Cuomo Promises $500 Million in Broadband Funds if Re-elected

At least they have the option of 2 different ways of getting broadband, if that's what you want to call DSL!

There are way to many places that don't have much of an option other than satellite, which is even worse than DSL, to be running for anything based just on this.

In Singapore, the rise of Gigabit Networks increased exports and created 80,000 jobs in 2006.

I cut n pasted from Wikipedia when I was reading about Singapore. Were only 8 years behind them atm ...

The US will always be behind in many areas of the country because while in profitable areas we can get good speeds we are still bound to last mile network builders who are shareholder first.

That is of course also because we no longer have shareholders who give two shits about what they invested in, Only how much money it will make them. At one time people cared about both and invested in companies for the long term. If people still did that we would have better broadband because long term wisdom=FTTH.

Isn't it nice to make big promises 4 weeks before an election. Sure half a bill up here. We've only heard that every time there's a governor election. It's all political theater.

All pols lie and the closer to the election it is the more they lie. Cuomo lied to get elected before, but the same people who elected him before will put him in office again. Voters are stupid. No other explanation is needed.

NY NJ and PA have giving billions to improve their rural state access, and have gotten little to nothing for it.

Cuomo's opponent should promise to fund a $5 million commission to investigate prosecute and recover most of those previously wasted funds.

Cuomo siding with the comcast/twcable deal and accepting their campaign contributions shows he's already in their pocket.

all that $500 million will go to is lining comcast/twcable/verizon pockets with more unaccounted for taxpayer money.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I live in PA and am currently awaiting being able to order Verizon DSL - I went through the process and they built an RT near my house. Their deadline to turn it up in Oct. 25th. We currently don't have ANY reliable options besides satellite (yuck) and 3G/4G (yuck yuck).

Verizon must offer DSL to the entirety of its footprint by 12/31/15.

So, I'm not sure what you mean by "gotten little to nothing for it."

»www.techdirt.com/article ··· ts.shtml

»GAO: We're Not Properly Tracking Broadband Stimulus Funding [17] comments

Verizon doesn’t offer any high speed option( Fios or dsl) in parts of Albany N.Y. nor some of the surrounding urban suburbs, if this is what the state capital gets I don’t think I will hold my breath for any significant improvement in more rural areas from Verizon.

What responsibility do phone companies in non Verizon areas have in Pennsylvania?

It's not just Verizon...every telco in the state. I should have specified. Verizon is the only one left, though, to not have met the requirement yet. You can check out the details here »www.newpa.com/community/ ··· tiatives

I don't believe this is a complete PR stunt for the governor run. What he's promising looks overblown compared to what was provided last year, but there has been action done on the matter.

»www.governor.ny.gov/pres ··· l-divide

From 2006, Verizon received multiple rate increases to pay for “massive deployment of fiber optics” — an 84% increase on residential basic service, and 100%-300% on various calling services, etc.

Verizon was able to get about $4.5 billion from residential and business rate increases.

And yet, the State– Cuomo, never investigated the fact that

a) Verizon isn’t upgrading 80% of the municipalities
b) Verizon stopped deploying FiOS
c) Verizon continues to collect the money
d) Verizon is collecting billions from customers who will never get upgraded.
d) Verizon appears to be using the construction budgets to charge customers for their wireless networks

And yet, Cuomo wants to give more money to pay for networks that should have been upgraded.

See: It’s All Interconnected, a report by Public Utility Law Project, written by New Networks Institute

»newnetworks.com/publicnn.pdf/

I'll be curious to see what the Mid Hudson Valley gets out of this, assuming it ever goes through. We have a 'choice' of 1 high speed provider - Cablevision. Not exactly a choice, but things always seem to work better all around when you do have a choice. I also strongly doubt any second provider even wants to bother in this area, or they would have been here already.

Hey mr governor I also only have the option of timewarner or verizon DSL and I live in brooklyn you gonna do anything about that?

And so he spends all the tax dollars he collects from long island.

This will never work simply because Cuomo does not know where Upstate NY is. He thinks upstate is 10 minutes north of NYC, not the capitol district around Albany, Schenectady, Troy and the Northern Catskills and around Otsego and Schoharie counties.