Broadband Growth Continues To Slow > Lousy

reply to benc

Re: Lousy

reply to Tzale
Excellent post, spot on
People think that ISP's have an unlimited pot of money for infrastructure build out, that these companies employ untold number of people so that installs happen over night wow and we have a very large country geographically speaking but that item seems to escape a lot of people. Someone invents a service such as broadband Internet, next thing you know people are demanding extremely fast connections at really cheap prices over night, not going to happen. Keep the damn government out of the equation and let the free market place dictate roll out, availability and pricing.

reply to XBL2009
Your assertion that the government had to step in to ensure everyone had phone service otherwise most folks would not have service because the phone companies are only interested in profits (I hope so we are investors after all) is ludicrous, profits come from people buying the service, if no one, or very few have service no profits get it? The government stepped in to set standards so that people in Iowa would be able to talk to people in New York for instance. A free market economy would bring phone service to all eventually. It is when the government intrudes on the free market, setting unfair laws, unfair taxation that competition is denied and we have poorer service.

reply to Tzale
Actually, if you wanted a true capitalist free country, we SHOULDN'T be handing the telcos and cable companies BILLIONS of dollars in tax payer money and tax breaks. If this weren't happening, YOU WOULD have a valid point. Since we are spoon feeding the industry at the American peoples' expense, IT WOULD BE NICE to see something for our effort. However, the case be told, we WON'T. Companies simply take and pocket the money, and give little in return. In other countries, this would be unacceptable. In America were the best lobbyists money can buy solve everything, apparently such crap is tolerated. Therefore, while we have denser cities than many fiber connected countries, we have much slower internet. It's not because the companies aren't given money to build. It's they prefer to hoard the money versus actually using it for its intended purposes.

Most often they do not receive any tax breaks and if they do how is this taking money from the tax payer? Corporations are not tax payers anyway they are tax collectors so any taxes levied on them are simply rolled into the cost of services which we the end user pay. Tax dollars are not being spent to subsidize ISP's yet anyway. I for one would end all subsidies in any industry business. I work for a very small mom/pop defense contractor 11 employees the amount of taxes we are hit with by the feds is ridiculous, the rate was in excess of 40% during the last administration. Other countries do not operate on the free market model, nor do they offer the freedoms that we enjoy for instance income taxes are much higher, there is a VAT that is added at each stage of manufacture the people have little to no say in how things are done/accomplished. Having spent almost twenty years traveling and living in other countries I can tell you first hand we have it much better. Another point when the government steps in they exact a certain amount of return either in control, through regulations or monies you lose out on freedoms. Our country produces more innovation and growth then any other country simply because companies are free to research, spend money on growth and see a return on those investments.

reply to XBL2009

said by XBL2009:

said by Tzale:

Sorry.. But we live in a capitalist free country... If you can't get a service, move to where you can get it, or hope that Verizon speeds up it's deployment to your area, or purchases the telco in your area. The thing is that this country is doing just fine when it comes to broadband... I don't want to live in a country where private companies are told to deploy 30mbit broadband to rural areas with one or two customers per square mile.. If those people want broadband, they'll have to either foot the bill themselves (unlikely) or move to where it is available.. As for suburban areas? Eventually they will be upgraded too.. It's all about competition. Here in Northern New Jersey, Optimum Online and Verizon FIOS are competing with each other. We're one of the first areas in the country to receive upgrades to the services because of the heavy competition.. OOL used to have a "monopoly" here, since their 10mbps/1mbps was far better than VZ DSL. When FIOS starting coming around, they upgraded everyone to 15/2 for free, then 30/2 and finally 30/5 was added as a tier. FIOS offers higher bandwidth packages here because of competition. Capitalism treats consumers good when they make wise decisions and vote with their wallet. If you are stuck with companies that don't compete, then you got a problem.

-Tzale

So many points to make:

1. 99 percent of Americans can't get 30/5 speed.

2. It's still to expensive.

3. There is no competition in most areas, either DSL or cable and sometimes neither.

4. In 1994 the bells sign a deal to wire up everyone with fiber and then renege on the deal but still took the money.

5. Government was involved in getting everyone phone service otherwise most people still would not have it because telcom companies are only interested in profits.

6. People don't have to move to buy other products or services, most are available wherever you live in the usa. The same should be so for broadband services as well.

7. Stop making excuses for large corporations who have no interest in doing anything except making Billions in profit and complaining that it's still not enough.

8. The Bells should stop suing small towns and areas that want to build muni-wireless services for themselves when they know they aren't going to supply the service themselves.

reply to jc100

reply to Tzale
as far as handouts to companies, there should be strings attached to the money. like the companies have to make real progress then the government gives some of the money out. give out a 'loan' that doesn't need to be repaid (with interest) provided milestones are reached on time. i think it (giving money to companies) can be done safely, but it has to be done in such a way that the chance the government can't be burnt, but also is fair to the companies recieving the money (as in realistic goals/expectations).

reply to stevephl
Well I heavily disagree. First, your assessment that companies aren't given handouts is accurate. Verizon is a prime example. I think Pennsylvania (forget definitely) gave them 10s of millions only to have Verizon keep the money and bail. The fed DOES give them money. Google if you don't believe me. They are no less subsidized than companies overseas. They see tons of our money and give little in return. Our government is a cash cow, but unlike the one's overseas, these companies aren't held accountable when they misappropriate it. Basically, they pocket it and stemmy the competition in many cases. As per your assessment on countries overseas, then how come they are all rated the happiest in the world and we're middle of the road? Guess some people equate happiness differently. I think you failed to see how we already pay about 35 percent of our income in taxes, and get very little for it. Do you get free medicine? Nope. Tack on about another 3-4000 NOT directly taxed for your medical insurance. So that pushes your taxes now to around 40-45 percent (as 3-4000 is roughly 5-10 additional percent of one's average salary). Do you get free university costs? Figure 15-35,000 a year for that one. God knows that's not being paid immediately. Double whatever you owe when you finish. That's basically what the interest comes to. They wanted 20,000 dollars on a loan I had for 11 when I finished. So let's see, this one comes to hell almost ALL of your money for quite some time. The list goes on. I think your pretty picture of how this past administration failed, doesn't give one ounce of credit to how miserably this current one is or the state of the country.

Side note, I'd like to know how come people here can't get free medicine but we're so busy dishing it out to African Countries. Bush wants to renew that program. Tax payer money socializing their health care when we don't see squat for our investment.

Back on subject, you're completely wrong on the subsidizing of the cable / phone industry. Just google.

»www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/p···es_x.htm

There's one article to keep you busy. Enjoy searching for others.

reply to Tzale
Hate to burst your bubble but a totally free market and hands off government WOULD NEVER WORK. The government MUST be involved in somethings. Too bad, it doesn't handle those responsibilities well. It's no one's fault either but the taxpayers. We hand over our money and don't demand accounting for it. For too many years, we've given the government a blank check and said have at it. Hence we get pork barrel spending with crap that shouldn't even be given a second thought. 300 million dollar bridge to nowhere Mr. Ted Stevens? Still, the same token, we must have them doing some stuff.

I enjoy having roads both city and federal highways

I enjoy having Hospitals

I enjoy having Emergency Personnel

I enjoy that fact that research is done into advancements of medicines

I find it a good things Kids go to school to learn.

I think we all can agree Public Colleges are good places.

List goes on and on how we end up socializing stuff. This country is just one big socialist pool masked in Free Market. We're no different than the European countries. We've just been sold on the fact socializing is a bad word. Yet, it happens every day.

Schools are given federal money and socialized. If a public school fails to do well, the FEDERAL government takes over and foots the bills to keep it open. Tax payer money simply is a drop in the bucket when it comes to running school districts. Hence the fed HEAVILY assists.

Hospitals are the same way. They are given tons of money to keep their doors open by the federal government. Otherwise, you wouldn't have many hospitals or places to go when ill.

Enjoy streets? I do. The federal highway program socialized the building of such roads in the U.S. States are given money to keep them up too. No states could have afforded to do this based upon their OWN citizens taxes, especially places like Rhode Island, Alaska, and much of the West where populations are much smaller.

So on so forth.

reply to Tzale
Its all good. Those of use that live in rural areas may only be able to get phone service, but the cost of phone service keeps going down. Its to bad the big phone company's aren't interested in making less money, because they will just add that loss in revenue to your bill, while mine will go down. Once the people in the cities figure out that probable about 40% of the population is not helping to balance the cost of service they will insist everyone get connected. You think you liked the price hikes of the past just wait for the future.