ISPs say they can’t expand broadband unless gov’t gives them more money

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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...t-only-to-get-more-money-from-the-government/

ISPs say they can’t expand broadband unless gov’t gives them more money

Industry asks for handouts, arguing that broadband is essential—like a utility.

Broadband providers have spent years lobbying against utility-style regulations that protect consumers from high prices and bad service.

But now, broadband lobby groups are arguing that Internet service is similar to utilities such as electricity, gas distribution, roads, and water and sewer networks. In the providers' view, the essential nature of broadband doesn't require more regulation to protect consumers. Instead, they argue that broadband's utility-like status is reason for the government to give ISPs more money.

That's the argument made by trade groups USTelecom and NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association. USTelecom represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink, while NTCA represents nearly 850 small ISPs.

"Like electricity, broadband is essential to every American," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter and NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield wrote Monday in an op-ed for The Topeka Capital-Journal. "Yet US broadband infrastructure has been financed largely by the private sector without assurance that such costs can be recovered through increased consumer rates."

ISPs want benefits but not responsibilities
While ISPs want the benefits of being treated like utilities—such as pole attachment rights and access to public rights-of-way—they oppose traditional utility-style obligations such as regulated prices and deployment to all Americans.

The industry's main arguments against net neutrality and other common carrier regulations were that broadband shouldn't be treated as a utility and that the broadband market is too competitive to justify strict regulations. "Utility regulation over broadband can only inhibit incentives for network investment," AT&T warned in November 2017.

FURTHER READING

Report: Verizon FiOS claimed public utility status to get government perks


Industry groups have also tried to stop cities and towns from building their own networks, saying that the government shouldn't compete against private companies. Telecom-friendly legislatures have passed about 20 state laws restricting the growth of municipal broadband.

Despite the industry's fight against municipal networks, Spalter and Bloomfield wrote that the "private-led investment model" only works well in "reasonably populous areas." In rural parts of America, "the private sector can't go it alone," they wrote.

To close the rural broadband gap, the US needs "solutions that unite the public and private sectors to finish the job of building a truly connected nation," Spalter and Bloomfield wrote. This public/private model is "without question... the only acceptable path forward just as it was in wiring rural America with electricity and building our nation's highways."

"Broadband providers need a committed partner to finish the job of connecting unserved communities. That partner should be all of us as Americans—in the form of our government," they wrote.

The op-ed did not explain why the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules wasn't enough to spur expanded broadband investment, though broadband industry lobby groups previously claimed that the rules were holding back network expansions and upgrades. ISPs also promised more investment in exchange for a major tax break that was passed by Congress late last year.

Broadband’s similarity to utilities
To make their point, USTelecom and NTCA commissioned a report titled, "Rural Broadband Economics: A Review of Rural Subsidies."

The "costs per user" of building networks in sparsely populated areas led to "unsustainable business models to provide network services," the USTelecom/NTCA report says. The report was written for USTelecom and NTCA by telecom consulting firm CostQuest Associates. It continues:

In this respect, there are similarities between networks in communications, electric power, roads, natural gas distribution, water distribution, and sewer networks. By the very nature of network economics, each industry exhibits economies of density and each reaches a point at which un-subsidized provision of service in low-density areas is not viable.

The report goes on to describe "the importance of subsidies to networks in low-density areas" for essential services including electricity, road networks, natural gas, water distribution, waste disposal, and broadband.

Please excuse the brevity of my commentary, I just don't have the fucking words. The fucking balls on these pieces of shit. Subsidize the costs, privatize the benefits.

<Huh2>
 
Fuck those fuckers.
 
Support local ISPs. Lots of small local fiber providers are popping up around the country. As soon as one shows up in my part of Jerz, out goes the FiOS contract.

These degenerates play super filthy. Fuck em.
 
Should be more free-municipal internet in cities to push these crony capitalists out.
 
th
 
Support local ISPs. Lots of small local fiber providers are popping up around the country. As soon as one shows up in my part of Jerz, out goes the FiOS contract.

These degenerates play super filthy. Fuck em.

Why don't you have optimum?
 
Support local ISPs. Lots of small local fiber providers are popping up around the country. As soon as one shows up in my part of Jerz, out goes the FiOS contract.

These degenerates play super filthy. Fuck em.

Support Net Neutrality rules. They want to be funded like utilities, then let's fucking regulate them like it. Mandate that they upgrade or die. If you want to be an Internet Service Provider, you bring Gigabit fiber to the table or we'll give your lines to someone who will. I'm tired of watching our money and good will spent on bad promises and bullshit. Put them to the sword and see what really matters to the dickheads.
 
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...t-only-to-get-more-money-from-the-government/

ISPs say they can’t expand broadband unless gov’t gives them more money

Industry asks for handouts, arguing that broadband is essential—like a utility.



Please excuse the brevity of my commentary, I just don't have the fucking words. The fucking balls on these pieces of shit. Subsidize the costs, privatize the benefits.

<Huh2>


Seems like U.S download speeds have improved... Just sayin:

http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/14/net-neutrality-us-ranking/
 
Alex Jones tried warning us about these globalist SCUMBAGS. BUT YOU DIDNT LISTEN
 
Seems like U.S download speeds have improved... Just sayin:

http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/14/net-neutrality-us-ranking/

Unless ISPs have engaged in widespread infrastructure campaigns since the rules were repealed (like, literally the day they were repealed) they haven't been repealed long enough for any functional change to have happened in fixed broadband speeds.

This is proven in the bullshit that the NCTA (the very lobbying group that peddles this trash) put out.

zdpjpqn.png

Speeds have been steadily increasing before, during, and after Net Neutrality came into play, so attributing it to the repeal is straight up bullshit. Opponents of Net Neutrality cried to the heavens that speeds would decrease if the rules were implemented and clearly they didn't. If anything, this is more of an illustration of the ISPs dragging their feet than any regulatory burden.

The OP should cement that for you. They want the benefits of both sides of the issue without having any skin in the game. And for the record, less than 100Mbps average in 2018 when we paid for fiber in the 90s is absolutely abhorrent. You're giving them pats on the back for dragging their feet when we should be number one by far if they hadn't pocketed the money we paid them to do it.

Edit: Then there's also this from the mouths of the devils themselves.

https://arstechnica.com/information...-investment-according-to-the-isps-themselves/

Title II hasn’t hurt network investment, according to the ISPs themselves
ISPs continue to invest and tell investors that net neutrality hasn't hurt them.

The Federal Communications Commission's primary justification for eliminating Title II net neutrality rules is that broadband network investment has tanked since the rules were implemented two years ago.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has cited a few research reports describing declines in capital expenditures, and industry lobbyists have repeatedly argued that investment was harmed by the FCC classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. But when ISPs talk to their investors, the story is completely different.


"We found that not a single publicly traded US ISP ever told its investors (or the SEC) that Title II negatively impacted its own investments specifically," pro-net neutrality advocacy group Free Press said in a report issued yesterday.
 
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...t-only-to-get-more-money-from-the-government/

ISPs say they can’t expand broadband unless gov’t gives them more money

Industry asks for handouts, arguing that broadband is essential—like a utility.



Please excuse the brevity of my commentary, I just don't have the fucking words. The fucking balls on these pieces of shit. Subsidize the costs, privatize the benefits.

<Huh2>

To be fair, this is the ideal administration to try that ploy with.
 
To be fair, this is the ideal administration to try that ploy with.

Ajit Pai is going to basically be public enemy number one at the end of this if he isn't already. His entire tenure as head of the FCC has been filled with duplicity, bad policy, and gaslighting. I sincerely hope all of the bad things in this world happen to him, and nobody else.
 
As I've said for years, if it's worth supporting libraries with tax dollars then internet access should make sense too. But not by giving handouts to for-profit businesses.
 
Those cock knockers have already taken over $200 billion and didn’t use a dime of it to expand their networks. Now they want more money.
Fuck off.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5839394

Support local ISPs. Lots of small local fiber providers are popping up around the country. As soon as one shows up in my part of Jerz, out goes the FiOS contract.

These degenerates play super filthy. Fuck em.
Starting an independent ISP is damn near impossible. Google gave up expanding their fiber network because trying to get their stuff on a pole is a bureaucratic swamp.
For example, if you want to put your wires on a pole, you have to contact the company that already has wires on the pole to move theirs. There’s been many stories about a 1+ year quote on waiting time to move the wires.
There was another story, I believe it was AT&T, that cut an independent ISP’s wires “by accident”. Then they drug their feet on fixing the wires.
There wasnt even a point of the indie guy suing, AT&T would just bleed him dry with lawyer bills.

If you dig into the shady stuff ISP’s pull and are allowed to get away with, you will be flabbergasted.
For anyone interested in stories like this and other shady ISP stuff, there’s a YouTube channel called Level1Techa that covers stories like this all the time.
Video below doesn’t have anything relevant to the OP, It’s more of a link to there channel.
 
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That would make @JamesRussler ‘s thread a lot more interesting

I've been saying this for a while – internet media giants want to be regulated. It gives them a reason to ignore market demands and practically guarantees that they turn a profit.
 
The wealthy have always been the biggest takers in his country by a country mile.
 
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