
Dems pitch $100B broadband plan - colawars
https://www.majoritywhip.gov/?press=clyburn-rural-broadband-task-force-and-house-democrats-introduce-accessible-affordable-internet-for-all-act
======
manigandham
We already paid for nationwide broadband installation several times by now.
How many more funds do we need to siphon to major corporations that still
don’t build anything?

~~~
thomaslord
I definitely think we shouldn't give another dime in tax credits to broadband
providers - a signed contract with aggressive enforcement provisions would be
in order, and if the current major ISPs don't want to build the infrastructure
we should find someone else who will.

~~~
rayiner
> current major ISPs don't want to build the infrastructure we should find
> someone else who will.

There are no such people. Both Baltimore and Los Angeles put out bids asking
for companies willing to build fiber networks on certain terms. Nobody
volunteered. E.g. [https://la.curbed.com/2018/1/9/16863352/free-internet-los-
an...](https://la.curbed.com/2018/1/9/16863352/free-internet-los-angeles-wifi-
network)

> Los Angeles officials planned to build up a network through a public-private
> partnership, passing off the costs of the ambitious infrastructure project
> to an outside provider. Blumenfield announced last year that the city never
> received a workable proposal from a private company to build out the
> network.

~~~
misiti3780
why though?

~~~
rayiner
There's no money in wired broadband. Investors have been trying to get Verizon
to divest itself of FiOS pretty much since the beginning. It's probably
profitable at this point, but barely. (Verizon's entire wireline division has
a 5% or less profit margin.)

Chatanooga Tennessee charges about $60/month for 300 mbps fiber. It is
probably financially sustainable, but: 1) Tennessee is a low-cost, right-to-
work state; 2) the capital costs of the fiber network were shared with the
electric "smart grid" so some of the capital costs are being recouped from
electric ratepayers. You couldn't make the same thing work in New York, San
Francisco, etc. at the $60 price point. But at a much higher price point than
that, you're talking about something quite expensive for what's supposed to be
a public utility. Wired broadband, unlike water or electricity, is an optional
service for most people. (1 in 6 high-income households only have cellular
service.) If it costs you closer to $100 to have the same service in an
expensive northern city, many people will opt out, and that will cause the
per-household costs to skyrocket. It's a really tough mathematical equation to
work out.

~~~
misiti3780
thank you!

------
danShumway
Going to be a little while before I have the time to sit down and go through
the full text of the bill.

I see a couple of mentions of dig once requirements, no mentions of one touch
make ready rules. References to municipal Internet that seem at glance to
mostly be about allocating funds, but again, I haven't been able to read over
the bill in detail, so I'm very likely missing details. I can't find much
mentioning repeals other than what appears to be (again, just skimming) caps
on the lifeline program.

For anyone who has spent more time reading, what are the big takeaways from
this -- beyond just allocating money for infrastructure?

I'm pretty skeptical of a bill that just adds a few regulations around
consumer costs and devotes money to building infrastructure, because what I've
seen is that the big players like Comcast swoop in, take the money, and then
don't build the infrastructure. And then nobody punishes them. I don't really
get the point of throwing money at this problem when we've already seen that
established players can just take the money and run.

What would make me excited is repeals of regulations surrounding municipal
wifi, or tangible paths to stop new competitors from getting sued out of
existence.

Should I be excited about anything in this bill?

------
kevin_thibedeau
> providing a $50 monthly discount on plans for low-income consumers

This only serves to support the inflated pricing of the monopolists.

~~~
darwinwhy
Like it or not, certain parts of the US are too rural/poor to justify even
monopolists expanding internet service there. This will incentivize them to
build in those areas.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Why doesn’t the government just build it? They do it with sewer lines, power
lines, gas lines, water lines, but a little fiber is too much?

~~~
rayiner
The government doesn't build water, sewer, or gas in many parts of the
country! Where I live, less than an hour from DC and maybe 5 minutes from a
Whole Foods, we don't have gas lines at all, we use propane and fuel oil. We
got public water and sewer only in 2015, and each house is paying off a
$30,000 assessment for that. Most of the areas around us are reliant on wells
and septic systems. Ironically, we have had fiber since 2008 or so. As to
electric--most of that was built back when labor was relatively very cheap and
tons of people were unemployed. We couldn't build the national electric grid
today, for the same reason we couldn't build the New York subway today.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Then use roads as an example. The point is, internet is obviously a communal
good that can’t be logistically provided by more than one entity, and the
government is there for the benefit of the community.

------
ngngngng
Why do we have to throw $100B at everything? Just repeal the state limits on
Municipal networks and let it ride.

~~~
Uhhrrr
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel)

------
bazooka_penguin
Didnt they try this before and ISPs just ate the money and didnt finish laying
cables?

~~~
the-dude
Did they start?

~~~
jandrese
They did enough for some election campaign photo ops.

------
opportune
Love the repeal of muni network limitations. That is just straight corruption
- I’ve never heard a coherent explanation for why states should be able to
prevent that.

It would be absurd, absolutely absurd to give even more money to ISPs. $100b
is so much money which could be better spent on transportation infrastructure
rather than a handout to some of the worst corporate citizens in the US

------
fergaral
Just to give you another perspective (although to be fair we are a much
smaller country) here in Spain the Government each year has a program called
PEBANG (New Generation Broadband Extension Program), which essentially
subsidizes the deployment of fiber (FTTH). The ISPs submit proposals to cover
a set of so-called "white zones" and then the Government subsidizes up to 80%
of the cost (up to a limit, of course).

This program, along with the fact that Telefonica, the incumbent operator,
decided years ago to concentrate its efforts on deploying FTTH (all that's
really left right now is to complete rural areas), and having an incentive of
doing copper switch-off, means that each year there are more and more villages
(even really small ones of, say, 10 people) covered by fiber. Telefonica hopes
to have 100% FTTH coverage by 2024 (right now we're on 80%).

Orange is also another operator which also deployed lots of fiber both by
itself and through this program for rural areas.

The competitive telecom market in Spain and also the regulations appear to
have also been a factor in this transformation.

~~~
bzb3
They also said they'd have turned off the entire pots network (including ADSL)
by 2020 and here we are.

------
r00fus
I prefer Sanders’ proposal [https://berniesanders.com/issues/high-speed-
internet-all/](https://berniesanders.com/issues/high-speed-internet-all/)

~~~
paxys
Sanders' proposals in general have no chance of actually passing in Congress,
so I'll trust the Dems' one.

~~~
Klinky
This plan probably won't amount to more than a corporate hand out. Much rather
have Bernie's plan.

TLDR:

• Provide $150 billion through the Green New Deal in infrastructure grants and
technical assistance for municipalities and/or states to build publicly owned
and democratically controlled, co-operative, or open access broadband
networks.

• Require that all internet service providers offer a Basic Internet Plan that
provides quality broadband speeds at an affordable price.

• Break up internet service provider and cable monopolies, bar service
providers from providing content, and unwind anticompetitive mergers.

• Ensure broadband infrastructure is resilient to the effects of climate
change.

~~~
joecool1029
> • Provide $150 billion through the Green New Deal in infrastructure grants
> and technical assistance for municipalities and/or states to build publicly
> owned and democratically controlled, co-operative, or open access broadband
> networks.

Limit it to eminent domain on the poles for rural/suburban municipalities.
Costly, but keeps the rent seekers off the physical medium. For populations
over X density, use the money to drop fiber underground, again that the
municipality owns.

Issue licenses to companies that want to play ball with the towns and cities,
or give the people the option to have the town run it.
Spectrum/poles/underground should be public resources. Fine and/or revoke
licenses from companies that are running scams and failing to reach this
commitment.

States have flexed before to compel companies to meet build-out requirements:
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691853/charter-
spectrum...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691853/charter-spectrum-new-
york-deal-roll-out-internet-service)

Spectrum squatters are a real problem for smaller WISP's. DISH is likely the
largest mid-band squatter on the market right now, having built a single test
tower with their AWS-4 spectrum license. It was supposed to cover 70% of the
population by March 2020 and they blew it off for 3 years or so and are
requesting another 3.
[https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/licenseAdminSum.j...](https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/licenseAdminSum.jsp?licKey=3453558)

------
dantheman
It feels like people don't realize how broke the US is right now. We're going
to be in a recession, we're going to have massive unemployment bills, we
already spent a ridiculous amount of money this year...

Tax revenue is going to be way down.

We can't afford these things; if the internet is too slow, you can either pay
more for it or you can move somewhere where it is better.

~~~
ac29
Infrastructure spending should have one of the best returns on investment that
government spending can. It generates economic activity during the build
phase, and continues to deliver a return after completion.

"Just move" isn't a reasonable alternative. Many people in rural areas can't
afford to live anywhere else - having access to decent internet might help
change that.

------
x87678r
Is it worth it? Its always amazing to me the correlation between fiber and
tech success. Eg SV doesn't have much fiber and lots of fiber rich cities and
countries dont have much tech. Seems the best use for fiber is video streaming
which isn't really that useful. I have 1 gig fiber and dont really notice the
difference from 5/150 cable unless I'm uploading backups.

------
mabbo
The missing X% without high speed internet available to them are primarily
rural. Space's Starlink is poised to offer high speed internet to those exact
people on a timeline faster than whatever this project dreams it can achieve,
at zero (additional) cost to the government.

The other chunk of society without access to high speed internet are the low
income. So why not just spend $50B on welfare reform (or even Basic Income) to
provide the financial means needed to access the existing high speed internet.
They can buy internet, or something they need more. You'd save $50B.

All together, this just seems like a new way to funnel $100B of tax money into
the pockets of corporations who make the right political donations.

------
yingw787
How feasible would it be for a city to build publicly available wireless
access points so that anybody who wanted to run a WISP can do so? I'd really
like the option to walk away from a commercial ISP entirely if it's too
painful. Right now I just cancel my Internet for a few months and go to the
library before calling Comcast again, but with the current and possible future
pandemics that might not be a viable option.

[https://startyourownisp.com/](https://startyourownisp.com/)

~~~
RickSullivan
Many states have laws that prevent cities from entering the ISP market.

[https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-
roadbloc...](https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/)

------
tomohawk
Instead of all this, pass a law giving safe harbor to municipal broadband -
give legal protection to municipal governments that want to pursue this.

Also require that affordances such as utility poles, rights of way, etc, be
made available for expanding broadband.

In many cases, municipal governments are prohibited from creating or operating
broadband infrastructure.

------
InTheArena
Wait! We've seen this before. It happens right before elections to promise
companies a fat payday from the companies, and then they gouge customers for
under performing bandwidth!

How about we just buy service from Starlink, on a per-connection basis, rather
then paying for their infrastructure?

------
gigatexal
Oh man municipal fiber if successful is likely the only thing that can
challenge the big telcos

------
seemslegit
Wouldn't it be cheaper to get reliable 4G/5G coverage to currently undeserved
places ?

------
say_it_as_it_is
Look at the Obamacare handout to healthcare tech companies to get an idea of
how little progress is made when government is the benefactor. It's tragic how
poorly they will spend $100 Billion.

------
elchin
How about just let Google Fiber do its thing?

