Turkey Says Yes, U.S. Says No

What did the U.S. say "No" to again?

A better question is, what does HUD have to do with connecting these countires with fiber cables?

Apparently they were offering some type of grant money, but then they heard 2farfromCO7 complaining about his uber wealthy inner-urban apartment complex, they just nixed the whole project because it didn't mainly benefit low and moderate income people...:)
[text was edited by author 2003-07-28 20:04:23]

SWEET !!!

said by Noodlin:

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A better question is, what does HUD have to do with connecting these countires with fiber cables?

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This was a request for a community development block grant! HUD said the project did not meet its objective of mainly benefiting low and moderate income people.

By the way, I'm sure that the people of Michigan will be happy to know that you consider them a foreign country!!

I see, must have missed that part of article.

As a citizen of Southern California, I hope my previous statement was not taken as a declaration of WAR by the country of Michigan.

said by mjcrocket:

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By the way, I'm sure that the people of Michigan will be happy to know that you consider them a foreign country!!

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Most yoopers I know already consider themselves as such.

Yeah, Next someone will quip upon leaving Michigan, May I see Your Passport? It sounds like someone here at dslreports.com mixed the two stories together for some reason.

"Yeah, Next someone will quip upon leaving Michigan, May I see Your Passport?"

it happens every day...in windsor

as for the story, it makes no sense--turkey laying cable vs. michigan HUD? i don't get it

NOTE: this is in response to the post by the 9thmaster

said by Noodlin:

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A better question is, what does HUD have to do with connecting these countires with fiber cables?

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Actually, HUD's authorities are confined to anything within the US and nothing without.

You must have missed the class that had you learning the 50 states...Michigan has been one for quite some time. Don't feel too bad; when the summer Olympics were to be held in Atlanta (GA), a phone order to an Atlanta merchant for tickets to the events, or something was made by some people living in New Mexico...the salesperson told them that she was sorry, but all sales could only be made within the US. LOL - There was an actual recording made of the order and it made it to national news! I doubt she ever lives that one down...

Was really kind goofy that both of those items were posted as if they had anything in common...they didn't.

"Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development nixed a grant for a program to connect the Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan with broadband Internet"

I was districted at the time when I was reading the article. For some reason, I picked it up again and thought the two articles were related... hence forth why my early post was poorly written.

said by y2julio:

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"Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development nixed a grant for a program to connect the Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan with broadband Internet"

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As I posted in another forum broadband service is available in the upper peninsula through Charter. For people not familiar with Michigan, the U.P. is quite rural and sparsely populated.

I'm actually surprised that broadband is available there at all. It's a bit more expensive up there (about $60 for a 1500/128 connection) but you can get it. That's better than many other more densely populated areas of the country.

LOL
Charter hardly qualifies as broadband

Actually, the U.P. has Charter Cable, but not Charter Broadband, except perhaps in the western half of the U.P. For those that don't know, the Upper Peninsula contains only about 3% of Michigan's population and many of the people who live up there are indeed living below the poverty level. But the U.P. is roughly divided into two parts. The Western half is closer to Wisconsin, both geographically and economically, and very likely has a broadband connection that runs north from Green Bay, Wisconsin, up through Escanaba and Marquette, with links to other parts of the western U.P.

The Eastern half is closer to northern lower Michigan, ever since the opening of the Mackinac Bridge back in the 1950's. As I understand it, there is already fiber optic cable running across the bridge, but the problem is it's not connected to much of anything on either end. Charter's broadband, such as it is (pathetic upload speed and all), probably ends somewhere north of Traverse City. What they wanted to do was finish the link to the bridge, then continue up to Sault Ste. Marie, and probably to the other towns situated along and near I-75 (yes, I-75 really does go all the way up to Sault Ste. Marie, right to the International Bridge).

You cannot get broadband today (from Charter) in the Eastern part of the U.P., and there's a BIG stretch of next to nothing (other than some of the most beautiful country in the world, if you like forests, rocks, wildlife and the occasional waterfall) up there. Ask any U.P. resident about the "Seney stretch." That's what they'd have to cross to connect the Western and Eastern parts of the U.P., and deer, bears, and moose don't watch cable TV or surf the 'net. It really would make more sense to bring the cable up across the Straits of Mackinaw and the bridge - at least these potential paying customers going that direction.

I think the real problem here may be that HUD can't see why they should give money to a private company - especially one that offers residential service that quite possibly doesn't even meet the federal definition of "broadband", since they refuse to offer residential customers anything greater than 128K upload speed - when that company could either build the lines themselves, or if they are financially unable to do so, then sell off their systems in that part of Michigan to a company with more financial resources (and that, presumably, would give much better service).

The oddity is that about two miles from downtown Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, there is probably all the broadband capacity that the Eastern U.P. could need for a long time. Trouble is, it's on the "wrong" side of the international border, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. Also, SBC has fiber running into the Eastern UP, so if they really wanted to, they could probably offer DSL in the Michigan Sault. I suspect that HUD looked at this, decided it would be more "corporate welfare" than real help, perhaps decided that Charter doesn't deserve it given their level of service, and maybe didn't want that project to wind up as a "Fleecing of America" segment on the NBC Nightly News!

Nice write up. You seem to know the location well.

I think HUD should put their money in more investigators and stop the mommies that get hand outs and could be working and supporting their families. Not sure how it is out there but here in California we have many women taking advantage of HUD rather then doing something on their own.

who wrote this news article again???

I think what it means is that europe countries agreed to connect to eachother with a fiber optic connection and the US did not approve to pay for something to connect a state with broadband.

I dont blame our gov't... because these are really hard times and we're already in debt.

turkey's only half europe, and that has more implications than you think:

that means also a faster internet connection from europe to the middle-east, and since the US is against the middle-east, US has nixed the program to connect michigan to faster internet, so that at least terrorist within that densly populated area cannot fastly connect to the middle-east.

actually I don't know why all you people complain to the poster of the newsitem, the link is clearly there...

said by Descent:

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I dont blame our gov't... because these are really hard times and we're already in debt.

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America was in debt 5 years ago and that didn't mean hard times. And the government is the establishment that put us into this situation. All the money that the states would have got for projects like this was cancelled. Instead the money went to finance a war. I blame the fact that we have a guy who is too worried about foreign affairs when he should be doing more for domestic affairs. Why give millions of dollars to africans when northern michigan could have broadband instead. Just because people who live here came from africa doesn't mean we have to help them in any way. BroadBand YES! Fight Aids NO!

said by Descent:

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I dont blame our gov't... because these are really hard times and we're already in debt.

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The US has always been in debt. In 1835, they did get the debt down to $35K, but Congress only managed to pull that off twice. Shortly after that, the US once again had a huge debt.

This means Turkey is going to get faster Internet connections with 6 companies bidding for the contract to install it.

Meanwhile The U.S. Department of Urban Affairs disallows the contract to connect the Upper UP to lower Michigan with an underwater cable so the people within the UP can have High Speed Modem access.

Wow, I would hope that the U.S. would not allow any U.S. companies bid for the contract to install that cable line for Turkey, since Turkey did not allow us to use their bases to help with the Gulf War recently.

Plus I think that the U.S. Department of Urban Affairs needs to keep their noses in the business of home improvement and lowering home insurance and prime rates within Michigan. This is killing us in Michigan. The independent Internet Companies should go ahead and lay that cable. Thats why we already pay a higher rate for Comcast here in Michigan. I really think the government is sticking their noses where it should not be in the first place and spending our tax-paying time/money on researching to destroy future development for internet growth. What's next another Stamp Tax?

Aw, C'mon.

Read the blurb, at least, if not the linked article. No contract was "nixed". A grant application was denied. Big difference--you UPers can build all the internet you want--it's just that the federal government isn't ready to pay extra for it, at least not out of a fund that is supposed to help poor people.

It was a proposal for a $4 million grant. Gee, if you just got $13 from everyone in the UP, you'd have that much.

Calvoiper

said by Scott_MI:

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Wow, I would hope that the U.S. would not allow any U.S. companies bid for the contract to install that cable line for Turkey, since Turkey did not allow us to use their bases to help with the Gulf War recently.

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Well, that would be a pity for US companies trying to boost the profits... That would be hardly ever a punishment for Turkey.

FYI. Turkey has provided its air space during this Gulf war which is more than what most European countries did. They have been with US in Korea, Somalia, Bosnia, Afganistan. US and UK had been enforcing the no fly zone through Turkey since the 1st first Gulf War. But, none of that is not worth remembering right?

Given a lot of Americans are also not convinced about the war it is not hard to imagine a country to be sceptical about a war next door or lead to a war involuntarily.

This means Turkey is going to get faster Internet connections with 6 companies bidding for the contract to install it.

Meanwhile The U.S. Department of Urban Affairs disallows the contract to connect the Upper UP to lower Michigan with an underwater cable so the people within the UP can have High Speed Modem access.

Wow, I would hope that the U.S. would not allow any U.S. companies bid for the contract to install that cable line for Turkey, since Turkey did not allow us to use their bases to help with the Gulf War recently.

Plus I think that the U.S. Department of Urban Affairs needs to keep their noses in the business of home improvement and lowering home insurance and prime rates within Michigan. This is killing us in Michigan. The independant Internet Companies should go ahead and lay that cable. Thats why we already pay a higher rate for Comcast here in Michigan. I really think the government is sticking their noses where it should not be in the first place and spending our tax-paying time/money on researching to destroy future developement for internet growth. Whats next another Stamp Tax?

Some reason you posted this twice?

Calvoiper

> Wow, I would hope that the U.S. would not allow any U.S.
> companies bid for the contract to install that cable line
> for Turkey, since Turkey did not allow us to use their
> bases to help with the Gulf War recently.

Yeah, right, what a terrible punishment.

The big part no one is mentioning is Merit. Merit is a non-profit ISP of sorts for the schools in the state. Meaning northern and Lake State would be provided with a almost free fiber connection. Now this doesn't happen. Also in the sault forget it your hit because of this not happening.