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jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

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Re: Progress is good, almost...

Picking a place to live doesn't happen when you're born into a place. All places in this country should have opportunities.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

There is no caste system in the US. No one is born, lives 80 years and dies in the same house any more and no one was or continues to be forced to. Everyone moves about at various times in the life even if in the same town.

If having low latency broadband is imperative for someone because of their work or whatever, then like EVERYONE ELSE they should pick a place to live where the service is offered.

I wanted to live where the weather was good. I wanted to live close to my job. I wanted to live hear good shops, restaurants and entertainment goings-on. I wanted to live semi-close to the freeway so my commute is a bit easier. I wanted to live in a great school district. I wanted a view lot. These are considerations I made when CHOOSING to live where I live. Today if I move, I wouldn't consider a place that doesn't have broadband, and I certainly wouldn't move there then bitch I don't have it. Again, that is like moving next to the airport and then complaining about the noise.

At my office, I'm at 19.2K cu ft and no cable. With a 3dB DSL noise margin for all intents an purposes my office is in a broadband dead zone. But instead of crying about it, I got a T1 and when I felt that it was a rip, I got Wimax service. Is it as good as the Roadrunner Business and FiOS that are literally the next block over? Of course not. But if I really want FiOS that bad, I can move.

And I don't dismiss satellite internet. I had AOL DirecPC dial-return satellite many moons ago and it worked fine. Was it as good as cable HSI or FTTH? Of course not, but it worked well for virtually everything with the exception of online games and fat uploads. On SATMEX 5 I saw 3Mb from it (with concurrent downloads).

Broadband isn't an entitlement nor should it be just like a short commute isn't an entitlement or 4 bedrooms aren't an entitlement.

The Limit
Premium Member
join:2007-09-25
Denver, CO

The Limit

Premium Member

I understand where you are coming from, but you left out one very important detail: money. Not everyone is rolling in the dough to make this happen. I'm not saying Joe Taxpayer should have to foot the bill, yet at the same time I would argue that the hefty taxes we are already paying be used in the development of infrastructure.

Which, of course, will never happen. Right now, as a nation, we are broke. We are still involved overseas, not to mention all over the world, and spending record amounts on defense and healthcare. Besides all of that (and disregarding it, because I don't want to turn this into a political debate even though I feel like a lot of these issues are politically induced), as Americans we pay quite a bit in taxes. I'm sure SOME of that can be repropriated for infrastructure costs.

And if we don't want the government involved, then a bill should be passed stating that muni projects SHOULDN'T be blocked by incumbents. Incumbents shouldn't have ANY say so in what the people want.

Just my two cents.

Sidenote: I'm not saying incumbents are bad, but the incumbents have forgotten the most important piece of the puzzle: customers. Sure, incumbents are in it for the money, but take care of your customers and money will never be a problem.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

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Good for you and me; other people aren't as mobile. Sorry, I covered this in my previous post. Many rural people grow up and stay in their limited area, but they should still have access to basic services such as electricity and now broadband if they can pay for it. It creates more opportunities in their environment and is necessary for modern life.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

They can get broadband, albeit sorta crappy broadband. What advocates here are talking about is low latency high cap broadband. Satellite while not awesome, provides people with basic internet services.

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt to The Limit

Premium Member

to The Limit
just to clarify a few of your statements, common misunderstandings
We aren't broke but we are in debt, we do spend huge amounts on OFFENCE under the DoD(which hasn't fought a defensive war for many years, plus quite a bit on Aid/market development, Also, Americans overall (paticularly those at the top) pay realitively little in taxes compared to other developed nations, we also pay less individually and in total now than any time since your grandfather was born.
But we are damn good in coming up with new MUST HAVES to spend more future income on.

We need to start paying more NOW, for things we want in the future, and livving without until we can actually afford to buy it outright.
Those are some basic things rural people/farmers KNEW until gov't offered loan guaruntes and crop insurance and stability payments, etc. It's very easy to end up owing everything to the company store.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
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join:2012-01-26
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skeechan

Premium Member

If taxpayers or ratepayers are paying for deployment then TAXPAYERS should be the ones owning it, not private corporations. If we build new federal highways, I don't want them given away to some private corporation that will charge higher and higher tolls and treat their customers like ass to keep a share price up.

If taxpayers are going to do this, it should be a "municipal information service", just like a muni water utility, owned by the taxpayers and managed by an elected body accountable to the people. It should be infrastructure built by passing a muni bond measure combined with funds from the USF.

And during the election, incumbents should know the knee breaking regulatory consequences that will result from fighting a bond measure.

Not a single dime of USF money should be going to AT&T, Verizon or any other private company, especially one that posts record profits and treats customers like ass....and breaks every promise they make when begging for the money.

Taxpayers and ratepayers aren't an ATM for Verizon and AT&T to throttle whenever they want some free money. If they don't want to deploy...fine, I get that but they should GTF out of the way and allow munis to wire themselves.
skeechan

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skeechan to jjeffeory

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to jjeffeory

Take $100B
How much could it possibly cost to wire the entire country...a trillion dollars? Take $100B from defense each year for 10 years. I don't believe for a second that a military that was just fine at $350B in 2000 needs $650B today (the wars were largely funded from supplementals). I have a hard time believing that spending $550B instead of $650B would decimate our ability to defend ourselves. Maybe it would give us pause before we start a 3rd. It also wouldn't cost any jobs since private companies will be the ones bidding to build it just as they're the ones building tanks, rockets and fighter jets.

And that infrastructure is government owned and then private companies compete to deliver content, governed by rules of net neutrality.

You don't need private roads to have a thriving taxi, limo and bus industry.

In other words, if taxpayers are going to do this, then we're going all hog and will OWN it.

John Galt6
Forward, March
Premium Member
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp

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»Re: An Idea for the Rural Broadband Money