Broadband Funding Axed from Stimulus Plan

[modeps]

Gizmodo (http://i.gizmodo.com/5148778/broadband-cut-entirely-from-stimulus-bill-republicans-hate-the-internets) has an article up today. Apparently, there have been a lot of tech cuts in the Stimulus package but the largest is a $2B Universal Broadband cut. This would have helped push broadband to rural places in America.

Those jokers down in Washington finally compromised on the economic stimulus bill, with the Republican minority succeeding in cutting out huge swathes of spending. Among the casualties is the $2 billion for universal broadband.

Dial-up, or Satellite Internet... You pick! I swear, for how great the US is in some departments, our technology infrastructure is garbage.

[rpgedgar]

The cable companies were given $200 billion in the late 90's to upgrade their broadband. They kept most of the money.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html

[pwnophobia]

I happened to turn on talk radio this weekend and listened to a bit of the Kim Komando show (http://www.komando.com/). I've never listened to her before and I don't know how credible she is but she talked about this article:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090206/D9664JMG0.html

A Pew study found that 14 percent of today's dial-up and non-Internet users say they don't subscribe to broadband because it is not available where they live. But far more - 51 percent - say they are just not interested.

Generally speaking, people on dial-up have older computers and would more than likely need to upgrade their PC in order to use broadband effectively.

[Samstag]

I don't approve of "pushing" broadband into areas where there isn't a viable market. If you're going to spend my tax money to better the rural man, put it toward his schools and libraries please.

[bskeillor]

Call me a conservative, but why is something like this in an economic stimulus package to begin with?

[saulob]

(...)Dial-up, or Satellite Internet... You pick! I swear, for how great the US is in some departments, our technology infrastructure is garbage.

Don't say that. Try to imagine here on Brazil how it is... :(

[AspectVoid]

Call me a conservative, but why is something like this in an economic stimulus package to begin with?

Because it has the potential to create a lot of jobs. If we were to push broadband Internet to everywhere in the US, we would need construction crews for laying down cable and building new service centers, more technicians for going out to homes to set it up, more customer service reps to handle the additional clients, more developers to handle the background tasks of the companies, more factory workers to build the increase in parts for US made products, more dock workers to handle the incoming foreign parts, etc, etc.

[balamoor]

It's really sad when the supposed greatest nation on the planet has the infrastructure of a Third world country. last summer my company sent me to Romania as GE (formally IDX) has a pretty huge contract to update the imaging systems in five of the nations hospitals.....in Romania things like electricity, water/sewer, phone service, and broadband are considered part of the nations infrastructure and as so are controlled by the government. In our country we are at the mercy of the corporate entity that just wants obscene profits on top of demanding subsidies and bailouts from our government.



Here In upstate NY we still have the electric grid that was put in place in 1934, the average utility bill is well over four hundred dollars a month….and we have major black outs two to four times a week. The phone service switches hands from one fly by night company to the next at least once a year, yes we have Broadband of a fashion….but it like everything else is expensive and not reliable. What a stark contrast to being in a country where the citizens enjoy electricity that is provided as a government service and hasn’t had a single blackout in five years, local phone and internet are services as well and fast Wi-fi is on tap whether you are in Bucharest or out in the sticks of Brasov. Things will only get worse too every time any one on Capitol hill earmarks funds to improve our nations infrastructure it either gets shot down or the money never quite goes where it is suppose to. I just wonder how much longer we can keep being stupid before our country implodes from within?

[bskeillor]

Mine was actually a rhetorical question.

What I'm saying is this isn't actually a stimulus, something to jump start the economy, it may be a good idea for jobs down the road, but not something that should be attached to a stimulus plan.

Most of your answer is pretty sound, but you have to assume people want to pay for the service. Part of the problem with the econcomy now is that people are tightening their belts and saving. Just because you build it, doesn't mean people will come. Instead we'll have more new buildings that are empty because the service/product isn't selling as anticipated.

[AspectVoid]

Mine was actually a rhetorical question.

What I'm saying is this isn't actually a stimulus, something to jump start the economy, it may be a good idea for jobs down the road, but not something that should be attached to a stimulus plan.

Most of your answer is pretty sound, but you have to assume people want to pay for the service. Part of the problem with the econcomy now is that people are tightening their belts and saving. Just because you build it, doesn't mean people will come. Instead we'll have more new buildings that are empty because the service/product isn't selling as anticipated.

I was just pointing out why it was included, not saying whether I agree with it or not.

Honestly, I don't think it belongs in there. I think its something that has to be done, but its not going to boost the economy fast. What the government really needs to do is start some large scale government projects. For instance, they're tearing up one of the major highways by me. Its supposed to be under construction for another 2 year or so. Rather then that, what they should do is sponsor the construction company and hire more workers. I'm sure they could easily double the number of people working on it without causing too many problems.

[Trazzlo the Magnificant]

Mine was actually a rhetorical question.

What I'm saying is this isn't actually a stimulus, something to jump start the economy, it may be a good idea for jobs down the road, but not something that should be attached to a stimulus plan.As someone who does engineering work in rural areas, it certainly would stimulate our economy to put in basic technology that is available everywhere else.

Not only that, but it means that people can live further out while still getting work done. The future is in telecommuting, if you don't have that then you are in trouble. The rest of the world is starting to have its world wide meetings via internet meetings and that isn't going away.

When they stop paying for flights, it is a saving. But instead of really saving money they have more people in the meetings. Communication gets better. Internet really does add efficiency when used properly but if you don't have access you are cut out of a lot of economic stimulus.

The US either starts to compete in that realm, or they simply give up leadership. China produces far more engineers and hi-tech workers, once they get their internet infrastructure in place competing for anything will be very hard ... and that is assuming you have the infrastructure to do so. You need to think today of the issues tomorrow.

Eventually the economy will turn around. That is the worst time to do massive infrastructure. It interferes more with working business then, and it costs more.

The time to do infrastructure is exactly at times like this. Lots of people available and willing to work for less, engineers looking for projects and very competitive on bids, and more likely to deliver on time rather than "good" times when suddenly the poor paying government projects take a back seat.

All this should be planned by government; how to take advantage of societies resources, while also maintaining the society itself through good times and bad. We don't have that ability.

[modeps]

snip

Great post Traz. :thumbsup;

[MusicToEat]

Because it has the potential to create a lot of jobs. If we were to push broadband Internet to everywhere in the US, we would need construction crews for laying down cable and building new service centers, more technicians for going out to homes to set it up, more customer service reps to handle the additional clients, more developers to handle the background tasks of the companies, more factory workers to build the increase in parts for US made products, more dock workers to handle the incoming foreign parts, etc, etc.


That could be said about any thing. Let's pay people to dig holes. You'd need to pay people to dig the holes. People to hire and manage the people digging the holes. People to build the equipment to dig the holes. People to deliver that equipment. People to feed all those people. The best part is, when we're finally done digging all those holes, there will be future work paying people to fill them all back in again!

If we're going to be spending all this money, let's make sure it's at least for something we need. Failing that, at least have it be for something we want. According to this, most people that don't have broadband, don't have it because they don't want it or can't afford it. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband%20Barriers.pdf Believe it or not, there's still people out there who couldn't care less about the internet and you better believe that rural broadband will be expensive no matter whether "we're" the ones who build it or not.

[Earth Djinn]

In australia I have to spend more than US$30/month for 20 gigabytes @ roughly 150kbps.

If I go over that 20gig then I'm bumped down to 56k speeds until the start of the next month.

Wanna trade?

[Rafer]

No wonder people are so cynical about politics, the McCain had campaigned on expanding broadband last year, now he opposes it.

McCain Slams Broadband Expansion Idea After Campaigning For It (http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/25/mccain-broadband/)

[Venkman]

Thanks, idiot republicans.

Of course, the democrats can suck it, too.

[Roc Ingersol]

I don't approve of "pushing" broadband into areas where there isn't a viable market. If you're going to spend my tax money to better the rural man, put it toward his schools and libraries please.FWIW Broadband improves schools, libraries, government agencies and decreases the cost of doing business. It's an infrastructure tool whose value is less than, say, power but far greater than federal highways or POTS.

That said, I also came here to say "how about we just hold the telecoms accountable for the last huge pile of cash they stole under the auspices of 'broadband'?"

[bub64882]

This is really sad. It would have been an awesome initiative. But in this financial climate, is anyone really surprised?

[Hitoriga]

The thing is, it is not even for rural areas. It is expansion, which means any area with limited broadband capability is expanded. I live/lived in a lot of suburban areas where the best internet speed I could get was 786 kbps, which is a joke. How do you stream 640x480 content with that, much less HD content? People don't get that everything is moving towards the internet, even television, and I am not talking about Hulu or Youtube. I am talking about things like U-verse. People don't get how badly we need this broadband upgrade. The rest of the world seems to get broadband, and it seems like America is one of the few countries that doesn't.

[ElektroDragon]

IDIOTS! Out of all the useless crap they could have eliminated, they actually eliminated something USEFUL?!?! My parents are still dealing with DIAL UP in rural NY state!

[Syl]

America also has some of the most landmass to fill when it comes to broadband adoption. Some countries do have nationwide broadbrand of (compared what we have available) an outrageous bandwidth.

They're also about 1/50th our size, and more highly congested into cities without the sprawling suburban network that we have.

[Virtuoso]

On the upside, here we don't have bandwith caps like other countries do.

On the downside, what is 2 Billion in a 780 billion dollar bill? I know, I know, its alot of money, but the fact of the matter is that the service is needed regardless of whether or not it is profitable. This is in no way a bridge to nowhere, and it is in no way pork (as defined traditionally).

Also, while the stimulus plan is meant to have an immediate effect, it is also trying to create long term growth.

[modeps]

On the upside, here we don't have bandwith caps like other countries do.

Tell that to Comcast and their 250GB Cap.

[Virtuoso]

Tell that to Comcast and their 250GB Cap.

Correction: On the upside I don't have a bandwith cap.

[modeps]

Correction: On the upside I don't have a bandwith cap.

Your so self-centered! ;)

[AversionFX]

Call me a conservative, but why is something like this in an economic stimulus package to begin with?

This is my train of thinking, too. I'm a little more concerned with financial stability, rather than running broadband lines to Podunk towns. There's probably a reason there are a lot of places without access to broadband.

[SwitchBlade_Jax]

just as a note guys broadband is for businesses too. banks and such lease fiber optic lines from cable/phone companies for their transactions. so this expansion could lead to more business springing up, if they hadnt cut it. as for comcast and their cap on bandwidth, its only in a test market stage and i dont think its going to fly for long. comcast is moving towards IPTV as well, so a bandwidth cap is just going to shoot themselves in the foot. I work for them in GA and we are actually suppose to start rolling it out this year, word is anyways. I hope the plan holds up b/c personally I can't wait.

[Virtuoso]

This is my train of thinking, too. I'm a little more concerned with financial stability, rather than running broadband lines to Podunk towns. There's probably a reason there are a lot of places without access to broadband.


Jobs are created when running the lines. How is this not a mechanism of financial stability?

The reason alot of places do not have broadband is because if the telecom companies paid for running the cable it more than likely wouldn't be profitable. All the same, the kids in those town deserve to grow up with the same access to information that the rest of us have.

[Roc Ingersol]

America also has some of the most landmass to fill when it comes to broadband adoption. Some countries do have nationwide broadbrand of (compared what we have available) an outrageous bandwidth.Sweden has a nearly identical population density and they have a staggeringly impressive broadband network.

It doesn't go everywhere (nor would ours) but where it goes it goes.

[SuperMonkeyFighter2]

Spend the damn money! This is pretty silly really ... we must not be content with leaving parts of this country in the dark.

People don't want broadband when polled because they have never seen it, nor have they been exposed to the benefits broadband brings.

Every state should be on a level playing field when it comes to technology, healthcare, etc.

[Syl]

Tell that to Comcast and their 250GB Cap.

I download a LOT of shit, i mean, a LOT of shit.

I honestly feel that 250 gigs a month is MORE than plentiful, even if i was somehow using every single bit of my bandwidth all month long; it would equate too.. 2.5 terabytes, apparently.

[see colon]

IDIOTS! Out of all the useless crap they could have eliminated, they actually eliminated something USEFUL?!?! My parents are still dealing with DIAL UP in rural NY state!

tell them to ditch their landline and dial-up and trade it for a cellular phone with a PAM (phone as modem) data plan. It works out to be almost the same price, and the speed is infinitely better. There are only a few places without proper coverage. When I was young, we lived so far out in the country (in upstate NY) that there wasn't power or phone lines anywhere near me, and I get 3g coverage there. There is finally phone in that area, and power is about a mile down the road now.

[Zeal]

i can't wait till i can get at&t's 18mbps U-Verse service here.

[AversionFX]

Jobs are created when running the lines. How is this not a mechanism of financial stability?


Okay, let's think about this. Let's spend a lot of money doing something really unprofitable, and hire people to do it. So then you're losing money, and what happens to those jobs when you can't pay for them? Oh, right.

[OmegaVader]

Sigh. Apparently tax cuts are suppose to fund this, according to republicans. Ain't that some good ol' voodoo economics...especially for those newly unemployed millions who have no income to cut taxes on.

[Hapless]

I don't approve of "pushing" broadband into areas where there isn't a viable market. If you're going to spend my tax money to better the rural man, put it toward his schools and libraries please.

Do people still go to libraries? I stopped once i found out about the internet.

[Jambe]

Without getting too far removed from the topic at hand... nobody (government, private industry, etc) can "jumpstart an economy" that's on a huge downturn after the largest credit bubble in history. The only thing that "turns it around" is a bottoming-out of perceived (or real, if we were to peg the dollar to a mineral again) value in our currency.

It doesn't matter if unemployment is 1 percent, printing money does not make an economy work, especially when the money is already extremely devalued. That won't happen quickly because of globalization nor will it be "smooth" — millions more people are going to lose their jobs before this thing is over. It's like... I dunno:

economists: there's huge inflation, people aren't spending anything
government: let's print more money to get people working
economists: the more money you print, the less it's worth, you know
government: let's print more money to get people working
economists: the banks we bailed out are still sinking because of mismanagement
government: let's print more money to get people working
economists: we don't have the infrastructure & leadership we did in the 40's... reserve currencies are fluctuating like mad
government: let's print more money to get people working

I guess I should say that I'm Libertarian — extremely liberal socially, moderate-conservative fiscally. Our government is so full of stupid it's incredible. We're in a massive recession caused by huge liquidity fluctuation arising from what? Yes, borrowing! So how do we solve the problem? That's right! Let's print a trillion more dollars (i.e. let's borrow a trillion dollars against our future generations) and that'll solve it! Yeah! The very root of our current economic crisis will surely function as the cure.

As to McCain changing his mind — good for him. I seem to recall that everybody and his mother (except for maybe Ron Paul, who kicks ass) was for the first stimulus package. It's since become obvious that the first one didn't do jack shit and actually worsened the situation in most cases, so who in their right mind would support another one? Maybe an idiot would, but that just goes to show you that McCain isn't an idiot.

And the cable package? I really don't know enough about it to say anything other than "the USA is a big freakin place". I've been in every state in the lower 48, usually the out-of-the-way backwoods areas because I like to hike and camp... I really don't think most people have any sense of just how monumental a task it would be to bring broadband to hillfolk. I mean, have anybody been to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for example? It's like taking a trip back to 1930.

[HALO 32]

I don't want Satellite Internet anymore. :(

[Hitoriga]

Without getting too far removed from the topic at hand... nobody (government, private industry, etc) can "jumpstart an economy" that's on a huge downturn after the largest credit bubble in history. The only thing that "turns it around" is a bottoming-out of perceived (or real, if we were to peg the dollar to a mineral again) value in our currency.

It doesn't matter if unemployment is 1 percent, printing money does not make an economy work, especially when the money is already extremely devalued. That won't happen quickly because of globalization nor will it be "smooth" — millions more people are going to lose their jobs before this thing is over. It's like... I dunno:

economists: there's huge inflation, people aren't spending anything
government: let's print more money to get people working
economists: the more money you print, the less it's worth, you know
government: let's print more money to get people working
economists: the banks we bailed out are still sinking because of mismanagement
government: let's print more money to get people working
economists: we don't have the infrastructure & leadership we did in the 40's... reserve currencies are fluctuating like mad
government: let's print more money to get people working

I guess I should say that I'm Libertarian — extremely liberal socially, moderate-conservative fiscally. Our government is so full of stupid it's incredible. We're in a massive recession caused by huge liquidity fluctuation arising from what? Yes, borrowing! So how do we solve the problem? That's right! Let's print a trillion more dollars (i.e. let's borrow a trillion dollars against our future generations) and that'll solve it! Yeah! The very root of our current economic crisis will surely function as the cure.

As to McCain changing his mind — good for him. I seem to recall that everybody and his mother (except for maybe Ron Paul, who kicks ass) was for the first stimulus package. It's since become obvious that the first one didn't do jack shit and actually worsened the situation in most cases, so who in their right mind would support another one? Maybe an idiot would, but that just goes to show you that McCain isn't an idiot.

And the cable package? I really don't know enough about it to say anything other than "the USA is a big freakin place". I've been in every state in the lower 48, usually the out-of-the-way backwoods areas because I like to hike and camp... I really don't think most people have any sense of just how monumental a task it would be to bring broadband to hillfolk. I mean, have anybody been to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for example? It's like taking a trip back to 1930.

I think you guys think that this expansion will be primarily for people in the woods or something. That is most definitely not the case. It is not only to expand but to upgrade current lines. I lived in a suburban area where we could not get the speed we wanted. I would gladly pay the price for faster speed, but we had to wait until they upgraded. Its 5 years now and I still nothing. Opening up greater broadband opens up new markets because now we have higher bandwidth. Its not just about new customers or workers, its about preparing ourselves for a direction we are heading towards very quickly. Streaming and downloading digital content is becoming more and more robust and profitable. We can start making more of that content available and faster.

[lost]

It's really sad when the supposed greatest nation on the planet has the infrastructure of a Third world country.

This seems to be true for far too many aspects of American life.

I can get 50mb broadband over here just now. It's a bit pricey at £40-£50 a month though. My 2mb at around 200kbs works well enough, I don't download an awful lot and it provides a stable connection for online gaming.

[shadow763]

It would be a momentary fix creating these jobs.

In the end not enough people in the rural areas would be subscribers for the installation of the network to be worth it. This is the overall issue.

[shadow763]

Couple that with the fact that broadband is not being adopted by more new users because it is overpriced and most people do not want to pony up 40 plus a month for a decent connection. New subscribers that is who have not already taken the plunge.

[Jambe]

I think you guys think that this expansion will be primarily for people in the woods or something.

First off, jeebus, snip my quote, wouldya! That's huge.

Second, you're certainly right, but I wasn't talking about upgrading current infrastructure, I was talking about something I actually have first-hand knowledge of (that being how many remote and/or thinly-spread populations there are in the USA).

wrt the US government just shooting money out its ass at broadband providers, how is it handled? Because honestly I don't know. Is the government going to create a subsidized telecom network that all the service providers have to buy into? It's doubtful, right? So ultimately they'll just print a bloody truckload of cash and dump it on whichever company pegs the lowest price for the highest rollout saturation, eh? And what's that gonna cause for the market?

As far as I can see it'll create more access and higher prices, unless something is done to standardize the use of new copper/fiber. I'm usually opposed to the government dicking around with private industry but the broadband market is an oligopoly pretty much everywhere. It'd be nice if we could have connectivity like that of Japan, South Korea, Finland, etc, but afaik those nations have fairly extensive laws which determine usage rights for communications infrastructure, and ours are basically nonexistent by comparison.

So, the problem isn't that American telecom companies don't have enough money to expand, it's that they don't have any incentive. In many locations in my state you only have one major broadband provider (Comcast). Some folk do DSL but it's intermittent throughout the state. So if there's just the one or two providers in a given area and they can set their rates at whatever the hell they feel like, why should they expand?

My main gripe isn't the broadband initiative, it's people who think we can just spend our way out of a hole. Our dollar is already worth shit compared to other common reserves and every new dollar we print just makes it worth less and less. Trying to fix the problem with the cause of the problem seems daft.

[Earth Djinn]

Tell that to Comcast and their 250GB Cap.

I would slap Jesus in his face for 250GB/month.

I get less than a tenth of that bandwidth at probably a tenth of your speeds.

[Dark Hamlet]

Looks to me like either Gizmodo or The New York Times is misleading me as to how much of the stimulus is being put towards expanding the availability of broadband.

Gizmodo, Feb 7:
"$2 billion for public broadband access has been totally eliminated."

Times, Feb 9:
"While much of the sprawling $800 billion legislation consists of tax cuts and broad spending increases for existing programs, like $27 billion on highways and $8.4 billion on public transit, the biggest outlay on new initiatives is essentially a technology industry wish list: in the Senate version, about $7 billion for expanding high-speed Internet access, some $20 billion for building a so-called smart grid power network and $20 billion for digitizing health records."

Emphasis mine.

Is anyone able to clear this up for me?

[Dark Hamlet]

And here (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/business/economy/10corporate.html?_r=1&emc=eta1) is the link to the Times article: