, Oklahoma and Kentucky are aberrations. If you want to find the states that are receiving far more spending than they pay out in taxes, you need to look to:
Maryland
Alaska
New Mexico
Virginia
Connecticutt
Hawaii
Maine
Massachusetts
North Dakota
Wyoming

It is a mix of rural states and dense states.

The states getting the least spending per capita?
Michigan
Minnesota
Nevada
Utah
Wisconsin
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
New Hampshire
Oregon

The trend there should be pretty obvious.

California comes in at the 17th lowest.
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