Verizon Again Confirms No Future FiOS Expansion → Re: 9;

We already have a nationwide fiber infrastructure. The debate is about extending that infrastructure into the last mile and ensuring that it reaches every single property in the United States. There's a bit of a difference between the two, and I'd be curious to hear your argument as to why our future is dependent on every home in America having access to gigabit+ speed internet connections.

HEY america DONT DO IT , we the rest of the world applaud your leaving citizens out of the future

Nice talking point, now tell me our future is dependent on every residential property in the United States having access to gigabit+ internet speeds? Name me another country, particularly one with a significant rural population, that is spending tax dollars to build out a nationwide last mile fiber network.

C'Mon, I want to hear an explanation for why we need to spend billions of dollars to ensure that every house has a faster connection to the internet than most currently have to their home LAN. Do tell, what driver of economic prosperity will emerge when Grandma has a taxpayer funded gigabit+ internet connection?

Australia.

I don't think anyone has said anything about REQUIRING gigabit speeds. A bit overkill there, but let's run with it anyway.

If broadband wasn't essential in this country, then why not do without? You mean that might be devastating to our economy? Oh, but isn't broadband just a luxury? Right...

Clearly I was speaking of a complete fiber network and I think your other talking points were taking care of in below comments so I wont address those.

Read about the NBN in Australia again....it never planned to roll out fiber everywhere. They're using wireless and satellite to cover HUGE chunks of Austrailia outside of the major metro areas.

Look, I tend to think that everyone should have access to broadband. I just don't see why those of us in rural areas should get subsides for it, nor do I think that decent broadband service requires fiber to the premises. On the last point at least, it seems we agree, so there's that.

As far as my first point, before you reply with an analogy to rural electrification or some such, rural areas still pay more money for the basic necessities of life. My wife and I have to pay to maintain a well and septic tank. We use propane to heat our home, on a BTU to BTU basis it's three times as expensive as natural gas! Fuel oil is an alternative, one that would "only" cost two and a half times as much as natural gas. Electric heating costs range from 2x to 5x the cost of natural gas, depending on where you live, so that's not really an affordable alternative for most people. Around here it would be about 4x the cost of natural gas, so there's that.

Where are my subsides for these basic necessities of life?

Invest in alternative energy sources? I mean, I live out in rural country, and we don't use propane. I don't understand why someone would want to use propane, as from personal experience, it's highly variable, unless that's your only option.

It varies from location to location. Based on your argument, electricity isn't a basic necessity, only a luxury. So why not do without? Do you see the hole in your logic? Broadband, as I've argued time and time and time and time again, is not finite. These basic utilities are based on nonrenewable sources of energy (I mean sure, nuclear, but there's always that pesky issue in dealing with waste).

I feel that there were people that thought this way about electricity. Now it's broadband, so hopefully in 20 years the thought process would be changed. I'm just saying, doing away with broadband entirely would bring our economy to a screeching halt. Broadband is becoming more of a necessity every day.

If you have a cheaper alternative that will heat a home through a harsh northeastern winter I'm all ears.The cost to deliver broadband is real and measurable. Rural areas take away economy of scale, thus increasing the capital expenditure necessary to achieve full coverage. So the question is, who should bear the cost of the initial capital expenditure? The ISP might be able to do it, but they'll want to charge rural customers more money to recoup their investment. Do you take issue with that?

Alternatively, we can fund it through tax dollars and/or a surcharge on existing customers. Personally, I don't really regard this as fair, and if it happens I'm going to be seriously peeved that we aren't doing the same to bring natural gas to rural areas. Once the infrastructure is in place it wouldn't cost any more to deliver gas to rural customers, you just need someone to foot the initial bill to install pipelines, compressor stations, etc.To be sure, it's becoming more and more essential to life in the 21st century. But it does not follow that we need to subsidize the installation of broadband services for those areas currently lacking them. In any case, the market seems well on it's way to solving this problem with wireless services, which are much cheaper to deploy in rural areas than landline services. WISPs and cellular data are the way to go in rural areas, not investing billions of dollars to string wires all over God's country.

I'm sure there were people like you that claimed the same thing when electricity was being rolled out. And yet you have electricity in your rural area dont you? So it was OK for that subsidy to be had for electricity but it is not OK for the "next big utility" of broadband?

Or do you think yourself and those like you should be running wind mills, damming up streams or running hamster wheel farms to satisfy your electrical needs?

Ever hear of a diesel generator? They provided electricity to farms for decades before Franklin Roosevelt rolled out his rural electrification pgm.

OK and your point......?

Wait so what you are saying is that government brought electricity to them just like they should broadband.

Agreed!

My point was that the examples you chose to make fun of the previous poster were ridiculous when a perfectly usable technology like diesel generators were around forever.

Not gigabit, it won't be completed for 9 more years, and it's not all going to be covered by fiber.

..I believe your still better off with wirelines, goverment should step in and expand or give a initiative otherwise it wont happen period.

Its unacceptable that our country continues to drop in speed ratings (AND WE ARE THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH) China for criest sakes is rolling out fiber.. they at least will have a option for rural areas in china...

it can be done here (their needs to be a option for rural areas) DSL as its stands wont be.. Sat isnt ready but it getting their, either way it does affect our great country weather or not you want to see it the 21st century relies on data and internet connections, from paying bills online, shopping, music, entertainment, and so on